Changes in Occurrence of Diarrheal and Respiratory Diseases before and during COVID-19 Pandemic among Nepalese Population: A cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The government of Nepal has adopted several preventive and control measures to control spread of coronavirus disease(COVID-19). This study is aimed to determine whether the use of preventive and control measures like hand washing, social distancing, lockdown, and mask-wearing have significantly slowed down the spread of infectious diseases like diarrhoea and respiratory illnesses during the pandemic period.
Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted among 3086 participants across Nepal via electronic media from 28-July to 30-August, 2020. The participants were asked about their experiences with diarrhoea and respiratory symptoms in the three months before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Mc-Nemar test was used to compare the incidence of respiratory and diarrheal diseases before and during the pandemic period.
Results: Compared to before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, vomiting (3.3%), diarrhoea (7.3%) and abdominal pain (12.1%) decreased to 2.8%, 6.9%, and 6.1%, respectively. Before the onset and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the prevalence of dysentery, stomach pain was statistically different (p-value<0.001). As the prevalence of the common cold decreased from 30.2% to 20.3%, so did that of sore throats (15.1% to 10.6%), coughs/chest pain (8.3% to 5.6%), dyspnoea (2.8% to 1.9%), and pneumonia (2.6% to 1.5%). This difference in the prevalence of respiratory diseases such as the common cold, sore throat, laryngitis/pharyngitis, cough/chest pain, dyspnoea, and pneumonia were statistically significant.
Conclusion: With findings of this study, we can conclude that the Government of Nepal's preventive measures for COVID-19 have helped to reduce the prevalence of such diseases.