Covid

Message from the CITAC president To say that 2020 has been an unprecedented year is an understatement. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic and the major societal awakening on racial equity and justice have led us to reflect on our direction, goals and mission. Thanks to our talented and dedicated executive team, we were able to pivot our efforts and adapt to the changing landscape of research and advocacy. In April, we provided our members with a list of resources to help facilitate a smooth transition to working from home...

AIMS: The aim of the study was to describe ECG modifications and arrhythmic events in COVID-19 patients undergoing hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) therapy in different clinical settings. METHODS AND RESULTS: COVID-19 patients at seven institutions receiving HCQ therapy from whom a baseline and at least one ECG at 48+ h were available were enrolled in the study. QT/QTc prolongation, QT-associated and QT-independent arrhythmic events, arrhythmic mortality, and overall mortality during HCQ therapy were assessed...

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can cause severe illness and death. Predictors of poor outcome collected on hospital admission may inform clinical and public health decisions. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational cohort investigation of 297 adults admitted to eight academic and community hospitals in Georgia, United States, during March 2020. Using standardized medical record abstraction, we collected data on predictors including admission demographics, underlying medical conditions, outpatient antihypertensive medications, recorded symptoms, vital signs, radiographic findings, and laboratory values...

Children aged 0-19 years in sub-Saharan Africa bear a disproportionate proportion of the global burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Significant public health gains have been made in the fight against these diseases. However, factors such as underequipped health systems, disease outbreaks, and conflict and political instability continue to challenge prevention and control. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) introduces new challenges to public health programs in sub-Saharan Africa...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To elucidate the clinical features of COVID-19 patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D) under hospitalization and home isolation conditions. METHOD: This retrospective study was conducted among 32 patients with COVID-19 and T1D, who sought treatment at the Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between May 01, 2020 and July 30, 2020. Patients data were extracted from electronic medical records. RESULTS: Of the total of 32 COVID-19 patients with T1D, 21...

BACKGROUND: Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who have underlying malignancy have a higher mortality rate compared with those without cancer, although the magnitude of such excess risk is not clearly defined. We performed a systematic review and pooled analysis to provide precise estimates of the mortality rate among patients with both cancer and COVID-19. METHODS: A systematic literature search involving peer-reviewed publications, preprints and conference proceedings up to July 16, 2020, was performed...

OBJECTIVES: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the most devastating pandemic to affect humanity in a century. In this article, we assessed tests as a policy instrument and policy enactment to contain COVID-19 and potentially reduce mortalities. STUDY DESIGN: A model was devised to estimate the factors that influenced the death rate across 121 nations and by income group. RESULTS: Nations with a higher proportion of people aged 65+ years had a higher fatality rate (P = 0...

BACKGROUND: Zoonotically transmitted coronaviruses are responsible for three disease outbreaks since 2002, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2. Its efficient transmission and range of disease severity raise questions regarding the contributions of virus-receptor interactions. ACE2 is a host ectopeptidase and the receptor for SARS-CoV-2. Numerous reports describe ACE2 mRNA abundance and tissue distribution; however, mRNA abundance is not always representative of protein levels...

BACKGROUND: Health care workers, especially frontline nurses, faced great challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. AIMS: To assess the magnitude of the psychological status and associated risk factors among nurses in the pandemic center in Wuhan, China. METHODS: In this study, we enrolled nurses from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University. The questionnaire was designed to obtain basic information of the participants, and included four psychological assessment scales...

PURPOSE: To report real-world diagnostic performance of chest x-ray (CXR) readings during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: In this retrospective observational study we enrolled all patients presenting to the emergency department of a Milan-based university hospital from February 24th to April 8th 2020 who underwent nasopharyngeal swab for reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and anteroposterior bedside CXR within 12 h. A composite reference standard combining RT-PCR results with phone-call-based anamnesis was obtained...

NASA implements required medical tests and clinical monitoring to ensure the health and safety of its astronauts. These measures include a pre-launch quarantine to mitigate the risk of infectious diseases. During space missions, most astronauts experience perturbations to their immune system that manifest as a detectable secondary immunodeficiency. Upon return to Earth, after the stress of re-entry and landing, astronauts would be most vulnerable to infectious disease. In April 2020, a crew returned from ISS to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas, during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the efficacy of corticosteroids in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) METHODS: Multicenter observational study from February 22 through June 30, 2020. We included consecutive adult patients with severe COVID-19 defined as respiratory rate ≥30 breath per minute, oxygen saturation ≤93% on ambient air or arterial partial pressure of oxygen to fraction of inspired oxygen ≤300 mmHg. We excluded patients treated with other immunomodulant drugs, receiving low dose of corticosteroids and those receiving corticosteroids after 72h from admission...

