Agricultural Waste Annona squamosa L. Peel and Seed Extract: Biosynthesis of Hand Sanitizer Gel against Skin Pathogens

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are being recommended as an infection prevention measure for COVID-19. Washing hands is a simple matter to eliminate and minimize germs on the hands with water and by adding certain ingredients, the use of hand sanitizer becomes must in recent circumstances. We have developed reliable and eco-friendly process for the synthesis of hand sanitizer gel that is a really useful tool in the fight against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Considering scanty literature available on the use of custard apple peel and seed for preparation of hand sanitizer gel, present study was undertaken to evaluate effect of hand sanitizer from custard apple peel and seed extract. The antimicrobial activity of the formulated gel was tested against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis subsp. spizizenii, Salmonella typhimurinum and Shigella sonnei by The Quality Assurance and Testing Center 3 (QUATEST 3) in Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam.

Differentiating COVID-19 and dengue from other febrile illnesses in co-epidemics: Development and internal validation of COVIDENGUE scores

Background. In a retrospective cohort study, we previously distinguished the factors associated with coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) or dengue from those associated with other febrile illnesses (OFIs). In this study, we developed a scoring system to discriminate both infectious diseases. Methods. Predictors of both infections were sought using multinomial logistic regression models (OFIs as controls) in all subjects suspected of COVID-19 who attended the SARS-CoV-2 testing center of Saint-Pierre teaching hospital, Reunion Island, between March 23 and May 10, 2020. Two COVIDENGUE scores were developed and internally validated by bootstrapping for predicting each infection after weighting the odd ratios according to a predefined rule. The discriminative ability of each score was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Their calibration was assessed using goodness-of-fit statistics. Results. Over 49 days, 80 COVID-19, 60 non-severe dengue and 872 OFI cases were diagnosed. The translation of the best fit model yielded two COVIDENGUE scores composed of 11 criteria: contact with a COVID-19 positive case (+3 points for COVID-19; 0 point for dengue), return from travel abroad within 15 days (+3/-1), previous individual episode of dengue (+1/+3), active smoking (-3/0), body ache (0/+5), cough (0/-2), upper respiratory tract infection symptoms (-1/-1), anosmia (+7/-1), headache (0/+5), retro-orbital pain (-1/+5), and delayed presentation (>3 days) to hospital (+1/0). The AUC was of 0.79 (95%CI 0.76-0.82) for COVID-19 score and of 0.88 (95%CI 0.85-0.90) for dengue score. Calibration was satisfactory for COVID-19 score and excellent for dengue score. For predicting COVID-19, sensitivity was of 97% at the 0-point cut-off and specificity approximated 99% at the 10-point cut-off. For predicting dengue, sensitivity approximated 97% at the 3-point cut-off and specificity 98% at the 11-point cut-off. Conclusions. In conclusion, the COVIDENGUE scores proved discriminant to differentiate COVID-19 and dengue from other febrile illnesses in the context of SARS-CoV-2 testing center during a co-epidemic. Further studies are needed to validate or refine these scores in other settings.

Рathogenetic methods of therapy using medicinal-table mineral water

The pathogenetic rationale for the use of «Prolom Voda» produced in the Republic of Serbia is presented. Research conducted at the accredited testing center of natural healing resources of the Federal State Budgetary Institution «Russian Scientific Center for Restorative Medicine and Balneology» of the Ministry of Health of Russia 9 accreditation certificate No. pH in the alkaline range.

Influences of Flipped Teaching in Electronics Courses on Students’ Learning Effectiveness and Strategies

The potential influence of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the status of school education and further accelerated the revolution of regular teaching method. This study compared the learning effectiveness and learning strategies of vocational high school students in flipped teaching and traditional teaching modes. By adopting flipped teaching on an electronics course throughout the entire academic year, this study aimed to explore the effect of learning strategies of the students under flipped teaching. The subjects of this study were 85 sophomore students majoring in Electrical Engineering. This study randomly selected one class as the control group (n = 43), and adopted the regular teaching method while another class was selected as the experimental group (n = 42), and employed the flipped teaching method. This study used the “Learning strategy scale of students in vocational high schools” as the instrument. The students’ scores of the Testing Center for Technological and Vocational Education Test were used to evaluate their learning effectiveness. The results of this study indicate that students under the flipped teaching model made remarkable progress in the electronics course and the learning outcomes remained significant after a long period of time. Moreover, they made notable changes in their learning strategies, including “learning motivation”, “reading and exams”, “self-testing”, and “problem solving strategies”.

Performance of Seven SARS-CoV-2 Self-Tests Based on Saliva, Anterior Nasal and Nasopharyngeal Swabs Corrected for Infectiousness in Real-Life Conditions: A Cross-Sectional Test Accuracy Study

Many studies reported good performance of nasopharyngeal swab-based antigen tests for detecting SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals; however, studies independently evaluating the quality of antigen tests utilizing anterior nasal swabs or saliva swabs are still rare, although such tests are widely used for mass testing. In our study, sensitivities, specificities and predictive values of seven antigen tests for detection of SARS-CoV-2 (one using nasopharyngeal swabs, two using anterior nasal swabs and four using saliva) were evaluated. In a setting of a high-capacity testing center, nasopharyngeal swabs for quantitative PCR (qPCR) were taken and, at the same time, antigen testing was performed in accordance with manufacturers’ instructions for the respective tests. In samples where qPCR and antigen tests yielded different results, virus culture was performed to evaluate the presence of the viable virus. Sensitivities and specificities of individual tests were calculated using both qPCR and qPCR corrected for viability as the reference. In addition, calculations were also performed for data categorized according to the cycle threshold and symptomatic status. The test using nasopharyngeal swabs yielded the best results (sensitivity of 80.6% relative to PCR and 91.2% when corrected for viability) while none of the remaining tests (anterior nasal swab or saliva-based tests) came even close to the WHO criteria for overall sensitivity. Hence, we advise caution when using antigen tests with alternative sampling methods without independent validation.

