ABSTRACT
Background: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the benchmark in diagnosing of corona virus disease. It takes at least 4 hours. Multiple studies reported that rapid antigen test could be used. Their role in diagnosing corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is questionable. This study was conducted to assess the accuracy of rapid antigen test in Urology and Nephrology Center Mansoura University, Egypt. Methods: COVID-19 rapid ag test was evaluated in comparison to real time PCR as a gold standard in diagnosis of COVID-19 infection in employees and patients with respiratory symptoms in specialized care facility Urology and Nephrology Center of Mansoura University from March 2020 till August 2021. Complete blood picture and non-contrast computerized tomography (CT) was done. Results: Eight hundred and eighty-four (884) individuals (median age 36 years) were included in this study: 478 healthcare workers, 217 non-healthcare workers, and 189 patients. PCR was positive in 569 samples and negative in 315. Out of 315 negative PCR samples, 8 were positive by rapid antigen test with a specificity of 97.4%. Conclusion: Rapid antigen tests in comparison to PCR test have a good accuracy in diagnosis in of COVID-19 infection and can be used during pandemics in low-resource areas. © 2020 The author (s). Published by Zagazig University.
ABSTRACT
This study aimed to see how 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 [25(OH)D] supplementation affected the performance, immunity, and vitamin D status of broilers, with and without infectious bronchitis virus challenge. Day-old chicks (n = 1000) were divided into four dietary treatments. All experimental treatments were containing 5000 IU of D3 and supplemented with 0, 100, 300, or 500 g/tonne of Bio D containing 0, 13.94, 41.82, or 69.70 mg 25(OH)D, respectively. In unchallenged birds, the inclusion of 25(OH)D significantly improved survival rates and EPEF values, and no significant difference in LBW, BWG, FC, or FCR was observed. In infectious bronchitis virus (IBV)-challenged birds, the 25(OH)D treatment showed less deterioration in BWG, and FC compared with the control, especially 25(OH)D500 group. The lowest mortality was observed in the 25(OH)D500 group. The health status of chicks fed diets supplemented with 25(OH)D post-challenge had significantly better CD4, CD8, and immunoglobulin (IgG, IgM) levels, H/L ratio, total leucocytic count (TLC) in peripheral blood and IBV titers, cytokine (including interleukin (IL) 10) and (IFN)-γ expression, and reduced IBV shedding. After IBV challenge, all 25(OH)D groups recorded higher levels of plasma vitamin D than the control. Furthermore, 25(OH)D groups showed significantly higher antibody titers than the control group. In general, dietary supplementation with different levels of 25(OH)D had a positive effect on inflammatory reaction and stimulated the systemic innate immune responses of chickens during IBV challenge. In turn, recovery in the challenged birds with 25(OH)D rapidly occurred compared with that in the control group. © 2022 The Authors
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 is the most critical aspect that all countries worldwide are trying to overcome. All the institutions in all the fields are trying to tackle the COVID-19 different effects and treatment in depth. Finding the most effective medication or vaccination is the only refuge to get back to normal life before reaching an economic crisis that can never be handled. All medicines have impact factors that tell if this medicine is effective in curing certain diseases. In this paper, we studied the effectiveness of different COVID-19 medicines to detect the effectiveness of new drugs in curing the new Coronavirus. Another goal of this paper is to find the most dominant descriptor of the studied medicines. For this reason, different sets of descriptors have been tested. According to the conducted experiments, the lowest prediction error of 18.9856 was optimized SVM with PUK kernel. Moreover, it was found that the most powerful feature that can best represent the COVID-19 drugs is the number of rings, then the Number of NHA, the number of Chiral centers, and the number of rotatable bonds come next. These findings will help medicinal chemists design and repurpose new drugs that alleviate SARS-CoV-2. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.