Clinical and chest CT presentations from 27 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia in Mogadishu, Somalia: a descriptive study

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute viral pneumonia that had recently been found in humans. The first case was discovered in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, in December 2019. In this article, we aimed to demonstrate the clinical and radiological characteristics of COVID-19 patients in Somalia from 20 March 2020 to 20 April 2020. RESULTS: Twenty-seven patients that had a positive RT-PCR test between 20 March 2020 and 20 April 2020 were retrospectively observed. This study included 19 (70.4%) males and 8 (29.6%) females, and the mean age and range were 43 years (SD ± 14.0) and 27–70 years, respectively. The majority (59.3%) of COVID-19-infected patients had no obvious history of exposure to infected patients. The participants of our study mostly presented with dry cough 24 (88.9%) patients, fever 19 (70.4%), myalgia 18 (66.6%), and sore throat 16 (59.3%). Twenty-five of 27 patients had abnormal chest CT, while 2 (7.4%) patients had normal chest CT. The most common patterns of abnormality seen on chest CT in patients with COVID-19 were ground-glass opacity (GGO) 74.1%, crazy paving pattern 18.5%, consolidation 14.8%, and mixed GCO 11.1%. Also, the most common predominant lesion distributions were bilateral lung involvement (88.9%), peripheral distribution (77.8%), and lower lung predominance (63%). Particularly, lung cavitation, discrete pulmonary nodules, pleural effusion, and underlying pulmonary fibrosis or emphysema had not been observed. CONCLUSION: Dry cough, fever, myalgia, and sore throat were the most clinical presentations. GGO, crazy paving pattern, patchy consolidation, and mixed GCO were the typical chest CT manifestations.