Symptoms that predict positive COVID-19 testing and hospitalization: an analysis of 9,000 patients

Purpose: To develop a reliable tool that predicts which patients are most likely to be COVID-19 positive and which ones have an increased risk of hospitalization. Methods: From February 2020 to April 2021, trained nurses recorded age, gender, and symptoms in an outpatient COVID-19 testing center. All positive patients were followed up by phone for 14 days or until symptom-free. We calculated the symptoms odds ratio for positive results and hospitalization and proposed a random forest machine-learning model to predict positive testing. Results: A total of 8,998 patients over 16 years old underwent COVID-19 RT-PCR, with 1,914 (21.3%) positives. Fifty patients needed hospitalization (2.6% of positives), and three died (0.15%). Most common symptoms were: cough, headache, sore throat, coryza, fever, myalgia (57%, 51%, 44%, 36%, 35%, 27%, respectively). Cough, fever, and myalgia predicted positive COVID-19 test, while others behaved as protective factors. The best predictors of positivity were fever plus anosmia/ageusia (OR=6.31), and cough plus anosmia/ageusia (OR=5.82), both p<0.0001. Our random forest model had an ROC-AUC of 0.72 (specificity=0.70, sensitivity=0.61, PPV=0.38, NPV=0.86). Having steady fever during the first days of infection and persistent dyspnea increased the risk of hospitalization (OR=6.66, p<0.0001 and OR=3.13, p=0.003, respectively), while anosmia-ageusia (OR=0.36, p=0.009) and coryza (OR=0.31, p=0.014) were protective. Conclusion: Present study and algorithm may help identify patients at higher risk of having SARS-COV-2 (online calculator http://wdchealth.covid-map.com/shiny/calculator/), and also disease severity and hospitalization based on symptoms presence, pattern, and duration, which can help physicians and health care providers.

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Fabregat A, Magret M, Ferré JA, Vernet A, Guasch N, Rodríguez A, Gómez J, Bodí M. A Machine Learning decision-making tool for extubation in Intensive Care Unit patients. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169260720317028?via%3Dihub Kempa-Liehr AW, Lin CYC, Britten R, Armstrong D, Wallace J, Mordaunt D, O’Sullivan M. Healthcare pathway discovery and probabilistic machine learning. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1386505619308068?via%3Dihub Li Y, Nair P, Lu XH, Wen Z, Wang Y, Dehaghi AAK, Miao Y, Liu W, Ordog T, Biernacka JM, Ryu E, Olson JE, Frye MA, Liu A, Guo L, Marelli A, Ahuja Y, Davila-Velderrain J, Kellis M. Inferring multimodal latent topics from electronic health records. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7242436/ Weemaes M, Martens S, Cuypers L, van Elslande J, Hoet K, Welkenhuysen J, Goossens R, Wouters S, Houben E, Jeuris E, Jeuris K, Laenen L, Bruyninckx K, Beuselinck K, André E, Depypere M, Desmet S, Lagrou K, Van Ranst M, Verdonck AKLC, Goveia J. Laboratory information system requirements to manage the COVID-19 pandemic: A report from the Belgian national reference testing center. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7197526/

Development and implementation of a scalable and versatile test for COVID-19 diagnostics in rural communities

Rapid and widespread testing of severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is essential for an effective public health response aimed at containing and mitigating the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Successful health policy implementation relies on early identification of infected individuals and extensive contact tracing. However, rural communities, where resources for testing are sparse or simply absent, face distinctive challenges to achieving this success. Accordingly, we report the development of an academic, public land grant University laboratory-based detection assay for the identification of SARS-CoV-2 in samples from various clinical specimens that can be readily deployed in areas where access to testing is limited. The test, which is a quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)-based procedure, was validated on samples provided by the state laboratory and submitted for FDA Emergency Use Authorization. Our test exhibits comparable sensitivity and exceeds specificity and inclusivity values compared to other molecular assays. Additionally, this test can be re-configured to meet supply chain shortages, modified for scale up demands, and is amenable to several clinical specimens. Test development also involved 3D engineering critical supplies and formulating a stable collection media that allowed samples to be transported for hours over a dispersed rural region without the need for a cold-chain. These two elements that were critical when shortages impacted testing and when personnel needed to reach areas that were geographically isolated from the testing center. Overall, using a robust, easy-to-adapt methodology, we show that an academic laboratory can supplement COVID-19 testing needs and help local health departments assess and manage outbreaks. This additional testing capacity is particularly germane for smaller cities and rural regions that would otherwise be unable to meet the testing demand.