EDITORIAL

Which Medical Specialties or Subspecialties are at a Higher Risk of COVID19- Infection or Mortality?

Amir H Kashi

Urology and Nephrology Research Center (UNRC), Shahid Labbafinajad Hospital, Shahid Beheshti
University of Medical Sciences (SBMU), Tehran, Iran. Email: ahkashi@gmail.com

Despite the introduction of COVID-19 vaccination more than one year ago and vaccination of a considerable per-
centage of the population in many developed countries, there is still a substantial infection and mortality rate of 
COVID-19. For example, despite a full vaccination coverage of around 70% in Germany the 7-day mortality of the 
country in the week preceding 26 November had been 1737 (about 250 deaths each day) which is a high number.(1)
Meanwhile, in some countries, high mortality has been reported in healthcare workers who has been fully vaccinat-
ed against COVID-19 raising concerns on the safety of medical personnel in the pandemic despite
vaccination.(2)
Previously we studied the infection and mortality rate of medical personnel in different specialties and subspe-
cialties in our country during the early COVID-19 period.(3) We observed that the highest infection rates were 
among the specialties of infectious diseases (3.14%) followed by neurology (2.18%), and internal medicine 
(2.13%). Whilst the highest mortality rates were interestingly among specialties of forensic medicine (0.314%), 
anesthesiology (0.277%), urology (0.237%), and infectious diseases (0.20%) bearing only modest association with 
the distribution of infection rate among medical specialties.(3)
While the reason for not observing a high match of infection and mortality rates among medical specialties needs 
further investigations, our findings deserve attention as some specialties which are not seemingly a frontline spe-
cialty (forensic medicine and anesthesiology) were associated with a high mortality rate. The observation of a still 
high mortality rate in medical personnel despite vaccination in some countries brings into attention once more the 
importance of protection of healthcare workers against COVID-19 and once more adds importance to our previous 
report on the specialty-specific infection and mortality rate of medical personnel.

REFERENCES
1. Organization WH. WHO COVID-19 Dashboard 2021
2. Hitchings MDT, Ranzani OT, Torres MSS, de Oliveira SB, Almiron M, Said R, et al. Effectiveness of CoronaVac
among healthcare workers in the setting of high SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant transmission in Manaus, Brazil: 
A test-negative case-control study. Lancet Regional Health Americas. 2021;1:100025.
3. Basiri A, Zafarghandi M, Golshan S, Eshrati B, Fattahi A, Kashi AH. COVID-19 Infection and Mortality Rates 
within Medical Specialists and General Practitioners and Its Comparison with the General Population: A 
Longitudinal Nationwide Study. Iranian journal of public health. 2021;50(7):1421-7

Urology Journal/Vol 19 No. 2/ March-April 2022/ pp. 159-159. [DOI: 10.22037/uj.v18i.7097]