scholarly journals COVID-19: Understanding the Pandemic Emergence, Impact and Infection Prevalence Worldwide

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 2235-2251
Author(s):  
Priyadarshini Dey ◽  
S. Vaijayanthimala ◽  
Vivek S. Dalvi ◽  
Ashu Jain ◽  
Deepak Gola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Severe Pneumonia ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
World Health ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Viral Gene ◽  
Infection Prevalence ◽  
Human Antibody ◽  
Plasma Therapy

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has showed high transmission across the continents due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) with total infected cases of around ~ 44 million people. This communicable virus that initiated from the Wuhan city of China in the month of December 2020 has now spread to 189 different countries with 1.1 million fatalities worldwide (till 28 Oct, 2020). The World Health Organization (WHO) declared this outbreak as Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January, 2020. The infection spreads mainly due to contact with infected droplets or fomites, highlighting flu like symptoms initially, which may further progress into severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, often observed in elderly patients with prehistory of other diseases. The diagnosis is based on detection of viral antigen, human antibody and viral gene (RT-PCR). Further, various other diagnostic tools including X-ray, CT-scan are used for imaging purpose, recently artificial intelligence based imaging (contactless scanning) gained popularity. Generally testing of existing drugs (repurposing) and development of new molecules are the main strategies adopted by researchers. However, as per initial findings, various drugs, monoclonal antibody and plasma therapy were found to show effectiveness against COVID-19. Further, many vaccine candidates have entered or will soon enter phase III clinical testing. This disease has further challenged the global economy. Thus, this review uniquely compares the strategies adopted by developed and developing countries worldwide including protective measures like lockdown, continuous testing, utilizing latest tools (artificial intelligence) in curbing this infection spread.

Current advances in novel SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19) treatment and intervention strategies

Coronaviruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 01 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Khalid Parvez ◽  
Kartika Padhan
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Ebola Virus ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
World Health ◽  
Plasma Therapy ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Vaccine Candidates ◽  
Poor Countries

Background: Down the seven months of the novel SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19) outbreak in China and its global spread, there is a remarkable understanding of its epidemiology, pathobiology and clinical management strategies. While countering a heavy toll on health and economy, world’s regional authorities are enforcing safety guidelines and providing patient care. Currently, there is no globally approved treatment or intervention for COVID-19. Methods: A structured online literature search for peer-reviewed articles was conducted on the PubMed, Europe PMC, Google, WHO, CDC, FDA and ClinicalTrials portals, using phrases such as COVID-19 treatment and intervention, COVID-19 drugs and COVID-19 vaccines. Results: Analysis of the retrieved data showed that as a part of ‘Solidarity Clinical Trials’, hundreds of treatment and intervention strategies, including antiviral drugs, cytokine antagonists, convalescent plasma therapy and vaccine candidates have been registered, worldwide. Of these, while remdesivir the anti-Ebola virus drug has been granted approval as ‘emergency use’ drug in USA, favipiravir, the anti-flu drug has been recently approved in Russia. Tocilizumab and sarilumab, the cytokine (IL-6) antagonists have entered Phase-II/III clinical trials in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Among the leading vaccine candidates, an mRNA-1273 vaccine along with Pfizer mRNA candidate and Oxford ChAdOx1vaccine have entered Phase-III trial. Conclusion: The world health authorities have strongly and quickly responded to COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, it is imperative for world bodies to unite in combating this health crisis by developing costeffective drugs and vaccines, and making them accessible to resource-poor countries.

Recent developments and opportunities in fighting COVID-19

Coronaviruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 01 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikram Rao ◽  
Subrat Kumar Bhattamisra
Keyword(s):  
World Health ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Therapeutic Molecules ◽  
Discharged Patients ◽  
Extensive Literature Search ◽  
Repurposed Drugs ◽  
Health Organization