BACKGROUND: South America is the current epicenter of COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the epidemiological and clinical features of the disease have not been described in Brazil, the third most affected country in the world. METHODS: In this retrospective study, we describe the demographics, epidemiology and clinical features of the first 557 consecutive patients positive for SARS-CoV-2 living in Pernambuco state, Northeast Brazil. RESULTS: The first COVID-19 cases occurred in the high income population...

Currently, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has posed an imminent threat to global public health. Although some current therapeutic agents have showed potential prevention or treatment, a growing number of associated adverse events have occurred on patients with COVID-19 in the course of medical treatment. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the safety profile of therapeutic agents against COVID-19 is urgently needed. In this study, we proposed a network-based framework to identify the potential side effects of current COVID-19 drugs in clinical trials...

AIMS: To evaluate whether subjects with diabetes hospitalized for Coronavirus disease-19 (Covid-19) represent a subgroup of patients with high-risk clinical features compared to patients with diabetes without Covid-19. METHODS: In this case-control study 79 patients with type 2 diabetes out of 354 adults hospitalized for Covid-19 and 158 controls with type 2 diabetes but without Covid-19, matched for age and gender, were enrolled. Medical history and concomitant therapies were retrieved from medical charts and compared between cases and controls, controlling for confounders...

OBJECTIVES: Diabetes has been shown to be a risk factor for corona virus disease-2019 (COVID-19) infection. The characteristics of patients with diabetes vulnerable to this infection are less specified. We aim to present the characteristics of patients with diabetes admitted to hospital with COVID-19. DESIGN: A retrospective case series. SETTING: A single clinical centre in the UK. METHODS: We have retrospectively collected the demographics, medical characteristics and outcome of all patients with diabetes admitted to hospital over two-week period with COVID-19 infection...

To investigate the cumulative incidence and mortality of COVID-19 and the prevalence of comorbidities such as diabetes,obesity and hypertension in regions with different altitude levels ranging from sea level to high altitude. METHODOLOGY: Analytical study in which we correlated secondary data obtained from reports of the Ministry of Health and National Institute for Statistics and Informatic. The cumulative incidence and mortality of COVID-19 in 25 peruvian regions is reported, together with its relationnship with altitude levels during March-July 2020 using Pearsońs correlation...

An acute respiratory disease caused by a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that surfaced in China in late 2019, continues to spread rapidly across the globe causing serious concerns. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is declared as a public health emergency worldwide by the World Health Organization (WHO). Increasing evidences have demonstrated human-to-human transmission that primarily affects the upper respiratory tract followed by lower respiratory tract damage leading to severe pneumonia...

BACKGROUND: The pathogenesis of COVID-19 is still incompletely understood, but seems to involve immune activation and immune dysregulation. OBJECTIVE: We examined parameters of activation of different leukocyte subsets in COVID-19 infected patients in relation to disease severity. METHODS: We analyzed plasma levels of myeloperoxidase (MPO, neutrophil activation), soluble (s) CD25 and soluble T cell immunoglobulin mucin domain-3 (sTIM-3) (markers of T cell activation and exhaustion) and sCD14 and sCD163 (markers of monocyte/macrophage activation) in 39 COVID-19 infected patients at hospital admission and two additional times during the first 10 days in relation to the need for ICU treatment...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common co-morbidity associated with COVID-19 and the fatality rate in COVID-19 patients with CVD is highest compared to other comorbidities, such as hypertension and diabetes. Preliminary data suggest that COVID-19 may also cause or worsen cardiac injury in infected patients through multiple mechanisms such as 'cytokine storm', endotheliosis, thrombosis, lymphocytopenia etc. Autopsies of COVID-19 patients reveal an infiltration of inflammatory mononuclear cells in the myocardium, confirming the role of the immune system in mediating cardiovascular damage in response to COVID-19 infection and also suggesting potential causal mechanisms for the development of new cardiac pathologies and/or exacerbation of underlying CVDs in infected patients...