scholarly journals Pulmonary rehabilitation principles in SARS-COV-2 infection (COVID-19): The revised guideline for the acute, subacute, and post-COVID-19 rehabilitation

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
Yeşim Kurtaiş Aytür ◽  
Belma Füsun Köseoglu ◽  
Özden Özyemişci Taşkıran ◽  
Nilüfer Kutay Ordu Gökkaya ◽  
Sibel Ünsal Delialioğlu ◽  
...  

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious infection disease, which may cause respiratory, physical, psychological, and generalized systemic dysfunction. The severity of disease ranges from an asymptomatic infection or mild illness to mild or severe pneumonia with respiratory failure and/or death. COVID-19 dramatically affects the pulmonary system. This clinical practice guideline includes pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) recommendations for adult COVID-19 patients and has been developed in the light of the guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 provided by the World Health Organization and Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Health, recently published scientific literature, and PR recommendations for COVID-19 regarding basic principles of PR. This national guideline provides suggestions regarding the PR methods during the clinical stages of COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 with its possible benefits, contraindications, and disadvantages.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 1278-1285
Author(s):  
Mohamed Yafout ◽  
Amine Ousaid ◽  
Ibrahim Sbai El Otmani ◽  
Youssef Khayati ◽  
Amal Ait Haj Said

The new SARS-CoV-2 belonging to the coronaviruses family has caused a pandemic affecting millions of people around the world. This pandemic has been declared by the World Health Organization as an international public health emergency. Although several clinical trials involving a large number of drugs are currently underway, no treatment protocol for COVID-19 has been officially approved so far. Here we demonstrate through a search in the scientific literature that the traditional Moroccan pharmacopoeia, which includes more than 500 medicinal plants, is a fascinating and promising source for the research of natural molecules active against SARS-CoV-2. Multiple in-silico and in-vitro studies showed that some of the medicinal plants used by Moroccans for centuries possess inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2. These inhibitory activities are achieved through the different molecular mechanisms of virus penetration and replication, or indirectly through stimulation of immunity. Thus, the potential of plants, plant extracts and molecules derived from plants that are traditionally used in Morocco and have activity against SARS-CoV-2, could be explored in the search for a preventive or curative treatment against COVID-19. Furthermore, safe plants or plant extracts that are proven to stimulate immunity could be officially recommended by governments as nutritional supplements.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kotfis ◽  
Kacper Lechowicz ◽  
Sylwester Drożdżal ◽  
Paulina Niedźwiedzka-Rystwej ◽  
Tomasz K. Wojdacz ◽  
...  

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Septian Emma Dwi Jatmika Jatmika ◽  
Siti Kurnia Widi Hastuti2

This Community Service and Empowerment Program offers solutions to overcome problems encountered in Sedayu, especially the under-five health problems, such as the lack of knowledge about the provision of MP ASI according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards, the lack of utilization of quality local foods for MP-ASI and many the provision of instant breastfeeding by mothers in infants, the provision of MP-ASI is less appropriate with the duration, frequency, texture and variation according to age stage and the lack of attention of parents related to the growth of infants. The data shows that there are many toddlers in Sedayu who suffer from malnutrition and even malnutrition and stunting (short). The purpose of this community service is to improve the community's knowledge about the making of MP ASI by optimizing the existing local wisdom. The hope of this program can improve the knowledge, behavior and health status of children under five. The target of this program is the mother of the students from the students of  TK ABA Argomulyo, TK ABA Sedayu and TK Tapen, Sedayu Subdistrict, Bantul who have under five children. Activities undertaken include training on the basic principles of MP-ASI, training on making and assisting various processed MP-ASI using quality local food. And held a mini gallery of processed products of various variations of ASI MP using quality local food to promote MP ASI products to the public.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 1718-1722
Author(s):  
Alberto Boretti

This work summarizes the available evidence of the use of chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine (CQ/HCQ) in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Most of the published works indicate CQ/HCQ is likely effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection, almost 100% in prophylaxis and mild-medium severity cases and 60% in late infection cases. The percentage of positive works is larger if those works conducted under a probable conflict of interest are excluded from the list. Despite this overwhelming evidence from independent studies, the use of CQ/HCQ is currently limited or prevented in many western countries, based on a very singular examination of the science. The case of a work published in late May 2020, despite being openly defective and then retracted, prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to ban the use of CQ/HCQ. This position has not yet rectified, thanks to the results of the not less questionable RECOVERY trial, where very sick patients were administered more than double the dose, over more than double the time, recommended for asymptomatic patients in current protocols of other countries, where CQ/HCQ are used for asymptomatic and mild but not severe pneumonia critically ill patients. While the case fatality rate does not depend only on therapies, it is finally shown based on the number of cases and fatalities per million and the case fatality rate as the western countries enforcing the ban on CQ/HCQ did not perform better, but much worse, than other countries, also because of therapies.


