One-time reinfection with SARS-Cov-2 does not warranty of immunity against reinfection due to various possible reasons for this like waning immunity or high viral load or an immunocompromised state. ...Cases of reinfection have been reported from many countries in the world, here in this case series we are sharing the experience of three cases of reinfection from India. Two of them were old with multiple comorbidities and one is a young patient with no comorbidity. All three-patient got reinfected less than two months.
While many infectious disorders are unknown to most neurologists, COVID-19 is very different. It has impacted neurologists and other health care workers, not only in our professional lives but also ...through the fear and panic within our own families, colleagues, patients and their families, and even in the wider public. COVID-19 affects all sorts of individuals, but the elderly with underlying chronic conditions are particularly at risk of severe disease, or even death. Parkinson's disease (PD) shares a common profile as an age-dependent degenerative disorder, frequently associated with comorbidities, particularly cardiovascular diseases, so PD patients will almost certainly fall into the high-risk group. Therefore, the aim of this review is to explore the risk of COVID-19 in PD based on the susceptibility to severe disease, its impact on PD disease severity, potential long-term sequelae, and difficulties of PD management during this outbreak, where neurologists face various challenges on how we can maintain effective care for PD patients without exposing them, or ourselves, to the risk of infection. It is less than six months since the identification of the original COVID-19 case on New Year's Eve 2019, so it is still too early to fully understand the natural history of COVID-19 and the evidence on COVID-19-related PD is scant. Though the possibilities presented are speculative, they are theory-based, and supported by prior evidence from other neurotrophic viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2. Neurologists should be on high alert and vigilant for potential acute and chronic complications when encountering PD patients who are suspected of having COVID-19.
As of 28 February 2020, Italy had 888 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections, with most cases in Northern Italy in the Lombardia and Veneto regions. Travel-related cases were the main source of COVID-19 ...cases during the early stages of the current epidemic in Italy. The month of February, however, has been dominated by two large clusters of outbreaks in Northern Italy, south of Milan, with mainly local transmission the source of infections. Contact tracing has failed to identify patient zero in one of the outbreaks. As of 28 February 2020, twenty-one cases of COVID-19 have died. Comparison between case fatality rates in China and Italy are identical at 2.3. Additionally, deaths are similar in both countries with fatalities in mostly the elderly with known comorbidities. It will be important to develop point-of-care devices to aid clinicians in stratifying elderly patients as early as possible to determine the potential level of care they will require to improve their chances of survival from COVID-19 disease.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background: Essential health services including immunization were significantly impacted due to COVID-19 with devastating outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The disruption in ...immunization services due to global pandemic and measures undertaken at regional levels to overcome need to be studied as pandemic preparedness strategy.
Objective: To document the contextual narratives related to immunization services during the Covid-19 disease outbreak by interviewing qualified pediatricians in the field practice area of private tertiary care teaching medical college
Methodology: In-depth phone-based interviews were conducted with pediatricians in diverse settings during November 2020 to March 2021. Reflexive thematic analysis was performed, major themes identified, and case studies documented.
Results: Pediatricians shared rich experiences related to immunization services impacted due to COVID-19 especially during the earlier months due to imposition of lockdowns leading to discontinuation, disruption of services, decrease in volume of immunizations, modest transition to telehealth service delivery, facility-level changes brought in to ensure immunization services, capacity building measures for upskilling.
Conclusions: Contextual narratives revealed in this study provide rich narrative about the disruption of immunization services due to COVID-19. These findings need to be understood and leveraged to be future ready and prevent further disruptions by identifying and scaling up key solutions piloted in this study.
Objective
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory infection known as severe respiratory acute syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The purpose of this manuscript is to review information ...leading to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.
Data Sources
A literature search was conducted of PubMed and clinicaltrials.gov (August 2018—October 2021) to identify trials related to the FDA approval of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.
Study selection and data extraction
Trials included are those the FDA deemed significant and accurate enough to be included in the FDA approval process. Information not recognized by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) nor FDA is omitted to not add to further confusion and misinformation.
Data synthesis
In persons 16 years or older without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, a total of 77 COVID-19 cases (0.39%) in the vaccine group from 7 days onward after the second dose vs 833 (4.1%) in the placebo group (Vaccine efficacy 91.1%; 95% confidence interval CI: 88.8-93.1). According the CDC definition of severe infection, there were no severe infections in the vaccine group 7 days and onward after the second dose, compared to 31 (0.15%) in the placebo group (Vaccine efficacy 100%; 95% CI: 87.6-100.0). Relevance to Patient Care and Clinical Practice: Reduction of infection by SARS-COV-2 is a top priority in protecting the health of all people and the official approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination may improve this goal.
