Decreases in Hepatitis C Testing and Treatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare services, reducing opportunities to conduct routine hepatitis C virus antibody screening, clinical care, and treatment. Therefore, people living with undiagnosed hepatitis C virus during the pandemic may later become identified at more advanced stages of the disease, leading to higher morbidity and mortality rates. Further, unidentified hepatitis C virus-infected individuals may continue to unknowingly transmit the virus to others. METHODS: To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, data were evaluated from a large national reference clinical laboratory and from national estimates of dispensed prescriptions for hepatitis C virus treatment. Investigators estimated the average number of hepatitis C virus antibody tests, hepatitis C virus antibody-positive test results, and hepatitis C virus RNA-positive test results by month in January-July for 2018 and 2019, compared with the same months in 2020. To assess the impact of hepatitis C virus treatment, dispensed hepatitis C virus direct-acting antiretroviral medications were examined for the same time periods. Statistical analyses of trends were performed using negative binomial models. RESULTS: Compared with the 2018 and 2019 months, hepatitis C virus antibody testing volume decreased 59% during April 2020 and rebounded to a 6% reduction in July 2020. The number of hepatitis C virus RNA-positive results fell by 62% in March 2020 and remained 39% below the baseline by July 2020. For hepatitis C virus treatment, prescriptions decreased 43% in May, 37% in June, and 38% in July relative to the corresponding months in 2018 and 2019. CONCLUSIONS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, continued public health messaging, interventions and outreach programs to restore hepatitis C virus testing and treatment to prepandemic levels, and maintenance of public health efforts to eliminate hepatitis C infections remain important.

Dynamic changes of Chest CT follow-up in Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pneumonia: relationship to clinical typing.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the CT changes of different clinical types of COVID-19 pneumonia. METHODS: This retrospective study included 50 patients with COVID-19 from 16 January 2020 to 25 February 2020. We analyzed the clinical characteristics, CT characteristics and the pneumonia involvement of the patients between the moderate group and the severe and critical group, and the dynamic changes of severity with the CT follow-up time. RESULTS: There were differences in the CT severity score of the right lung in the initial CT, and total CT severity score in the initial and follow-up CT between the moderate group and the severe and critical group (all p < 0.05). There was a quadratic relationship between total CT severity score and CT follow-up time in the severe and critical group (r2 = 0.137, p = 0.008), the total CT severity score peaked at the second follow-up CT. There was no correlation between total CT severity score and CT follow-up time in the moderate group (p > 0.05). There were no differences in the occurrence rate of CT characteristics in the initial CT between the two groups (all p > 0.05). There were differences in the occurrence rate of ground-glass opacity and crazy-paving pattern in the second follow-up CT, and pleural thickening or adhesion in the third follow-up CT between the two groups (all p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The CT changes of COVID-19 pneumonia with different severity were different, and the extent of pneumonia involvement by CT can help to assess the severity of COVID-19 pneumonia rather than the initial CT characteristics.