Background: COVID-19, a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) was first diagnosed in the patients from Wuhan, China in December 2019. Within couple of months of infection, it was declared as pandemic by World health organization. COVID-19 has become the most contagious infection with a serious threat to global health. In this review, we aimed to discuss the pathogenesis, diagnostics, current treatments and potential vaccines for COVID-19. Methods: An extensive literature search was conducted using keywords “COVID-19”; “Coronavirus”; “SARS-Cov-2”; “SARS” in public domains of Google, Google scholar, PubMed, and ScienceDirect. Selected articles were used to construct this review. Results: SARS-Cov-2 uses the Spike (S) protein on its surface to recognize the receptor on angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and bind with 10-folds greater affinity than SARS-Cov-1. Molecular assays and immunoassays are the most frequently used tests whereas computed tomography (CT) scans, Artificial intelligence enabled diagnostic tools were also used in patients. In therapeutic treatment, few drugs were repurposed and there are 23 therapeutic molecules including the repurposed drugs are in different stages of clinical trial. Similarly, development of vaccines is also in the pipeline. Few countries have managed well to contain the spread by rapid testing and identifying the clusters. Conclusion: Till now, the acute complications and mortality of COVID-19 has been linked to the pre-existing comorbid conditions or age. Besides the development of therapeutic strategies that includes drugs and vaccine, the long term implication of COVID-19 infection in terms of the disorder/disability in the cured/discharged patients is a new area to investigate.

scholarly journals Morphological Characteristics, Classifications and Difficulties in the Use of Diagnostic Criteria for Serrated Lesions of the Large Intestine

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesar de Souza Bastos Junior ◽  
Vera Lucia Nunes Pannain ◽  
Adriana Caroli-Bottino
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Criteria ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
World Health ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Serrated Adenoma ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Serrated Lesions ◽  
Health Organization

Abstract Introduction Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) is the most common gastrointestinal neoplasm in the world, accounting for 15% of cancer-related deaths. This condition is related to different molecular pathways, among them the recently described serrated pathway, whose characteristic entities, serrated lesions, have undergone important changes in their names and diagnostic criteria in the past thirty years. The multiplicity of denominations and criteria over the last years may be responsible for the low interobserver concordance (IOC) described in the literature. Objectives The present study aims to describe the evolution in classification of serrated lesions, based on the last three publications of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the reproducibility of these criteria by pathologists, based on the evaluation of the IOC. Methods A search was conducted in the PubMed, ResearchGate and Portal Capes databases, with the following terms: sessile serrated lesion; serrated lesions; serrated adenoma; interobserver concordance; and reproducibility. Articles published since 1990 were researched. Results and Discussion The classification of serrated lesions in the past thirty years showed different denominations and diagnostic criteria. The reproducibility and IOC of these criteria in the literature, based on the kappa coefficient, varied in most studies, from very poor to moderate. Conclusions Interobserver concordance and the reproducibility of microscopic criteria may represent a limitation for the diagnosis and appropriate management of these lesions. It is necessary to investigate diagnostic tools to improve the performance of the pathologist's evaluation, for better concordance, and, consequently, adequate diagnosis and treatment.

scholarly journals Diagnostics and monitoring tools for noncommunicable diseases: a missing component in the global response

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Bernabé-Ortiz ◽  
Jessica H. Zafra-Tanaka ◽  
Miguel Moscoso-Porras ◽  
Rangarajan Sampath ◽  
Beatrice Vetter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health System ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Communicable Diseases ◽  
Noncommunicable Disease ◽  
World Health ◽  
Noncommunicable Diseases ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Monitoring Tools

AbstractA key component of any health system is the capacity to accurately diagnose individuals. One of the six building blocks of a health system as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) includes diagnostic tools. The WHO’s Noncommunicable Disease Global Action Plan includes addressing the lack of diagnostics for noncommunicable diseases, through multi-stakeholder collaborations to develop new technologies that are affordable, safe, effective and quality controlled, and improving laboratory and diagnostic capacity and human resources. Many challenges exist beyond price and availability for the current tools included in the Package of Essential Noncommunicable Disease Interventions (PEN) for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases. These include temperature stability, adaptability to various settings (e.g. at high altitude), need for training in order to perform and interpret the test, the need for maintenance and calibration, and for Blood Glucose Meters non-compatible meters and test strips. To date the issues surrounding access to diagnostic and monitoring tools for noncommunicable diseases have not been addressed in much detail. The aim of this Commentary is to present the current landscape and challenges with regards to guidance from the WHO on diagnostic tools using the WHO REASSURED criteria, which define a set of key characteristics for diagnostic tests and tools. These criteria have been used for communicable diseases, but so far have not been used for noncommunicable diseases. Diagnostic tools have played an important role in addressing many communicable diseases, such as HIV, TB and neglected tropical diseases. Clearly more attention with regards to diagnostics for noncommunicable diseases as a key component of the health system is needed.