Conclusions
Data available show a high efficacy rate of preventing SARS -CoV-2 with relatively low rates of ADE after full vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The unprecedented global spread of COVID-19 has prompted dramatic public-health measures like strict stay-at-home orders and economic shutdowns. Some governments have resisted such measures in the ...hope that naturally acquired shield immunity could slow the spread of the virus. In the absence of empirical data about the effectiveness of these measures, policymakers must turn to epidemiological modelling to evaluate options for responding to the pandemic. This paper combines compartmental epidemiological models with the concept of behavioural dynamics from evolutionary game theory (EGT). This innovation allows us to model how compliance with an economic lockdown might wane over time, as individuals weigh the risk of infection against the certainty of the economic cost of staying at home. Governments can, however, increase spending on social programmes to mitigate the cost of a shutdown. Numerical analysis of our model suggests that emergency-relief funds spent at the individual level are effective in reducing the duration and overall economic cost of a pandemic. We also find that shield immunity takes hold in a population most easily when a lockdown is enacted with relatively low costs to the individual. Our qualitative analysis of a complex model provides evidence that the effects of shield immunity and economic shutdowns are complementary, such that governments should pursue them in tandem.
Amazonia presents 11.3% of dengue and 1.82% of COVID-19, and Galapagos zero and four (0.25%) cases respectively. ...the most significant public health problem occurs on the coast, with Guayaquil ...(officially Santiago de Guayaquil), capital of Guayas province, as the primary source of transmission and contagion. According to the estimates of the percentage of seriously ill patients who may require ICU bed intake (5% of the total cases), if a doubling of cases is initiated every seven days, and with each patient requiring about 21 days on average to recover, the region could be outnumbered in the number of beds in a few weeks at the start of the infection exponential stage. ...the importance of developing rapid and reliable tests for SARS-CoV-2/Dengue in the immediate future.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This special issue showcases recent uses of mathematical and nonlinear science methods in the study of different problems arising in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sixteen original ...research papers included in this collection span a wide spectrum of studies including classical epidemiological models, new models accounting for COVID-19 specificities, non-pharmaceutical control measures, network models and other problems related to the pandemic.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Abstract
Rationale
Early corticosteroid treatment is used to treat COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Infection is a well-documented adverse effect of corticosteroid ...therapy.
Objectives
To determine whether early corticosteroid therapy to treat COVID-19 ARDS was associated with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).
Methods
We retrospectively included adults with COVID-19-ARDS requiring invasive mechanical ventilation (MV) for ≥ 48 h at any of 15 intensive care units in 2020. We divided the patients into two groups based on whether they did or did not receive corticosteroids within 24 h. The primary outcome was VAP incidence, with death and extubation as competing events. Secondary outcomes were day 90-mortality, MV duration, other organ dysfunctions, and VAP characteristics.
Measurements and main results
Of 670 patients (mean age, 65 years), 369 did and 301 did not receive early corticosteroids. The cumulative VAP incidence was higher with early corticosteroids (adjusted hazard ratio aHR 1.29; 95% confidence interval 95% CI 1.05–1.58;
P
= 0.016). Antibiotic resistance of VAP bacteria was not different between the two groups (odds ratio 0.94, 95% CI 0.58–1.53;
P
= 0.81). 90-day mortality was 30.9% with and 24.3% without early corticosteroids, a nonsignificant difference after adjustment on age, SOFA score, and VAP occurrence (aHR 1.15; 95% CI 0.83–1.60;
P
= 0.411). VAP was associated with higher 90-day mortality (aHR 1.86; 95% CI 1.33–2.61;
P
= 0.0003).
Conclusions
Early corticosteroid treatment was associated with VAP in patients with COVID-19-ARDS. Although VAP was associated with higher 90-day mortality, early corticosteroid treatment was not. Longitudinal randomized controlled trials of early corticosteroids in COVID-19-ARDS requiring MV are warranted.
Background: Evidence on performance of Rapid Antigen Detection Tests to recognize SARS-CoV-2 symptomatic patients in our context is limited. This study was aimed to evaluate Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid ...Test Device (Abbott Diagnostics, Jena, Germany) in identifying SARS-CoV-2 infection in comparison with RT-PCR test. Methods: This cross-sectional validation study was carried out at Margalla Hospital, Taxila from October, 2020 to March, 2021. Three hundred and eighty-two participants of both gender and all ages, symptomatic for 3–4 days were included in this study. For each participant, two nasopharyngeal swabs were collected by trained lab technicians according to SOPs, one for Rapid Antigen Test and other for RT-PCR.Covid-19 antibodies were checked 4-6 weeks after symptoms among 77 randomly selected participants to further evaluate the performance of Rapid Antigen Test. Data was analyzed using SPSS-26. Results: The mean age of the participants was 43.1 years (SD= 15.9). More than half of participants were males (n=213%=55.8) and 169 (44.2%) were females. Sensitivity of Rapid Antigen Test was calculated to be 94.3%, whereas the specificity was 39.7%. Out of 34 RT-PCR negatives that were initially detected positive on Rapid Antigen Test, 33 demonstrated presence of COVID-19 antibodies. Conclusion: Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test was found to have 93.4% overall sensitivity and relatively low overall specificity (37.9%). Rapid antigen testing using Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device can be effectively used to scale up mass testing to interrupt transmissibility of COVID-19 infection by generating quick result.
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