GENDER-BIAS SUSCEPTIBILITY OF CORONA VIRUS DISEASE : PEEPING INTO THE FACTORS RESPONSIBLE AND EMERGING TRENDS FROM INDIAN PERSPECTIVE Deepak Jha 1 , Vandana Sharma 2 , Varruchi Sharma 3 , J.K. Sharma 1,2, # , Suresh Kumar 2 and Anil Kumar Sharma 4* 1 Department of Student Welfare, Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Mullana, Ambala - 133 207, India. 2 Department of Physics, MMEC, Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Mullana, Ambala - 133 207, India. 3 Department of Biotechnology, Sri Guru Gobind Singh College, Sector 26, Chandigarh - 160 019, India. 4 Department of Biotechnology, Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University), Mullana, Ambala - 133 207, India. *e-mail: anibiotech18@gmail.com. Scopus ID 55693618000; ORCID ID:0000-0002-9768-1644 or #sharmajk.69@gmail.com (Received 17 May 2020, Revised 26 August 2020, Accepted 12 September 2020) ABSTRACT : Recent pandemic of corona virus disease caused by a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in humans is the third outbreak by this family of viruses, which is reminiscent of the SARS-COV outbreak happened in the year 2003. General characteristics of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) especially in regards to the disease susceptibility amongst males and females have been focused providing a better understanding of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in males, females and children. A thorough literature search for articles in major databases such as PubMed and Google Scholar etc. has been carried out. COVID-19 has been known to have varied symptoms ranging from mild flu-like symptoms to acute respiratory distress syndrome, multiple organ failure and death. Ageing, genetics, comorbidities and many other associated factors may play a crucial role in predisposing an individual towards COVID-19 disease as there exists chronic inflammation, thrombosis and immune response impairment due to SARS-CoV-2 providing a therapeutic window. Current study emphasizes upon the role of gender in morbidity and mortality in patients with COVID-19 with men higher at risk to COVID-19 than women in terms of mortality despite having the similar prevalence of the disease. The study has been well supported by the data available from the hot-spots affected states from Indian subcontinent. However, current evidence is not sufficient to conclude on the gender-bias susceptibility but certainly men have an edge over women in terms of susceptibility towards COVID-19. Key words : COVID-19, gender-bias, susceptibility, ageing, genetic factors, hormones, X-chromosome. Biochem. Cell. Arch. Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 000-000, 2020 www.connectjournals.com/bca ISSN 0972-5075 INTRODUCTION Recent COVID-19 pandemic has attracted wider attention of the global scientific community to delineate and gain major insight into the etiology, prevention, treatment and mitigation of the disease. Being an acute respiratory contagious disease caused by a novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 belonging to coronaviridae family of positive single strand RNA viruses. The very first case of mortality due to COVID-19 was reported in Wuhan, China during the end of December 2019 (Lu et al, 2020; Rothan and Byrareddy, 2020; Su et al, 2016; Wrapp et al, 2020). Covid-19 has been enlisted as a third outbreak of zoonotic coronavirus disease after SARS and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) happened earlier (Zhu et al, 2020). Majority of the COVID-19 patients (upto 80% ) who contracted SARS-CoV-2 were reported to exhibit mild or moderate symptoms just like other viral respiratory infections as evident from a multicentric cross-sectional study in China (Wu et al, 2020). However, SARS-CoV-2 was also reported to have an ability to cause severe disease among elderly population and individuals with underlying disease conditions including diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease (Goyal et al, 2020; Guan et al, 2020). COVID-19 appears to pose a global threat particularly to the middle-aged and older individuals, particularly men. Though, it is anticipated that there is an equal rate of infection among both men and women, still researchers have established in majority of their findings that the mortality rate among men was higher (~2.8 percent), as compared to that of women (~1.7 percent) (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carmenniethammer/2020/ 03/06/do-women-and-men-have-a-coronavirus-risk-gap/ #42dd14d16826). The number of reported cases and ratio of males and females (as reported on 22 nd Aug. 2020) from four Indian states also reflects the similar kind of trends (Table 1). Even the male-female Ratios of total number of cases reported as well as the overall ratio from the 04 states has been shown in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively.