ABSTRACT
A 48-year-old male, known to have hypertension (HTN), ischemic heart disease (IHD) post-percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) before one year, and morbid obesity (BMI: 60), presented to the emergency department complaining of right thigh pain and swelling that started two days before. The swelling got increasingly worsen over the previous days, associated with dyspnea, for which he sought medical attention in another hospital. He was found to have a picture of sepsis where they offered him irrigation and debridement (I&D) but he refused and presented to our institution in a hemodynamically unstable condition. The patient underwent immediate surgery with subsequent intensive care unit (ICU) admission as a case of necrotizing fasciitis complicated by sepsis. Later he was found to have coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection.
ABSTRACT
We conducted the current analysis to determine the potential role of polio vaccination in the context of the spread of COVID-19. Data were extracted from the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Health Observatory data repository regarding the polio immunization coverage estimates and correlated to the overall morbidity and mortality for COVID-19 among different countries. Data were analyzed using R software version 4.0.2. Mean and standard deviation were used to represent continuous variables while we used frequencies and percentages to represent categorical variables. The Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for continuous variables since they were not normally distributed. Moreover, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (rho) was used to determine the relationship between different variables. There was a significantly positive correlation between the vaccine coverage (%) and both of total cases per one million populations (rho = 0.37; p-value < 0.001) and deaths per one million populations (rho = 0.30; p-value < 0.001). Moreover, there was a significant correlation between different income groups and each of vaccine coverage (%) (rho = 0.71; p-value < 0.001), total cases per one million populations (rho = 0.50; p-value < 0.001), and deaths per one million populations (rho = 0.39; p-value < 0.001). All claims regarding the possible protective effect of Polio vaccination do not have any support when analyzing the related data. Polio vaccination efforts should be limited to eradicate the disease from endemic countries; however, there is no evidence to support the immunization with live-attenuated vaccines for the protection against COVID-19.