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Thursday April 18, 2024

Men in their 20s top corona positive cases in UAE

By News Report
March 30, 2020

ABU DHABI: Men in their 20s top the coronavirus positive cases in the UAE, according to a senior pathologist who is in charge of a private Covid-19 testing lab in Abu Dhabi. Dr Martine Claire McManus, group head of Pathology and Laboratory Services at VPS Healthcare, said: "We have samples from across all age groups. But what strikes the most is that the highest percentage of positive cases of coronavirus belongs to this group," Dr McManus told a foreign media outlet in an exclusive interview. According to her, many studies and samples from China and South Korea show that aged population are more vulnerable. So, it is a surprising trend that more younger men are contracting the virus, she said. "But they don't succumb to illness because they don't have any underlying heart or lung disease. These young men will recover because they have strong immunity." Dr Farida Al Hosani, director of communicable diseases at the Department of Health in Abu Dhabi and the official spokesperson for the health sector in the UAE, had previously said that "most of those infected in the UAE" belong to the 22-44 age group, which is "similar to other countries". "There is a small rate of infection among the elderly, but the impact on them and those underlying medical issues is quite strong," she said then.