ABSTRACT
The use of a timely and appropriate antibiotic therapy, which requires early and accurate microorganisms' detection in pneumonia. Currently, the identification of microorganisms in pneumonia is limited by the low sensitivity and long response time of standard culture-based diagnostic tools. For this reason, treatment in pneumonia is empirical. An inadequate empirical treatment is related to poor outcomes in patients with pneumonia. The microbiological diagnosis is key to improve the outcomes in patient with pneumonia. Over the past years there was a significant advance in the molecular diagnosis of infectious diseases including pneumonia. Also the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the development and application of these new molecular techniques. This review summarizes the advances in molecular diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia.Copyright © 2022 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA.
ABSTRACT
In the midst the COVID-19 pandemic, and given the imminence of oxygen shortages in Colombia, the Knowledge Management and Transfer Network, made up of 19 scientific societies, health institutions, and universities, generates an update to the document led by the Colombian Association of Critical Medicine and includes new evidence-informed guidelines for the rational management of oxygen therapy, as well as basic and advanced devices for oxygen therapy. The recommendations refer to five topics: goal-oriented rational use of oxygen, standardization of follow-up and dose adjustment, effective use of oxygen therapy devices, rational use of invasive mechanical ventilation, and rational use of extracorporeal oxygenation membrane therapy. When exercising their judgment, it is expected that professionals and care teams will take into account these guidelines to make rational and safe use of oxygen therapy and its basic and advanced devices, together with the individual needs and preferences of the people who are under their care. © 2021 Asociación Colombiana de Medicina Crítica y Cuidado lntensivo
ABSTRACT
The use of the Internet and the development of new technologies have introduced remarkable changes in the teaching-knowledge process in higher education. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of universities have had to change from the traditional face-to-face teaching to online teaching methods (eLearning). For this reason, the present research aims to measure the quality of service perceived by the students about the eLearning process during the period of the Covid-19. To attain this goal, a variant of the Importance-Performance-Analysis (Gap-IPA) method is used. The importance is evaluated by means of the Structural Equation Method. The data was gathered from a sample of 467 students from a Spanish southern University, who receive face-to-face teaching under normal or customary circumstances. The results show that for improving the quality of online teaching priority action must be taken on the following aspects: interaction between students, concentration during online lessons, revision of online tests, system utility and diversity of assessment methods. The findings of this study allow to guide educational managers in the correct definition of their strategies. © 2022 Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: Routine medical care was drastically affected by the overwhelming irruption of COVID-19 pandemic. We comprehensively assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the prevention and care for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections at a large reference hospital providing preventive and clinical services for HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections. Methods: We retrospectively compared clinical and laboratory data from March to December 2020 (first ten months of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemics in Spain) vs. the same period 2019 in the setting of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona which provides preventive and clinical services for HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections for the region of Catalonia and is the largest of its kind in Spain. Monthly clinical data on HIV pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis users and on adults with HIV infection were retrieved from the administrative hospital database. Monthly tests for HIV, hepatitis B and C, Treponema pallidum, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Chlamydia trachomatis, and plasma lipids and glucose were recovered from the laboratory database. De novo HIV, hepatitis B, or hepatitis C diagnosis were considered whenever a person had a first known positive laboratory test. Results: There were less (28% reduction) but more advanced (mean [SD] CD4 cell counts per mm3 at HIV diagnosis 305 [167] vs. 370 [170], P<0.001;26 (18%) persons had AIDS-defining conditions at HIV diagnosis vs. 20 (10%), P=0.03) HIV cases and more gonorrhea (39% increase, P<0.001) and chlamydia (37% increase, P<0.001) infections in 2020 vs. 2019. In people with HIV, rates of viral load above the level of detection remained stable (11% vs 11%, P=0.147) despite less scheduled visits (25% reduction, P<0.001). However, they had less antiretroviral prescription changes (10% reduction, P=0.018), worse plasma lipids (mean total cholesterol 190 vs 185 mg/dL, P<0.001;mean LDL cholesterol 114 vs 110 mg/dL, P<0.001;mean triglycerides 136 vs 125 mg/dL, P<0.001;mean HDL cholesterol 47 vs 48 mg/dL, P=0.006), and an excess of mortality (29 deaths vs 11, 264% increase, P=0.006) due in great part to COVID-19 (n=11) but also to other non-COVID-19 causes. Conclusion: In the setting of a large Spanish reference hospital, SARS-CoV-2 epidemics was associated with an increase of some prevalent sexually transmitted infections, with less but more advanced de novo HIV infections, and with worse non-virologic healthcare outcomes and higher mortality in people living with HIV.
ABSTRACT
To ensure high-quality educational processes, more educational research should be developed about student experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the student's perception about distance learning education (under the current situation) could be used as input for instructors and educational institutions to guide their distance learning process. The primary aim of this research is to explore engineering undergraduate student's perceptions about the online assessment methods during the COVID-19 age. This paper presents an exploratory-descriptive study based on content and quantitative analysis tools. The main findings of this research concern the factors perceived as the main differences between the face-to-face and online assessment by a group of engineering students during the current pandemic. These factors are: teaching presence, self-efficacy, autonomy, teamwork, and coherence between assessment and class. Furthermore, in the analyzed state-of-the-art, the last three factors have not been reported. These results will be used to guide the improvement of future online assessment methods in our engineering school. © 2022, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Since the trade agreement signed with the European Union and the European Free Trade Association in 2018, the Ecuadorian government has prioritized the Global Exporter program: Ecuador for the World with a prospective vision, with which it intended to empower the agri-food sector to place Ecuadorian products in new markets. However, the appearance of SARS CoV-2 / COVID-19 at the end of February 2020 detracted from the anticipation exercise carried out together with its scenarios. Consequently, the objective of this study is to identify the post pandemic scenarios with the highest relative probability of occurrence for the internationalization of the Ecuadorian agri-food sector by the year 2035. For this purpose, a methodological proposal was designed that integrates tools from the French Prospective School, original consultation instruments and statistical tests. Thus, the findings reflected that the scenario with the highest probability of occurrence is Number 03 (111101) with a percentage representation of 33%.