An investigation of the prevalence of COVID-19 among the tribal people of Bandarban hill district, Bangladesh

Tribal Peoples are always facing a wide range of socio-economic variance and are at uneven risk in public health emergencies even more vulnerable during this covid 19 pandemic worldwide. With a view to find out the COVID-19 infections and fatality rate among the different ethnic groups of peoples of the Bandarban Hill District (BHD), Bangladesh the current study was conducted. A hospital based cross-sectional study was carried out among purposively selected 989 ethnic inhabitants, suspected of the COVID-19 and took the diagnostic rRT-PCR test in different government hospital of Bandarban district of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh during May to July, 2020. The mean age of the respondent was 35.35±14.33 years where majority were adults and belongs to age group 18-55 years. Majority of the suspected cases were male (60%) in relation to their counterpart. Among the suspected tribal people more than half (56%) were Marma in origin followed by Bawm (9.8%) and Tonchongya (9.6%) and around three-fifth (59.6%) were habitants of Bandarban Sadar. In laboratory rRT-PCR test results, 15.6% cases were found positive among the suspected cases tested for with 0.65% case fatality rate. The association between COVID-19 infection with the residing place of the respondents was found statistically significant (p=0.001). Though the COVID-19 infection among the tribal is lower than the national population, still the prevailing estimate is alarming and ask for further evaluation and community based awareness program and integrated health services need to recast to protect the ethnic group of people of the BHD, Bangladesh.