Author(s):  
Sunil Kumar Kasundriya ◽  
Mamta Dhaneria ◽  
Aditya Mathur ◽  
Ashish Pathak

Childhood pneumonia is a major public health problem. The aim of this prospective hospital-based study is to determine the incidence and risk factors for community-acquired severe pneumonia in children in Ujjain, India. The study includes 270 children, 161 (60%) boys and 109 (40%) girls, aged between 2 months and 5 years with World Health Organization defined and radiologically confirmed severe pneumonia. Considering the 270 children, 64% (95% confidence interval (CI) 57.9–69.4) have severe pneumonia. The following are identified as risk factors for severe pneumonia from the generalized logistic regression model: Born premature (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 7.50; 95% CI 2.22–25.31; p = 0.001); history of measles (AOR 6.35; 95% CI 1.73–23.30; p = 0.005); incomplete vaccination (AOR 2.66; 95% CI 1.09–6.48; p = 0.031); acyanotic congenital heart disease (AOR 9.21; 95% CI 2.29–36.99; p = 0.002); home treatment tried (AOR 3.84; 95% CI 1.42–10.39; p = 0.008); living in a kuchha house (AOR 3.89; 95% CI 1.51–10.01; p = 0.027); overcrowding (AOR 4.50; 95% CI 1.75–11.51; p = 0.002);poor ventilation in living area (AOR 16.37; 95% CI 4.67–57.38; p < 0.001); and practicing open defecation (AOR 16.92; 95% CI 4.95–57.85; p < 0.001). Awareness of these risk factors can reduce mortality due to severe pneumonia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Concetta Di Natale ◽  
Sara La Manna ◽  
Ilaria De Benedictis ◽  
Paola Brandi ◽  
Daniela Marasco

At the end of December 2019, an epidemic form of respiratory tract infection now named COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China. It is caused by a newly identified viral pathogen, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which can cause severe pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. On January 30, 2020, due to the rapid spread of infection, COVID-19 was declared as a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. Coronaviruses are enveloped RNA viruses belonging to the family of Coronaviridae, which are able to infect birds, humans and other mammals. The majority of human coronavirus infections are mild although already in 2003 and in 2012, the epidemics of SARS-CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), respectively, were characterized by a high mortality rate. In this regard, many efforts have been made to develop therapeutic strategies against human CoV infections but, unfortunately, drug candidates have shown efficacy only into in vitro studies, limiting their use against COVID-19 infection. Actually, no treatment has been approved in humans against SARS-CoV-2, and therefore there is an urgent need of a suitable vaccine to tackle this health issue. However, the puzzled scenario of biological features of the virus and its interaction with human immune response, represent a challenge for vaccine development. As expected, in hundreds of research laboratories there is a running out of breath to explore different strategies to obtain a safe and quickly spreadable vaccine; and among others, the peptide-based approach represents a turning point as peptides have demonstrated unique features of selectivity and specificity toward specific targets. Peptide-based vaccines imply the identification of different epitopes both on human cells and virus capsid and the design of peptide/peptidomimetics able to counteract the primary host-pathogen interaction, in order to induce a specific host immune response. SARS-CoV-2 immunogenic regions are mainly distributed, as well as for other coronaviruses, across structural areas such as spike, envelope, membrane or nucleocapsid proteins. Herein, we aim to highlight the molecular basis of the infection and recent peptide-based vaccines strategies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic including their delivery systems.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Nane ◽  
Nicolas Robinson-Garcia ◽  
Francois van Schalkwyk ◽  
Daniel Torres-Salinas

We model the growth of scientific literature related to COVID-19 and forecast the expected growth from 1 June 2021. Considering the significant scientific and financial efforts made by the research community to find solutions to end the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented volume of scientific outputs is being produced. This questions the capacity of scientists, politicians and citizens to maintain infrastructure, digest content and take scientifically informed decisions. A crucial aspect is to make predictions to prepare for such a large corpus of scientific literature. Here we base our predictions on the ARIMA and exponential smoothing models and use two different data sources: the Dimensions and World Health Organization COVID-19 databases. These two sources have the particularity of including in the metadata information on the date in which papers were indexed. We present global predictions, plus predictions in three specific settings: by type of access (Open Access), by NLM source (PubMed and PMC), and by domain-specific repository (SSRN and MedRxiv). We conclude by discussing our findings.


Pneumologia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-114
Author(s):  
William Suriady ◽  
Andika Chandra Putra ◽  
Wiwien Heru Wiyono ◽  
Mohammad Fahmi Alatas ◽  
Bettia Bermawi ◽  
...  

Abstract The novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a public health emergency of international concern. The first confirmed COVID-19 case in Indonesia was announced on 2 March 2020, and later on, 11,192 confirmed cases were reported as of 3 May. The World Health Organization has stated that performing a real-time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) specific for SARS-CoV-2 on specimens from the upper and the lower respiratory tracts, especially nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs, is the standard diagnostic procedure for COVID-19. In Indonesia, we also use other diagnostic tests, such as rapid antibody tests specific for SARS-CoV-2. Herein, we report an atypical case of COVID-19 and describe the diagnostic process, the clinical course, with progression to severe pneumonia on Week 3 of illness and the case management. We also try to highlight the possibility of false-negative RT-PCR tests.


Author(s):  
Edward De Brouwer ◽  
Daniele Raimondi ◽  
Yves Moreau

AbstractOn March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak, originally started in China, a global pandemic. Since then, the outbreak has indeed spread across all continents, threatening the public health of numerous countries. Although the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of COVID-19 is relatively low when optimal level of healthcare is granted to the patients, the high percentage of severe cases developing severe pneumonia and thus requiring respiratory support is worryingly high, and could lead to a rapid saturation of Intensive Care Units (ICUs). To overcome this risk, most countries enacted COVID-19 containment measures. In this study, we use a Bayesian SEIR epidemiological model to perform a parametric regression over the COVID-19 outbreaks data in China, Italy, Belgium, and Spain, and estimate the effect of the containment measures on the basic reproduction ratio R0.We find that the effect of these measures is detectable, but tends to be gradual, and that a progressive strengthening of these measures usually reduces the R0 below 1, granting a decay of the outbreak. We also discuss the biases and inconsistencies present in the publicly available data on COVID-19 cases, providing an estimate for the actual number of cases in Italy on March 12, 2020. Lastly, despite the data and model’s limitations, we argue that the idea of “flattening the curve” to reach herd immunity is likely to be unfeasible.


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