ABSTRACT
While coronavirus disease 2019 has become a pandemic, the necessity of vaccination is crucial. Early 2020, scientists across the world started their vaccine trials to fight the pandemic. More than 46 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Saudi Arabia. However, vaccine hesitancy, especially from parents towards their children can be an obstacle. As the parents can be hesitant, they can refuse or deny to vaccinate their children. Our aim is to investigate families' acceptance, concerns, and obstacles related to COVID-19 vaccine among children in Saudi Arabia. Cross-sectional study was conducted from January to April 2022. An online form questionnaire composed of 15 questions was distributed electronically. Our results showed a total of 250 respondents were included in the analysis, of which 78% were female and 22% male aged between 21 to 78 years old. 88% had a university education and 40% was received 3 doses of COVID vaccine, 55.5% received two doses of vaccine, 4% received only one dose and 1% not vaccinated. 64% of parents do not support their children receiving the Corona vaccine, while 36% are supportive of it. This study revealed that many parents were hesitant to give immunity against SARS-CoV-2 to their children. Further educational programs and influence from the social media for parents and community is essential to fight this hesitancy.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging respiratory disease that is caused by a novel coronavirus, which was first diagnosed in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and subsequently spread to many other countries. Numerous countries have reported increasing numbers of confirmed cases and death per day;therefore, on March 11, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease and can affect patients with low immunity especially pregnant females. Vaccines are an important source of elevating immunity and promoting health. Our main aim for this study is to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant females towards COVID-19 vaccine in Makkah Mukarramah. A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 73 consenting pregnant women using pretested questionnaires. In our results we found the mean age and mean gestational age of the respondents were between 25 and 30 years of age and third trimesters, respectively. More than four-fifths (90%) of the females believed that COVID-19 is real, and their main source of information was the internet. The majority had adequate knowledge of COVID-19. Majority showed a good attitude and preventive practice of COVID-19 disease;however, 39 percent thought that hospitals are very infected with this virus. The study population has good knowledge, attitude, and practice of COVID-19 disease and the need of vaccination against it. However, community education is needed to reduce anxiety among pregnant women and to increase the acceptance of vaccination towards improving health and immunity.
ABSTRACT
Objective: Statins result in lower H5N1 (influenza A) titers on viral exposure and inhibit Ebola virus production and glycoprotein processing. So a similar pattern might be a target for SARS-CoV-2. However, there are data that indicate statins upregulate ACE2 which may have an opposite effect on SARS-CoV-2 infection. To address this question we conducted a systematic review on the efficacy of statins on the risk of respiratory tract infections (RTIs). Design and method: Publications of head-to-head randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of statins were retrieved from MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane (from 2000-July 2021). We included RCTs with at least 100 participants and with a minimum follow-up of one year. Two authors independently selected the included trials, evaluated the risk of bias, and retrieved the data on RTIs. Meta-analyses were performed to summarise the pooled risk ratios (RRs) of RTIs between treatment arms. Results: The initial literature search identified 568 records. After duplicates were excluded, there were 318 records. Twenty-five RCTs were excluded after a fulltext review of the 29 eligible studies. In the end, four RCTs with a total of 7,912 participants were included in our meta-analysis. As to the effect of statins on RTIs, the point estimate for statins was less than 1, but it did not reach statistical significance in the overall analysis (the pooled RR in the fixed effect model was 0.99 [95% CI: 0.94, 1.04;I2 = 59%;x2 p = 0.66]). Conclusions: The findings of our systematic review and meta-analysis do not support the hypothesis that statins reduce the risk of including RTIs. (Figure Presented).