After the latest coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the world, there are many questions about the physical characteristics of this virus. Whether or not there is a relationship  between men and women? 

Although data for COVID-19 show equal numbers of cases between women and men, there appear to be sex differences in susceptibility to the disease and mortality. Emerging data suggests that more men are dying than women, possibly due to sex-based immunological or gendered differences, such as  prevalence of smoking. Past experience shows the importance of mainstreaming a gender analysis into preparedness and response efforts to improve the effectiveness of health interventions and promote gender equity  and health goals.

Given their initial interaction with communities, it is reported that women have not been fully integrated into global health monitoring, detection, and prevention mechanisms. Socially defined care roles of caring for woman usually place them at a premium to identify trends locally that could signal the start of an outbreak and thus improve global health security. Although women should not be overburdened especially when considering most of their work during health crises, they are underpaid or unpaid, incorporating women's voices and knowledge could enhance and improve outbreak preparedness and response. Despite the WHO Executive Board recognizes the need for woman to be involved in decision - making and response to epidemic crises, there is under-representation of women in national and global COVID-19 policy areas, such as in the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

If responding to outbreaks of diseases such as COVID-19 is effective and does not replicate or perpetuate gender and health inequilities. It is important that gender patterns, roles and relationships affecting the different sensitivity of women and men to infection, exposure to pathogens, and treatment received, as well as how these may differ among different groups of women and men, are considered and addressed. We call on governments and global health institutions to study the relation between gender.

References 

1. Indian-American Seema Verma appointed as key member of US COVID-19 Task Force, The Economic Times. March 3, 2020
2. Boniol M McIsaac M Xu L Wuliji T Diallo K Campbell J, Gender equity in the health workforce: analysis of 104 countries: Working Paper 1, World Health Organization, Geneva2019
3. Clare Wenham, Julia Smith, Rosemary Morgan, COVID-19: The gendered impacts of the outbreak, Comment, Volume 395, issue 10227, P846-848, March 14, 2020,  doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30526-2