scholarly journals COVID-19—The Potential Beneficial Therapeutic Effects of Spironolactone during SARS-CoV-2 Infection

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kotfis ◽  
Kacper Lechowicz ◽  
Sylwester Drożdżal ◽  
Paulina Niedźwiedzka-Rystwej ◽  
Tomasz K. Wojdacz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pulmonary Fibrosis ◽  
Therapeutic Potential ◽  
Severe Pneumonia ◽  
Therapeutic Benefit ◽  
World Health ◽  
Therapeutic Effects ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Infection ◽  
Dual Action ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Transmembrane Serine Protease

In March 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The clinical course of the disease is unpredictable but may lead to severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) and pneumonia leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It has been shown that pulmonary fibrosis may be one of the major long-term complications of COVID-19. In animal models, the use of spironolactone was proven to be an important drug in the prevention of pulmonary fibrosis. Through its dual action as a mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonist and an androgenic inhibitor, spironolactone can provide significant benefits concerning COVID-19 infection. The primary effect of spironolactone in reducing pulmonary edema may also be beneficial in COVID-19 ARDS. Spironolactone is a well-known, widely used and safe anti-hypertensive and antiandrogenic medication. It has potassium-sparing diuretic action by antagonizing mineralocorticoid receptors (MRs). Spironolactone and potassium canrenoate, exerting combined pleiotropic action, may provide a therapeutic benefit to patients with COVID-19 pneumonia through antiandrogen, MR blocking, antifibrotic and anti-hyperinflammatory action. It has been proposed that spironolactone may prevent acute lung injury in COVID-19 infection due to its pleiotropic effects with favorable renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system (RAAS) and ACE2 expression, reduction in transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) activity and antiandrogenic action, and therefore it may prove to act as additional protection for patients at highest risk of severe pneumonia. Future prospective clinical trials are warranted to evaluate its therapeutic potential.

scholarly journals Importance of immunoglobulin therapy for COVID-19 patients with lymphocytopenia

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heba K. Nabih
Keyword(s):  
Passive Immunization ◽  
Immunoglobulin Therapy ◽  
World Health ◽  
Clinical Feature ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Plasma Therapy ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

Abstract Background The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was announced as pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). With the increased number of infected and dead victims daily all over the world, it becomes necessary to stop or overcome its rapid spread. Main body Although the production of vaccine or even specified effective anti-virus may take about six months to a year, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) may be clinically used as a safe treatment to save and improve the quality of life of patients with a variety of immunodeficiency diseases such as lymphocytopenia, which is a common clinical feature in COVID-19. Conclusion Through the current review, it was concluded that this passive immunization may promote the immunity to better fight against the virus, so the survival of the patients could be kept longer. The efficacy of immunotherapy with IVIg would be greater if the immune IgG antibodies were collected from convalescent plasma therapy.

scholarly journals Training and deploying a deep learning model for endoscopic severity grading in ulcerative colitis using multicenter clinical trial data

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 263177452199062
Author(s):  
Benjamin Gutierrez Becker ◽  
Filippo Arcadu ◽  
Andreas Thalhammer ◽  
Citlalli Gamez Serna ◽  
Owen Feehan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Ulcerative Colitis ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Mayo Clinic ◽  
Automated System ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
Plain Language ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Endoscopic Videos

Introduction: The Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore is a commonly used grading system to assess the severity of ulcerative colitis. Correctly grading colonoscopies using the Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore is a challenging task, with suboptimal rates of interrater and intrarater variability observed even among experienced and sufficiently trained experts. In recent years, several machine learning algorithms have been proposed in an effort to improve the standardization and reproducibility of Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore grading. Methods: Here we propose an end-to-end fully automated system based on deep learning to predict a binary version of the Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore directly from raw colonoscopy videos. Differently from previous studies, the proposed method mimics the assessment done in practice by a gastroenterologist, that is, traversing the whole colonoscopy video, identifying visually informative regions and computing an overall Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore. The proposed deep learning–based system has been trained and deployed on raw colonoscopies using Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore ground truth provided only at the colon section level, without manually selecting frames driving the severity scoring of ulcerative colitis. Results and Conclusion: Our evaluation on 1672 endoscopic videos obtained from a multisite data set obtained from the etrolizumab Phase II Eucalyptus and Phase III Hickory and Laurel clinical trials, show that our proposed methodology can grade endoscopic videos with a high degree of accuracy and robustness (Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve = 0.84 for Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore ⩾ 1, 0.85 for Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore ⩾ 2 and 0.85 for Mayo Clinic Endoscopic Subscore ⩾ 3) and reduced amounts of manual annotation. Plain language summary Patient, caregiver and provider thoughts on educational materials about prescribing and medication safety Artificial intelligence can be used to automatically assess full endoscopic videos and estimate the severity of ulcerative colitis. In this work, we present an artificial intelligence algorithm for the automatic grading of ulcerative colitis in full endoscopic videos. Our artificial intelligence models were trained and evaluated on a large and diverse set of colonoscopy videos obtained from concluded clinical trials. We demonstrate not only that artificial intelligence is able to accurately grade full endoscopic videos, but also that using diverse data sets obtained from multiple sites is critical to train robust AI models that could potentially be deployed on real-world data.

