Background:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care centers and especially intensive care units worldwide were saturated by cases of acute respiratory failure produced by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Social preventive and mandatory isolation (SPMI), established by law N° 27 541 since March 20, 2020, and extended by Decree N° 260/20 to December 31, 2021, determined home confinement, and during this period coronary angioplasties and central cardiac surgeries decreased. The hypothesis of our study was that during the pandemic acute myocardial infarction (AMI) increased in Argentina, as this is a time-dependent disease, mainly with out-of-hospital mortality.

Objectives:

The aim of this study was to evaluate general and COVID-19 mortality in the population ≥20 years during the pandemic and analyze the trend of overall and divided by age and sex AMI mortality.

Methods:

Vital statics published by the Ministry of Health of Argentina were analyzed, considering the pandemic period as the two SPMI years and 2019 as the pre-pandemic period. Overall and AMI gross and specific rate of mortality were considered as (number of deaths taking place in the Argentine population during 1 year / total population in the same zone at midyear) × 1000, respectively. Deaths for AMI were those contemplated in the International Classification of Diseases 10th revision (ICD-10) as I21, I22. The mortality trend was analyzed with linear trend in proportions (Chi2 for trends; significant p < 0.05) using Epi-Info software, and including the ≥20 to >85-year population. In the analysis by age the population was divided into ≥ or < 60 years.

Results:

During the pandemic mortality increased by 26% with respect to 2019 (p < 0.001) (table). Deaths for COVID-19 were 53 222 and 84 698 for 2020 and 2021, respectively. Acute myocardial infarction mortality increased by 15%, with a greater number of deaths in the young and female population.

Argentina: vital statistics 2019 2020 2021 Odds Ratio p (prepandemic) (pandemic) (pandemic) (Chi2- for trends) Total population ≥20 years 30 417 141 30 822 573 31 224 154 Mortality 325 486 367 807 423 112 % mortality 1,07 1,19 1,35 1,26 <0,001 Gross mortality rate 10,7 11,93 13,55 AMI deaths 17 789 18 881 20 901 1,15 <0,001 Specific mortality rate 0,58 0,62 0,67 Male 10 246 10 492 11 719 1,12 <0,001 Female 7 471 8 227 9 064 1,19 <0,001 ³ 60 years 16 161 16 197 18 010 1,09 <0,001 < 60 year 1 628 2 684 2 891 1,73 <0,001