scholarly journals COVID-19 pandemic: A review of the global lockdown and its far-reaching effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 003685042110198
Author(s):  
Helen Onyeaka ◽  
Christian K Anumudu ◽  
Zainab T Al-Sharify ◽  
Esther Egele-Godswill ◽  
Paul Mbaegbu
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Education Delivery ◽  
Environmental Air ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact

COVID-19, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the 11th of March 2020, leading to some form of lockdown across almost all countries of the world. The extent of the global pandemic due to COVID-19 has a significant impact on our lives that must be studied carefully to combat it. This study highlights the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on crucial aspects of daily life globally, including; Food security, Global economy, Education, Tourism, hospitality, sports and leisure, Gender Relation, Domestic Violence/Abuse, Mental Health and Environmental air pollution through a systematic search of the literature. The COVID-19 global lockdown was initiated to stem the spread of the virus and ‘flatten the curve’ of the pandemic. However, the impact of the lockdown has had far-reaching effects in different strata of life, including; changes in the accessibility and structure of education delivery to students, food insecurity as a result of unavailability and fluctuation in prices, the depression of the global economy, increase in mental health challenges, wellbeing and quality of life amongst others. This review article highlights the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown across the globe. As the global lockdown is being lifted in a phased manner in various countries of the world, it is necessary to explore its impacts to understand its consequences comprehensively. This will guide future decisions that will be made in a possible future wave of the COVID-19 pandemic or other global disease outbreak.

scholarly journals APPROACHES TO NANO-BASED VACCINES TOWARDS SARS-COV-2 MANAGEMENT

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (06) ◽  
pp. 225-243
Author(s):  
Jacqueline A. Padilla ◽  
◽  
Erwin M. Faller ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Viral Entry ◽  
Phase Iii ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
Therapeutic Activity ◽  
Phase Iii Clinical Trials ◽  
Characteristic Nature ◽  
Complete Treatment ◽  
Coronavirus Infection ◽  
Antiviral Medications

For a year now, since the world began to be struck with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, incidents of the outbreak are still increasing at an alarming rate considering that the virus has evolved and new strains have come out. The urgency for treatment of this SARS-CoV-2 has triggered the pharmaceutical companies to produce and manufacture antiviral medications and diagnostic tools. Since 2004, the pharmaceutical companies have been studying and discovering the great potential of nanotechnology for drug therapy. Nano-based drug delivery has gained an edge in disease management and has proven a pronounced and fast therapeutic activity over the traditional dosage form especially on the nanomedicines employed currently for coronavirus treatment. Reviewed in this article are the important characteristic nature of nanoparticles including the various nanomaterials that can be employed for its drug design that delivers optimum therapeutic activity. Also, the mechanism of how nanodecoys work in trapping and inhibiting viral entry as well as nano-based vaccines. Presently, nano-based vaccines have been formulated which showed a great extent of activity towards eliciting enhanced immunity. And now, these vaccines have been distributed worldwide after undergoing Phase II and Phase III clinical trials. Statistics showed that millions of the individuals worldwide have received the vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 from the different pharmaceutical companies. With the recent positive advancements on nanomedicine therapies, the possibility of complete eradication of any diseases most particularly the current SARS-CoV-2 scare will be materialized. Hence, nanoparticles truly plays a huge contribution in the possible success for the complete treatment of coronavirus infection. In this article, the important contributions and advantages of the use of nanotechnology in the formulation of vaccines are highlighted as a promising medication to help fight against the attack of SARS-CoV-2.

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