Perception Analysis Of The Use Of Over-The-Counter Medications Amid COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Acquiring the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human. Provision of standard healthcare facilities is essential for the development of any nation. Although it is difficult for such provision of optimum healthcare facilities at public level. In that case, over the counter medications took over. In this study assessed the frequency of use of such medications with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzed population perception and awareness regarding the same. Method(s): This is a Cross-sectional survey conducted among the general public, which included 328 individuals consented to participate. It was conducted through telephonic interviews and an online questionnaire which was circulated across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Our questionnaire included 4 sections (i) Demographic information (ii) over the counter medication practices with respect to preexisting medical illness (iii) over the counter Medication practices prior to and during the pandemic (iv) knowledge and awareness assessment. Data was analyzed by SPSS software. Result(s): Our survey indicates that there is an increase in over-the-counter medication usage from 48.4% prior to COVID to 83.8% after COVID. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are the most used over the counter drug. Among them, paracetamol was at the risk of abuse/ misuse. Conclusion(s): More than half of the over-the-counter drug users were not aware of the dosage and adverse reactions of the drug they take. With more individuals tending towards over-the-counter medication, the risk to adverse drug events and complications of undiagnosed diseases tends to be high. Copyright © 2023 Authors. All rights reserved.

SARS-CoV-2 severity classification from plasma sample using confocal Raman spectroscopy.

The world is on the brink of facing coronavirus's (COVID-19) fourth wave as the mutant forms of viruses are escaping neutralizing antibodies in spite of being vaccinated. As we have already witnessed that it has encumbered our health system, with hospitals swamped with infected patients observed during the viral outbreak. Rapid triage of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 is required during hospitalization to prioritize and provide the best point of care. Traditional diagnostics techniques such as RT-PCR and clinical parameters such as symptoms, comorbidities, sex and age are not enough to identify the severity of patients. Here, we investigated the potential of confocal Raman microspectroscopy as a powerful tool to generate an expeditious blood-based test for the classification of COVID-19 disease severity using 65 patients plasma samples from cohorts infected with SARS-CoV-2. We designed an easy manageable blood test where we used a small volume (8 µl) of inactivated whole plasma samples from infected patients without any extra solvent usage in plasma processing. Raman spectra of plasma samples were acquired and multivariate exploratory analysis PC-LDA (principal component based linear discriminant analysis) was used to build a model, which segregated the severe from the non-severe COVID-19 group with a sensitivity of 83.87%, specificity of 70.60% and classification efficiency of 76.92%. Among the bands expressed in both the cohorts, the study led to the identification of Raman fingerprint regions corresponding to lipids (1661, 1742), proteins amide I and amide III (1555, 1247), proteins (Phe) (1006, 1034), and nucleic acids (760) to be differentially expressed in severe COVID-19 patient's samples. In summary, the current study exhibits the potential of confocal Raman to generate simple, rapid, and less expensive blood tests to triage the severity of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Contact Tracing Detection Application for Covid-19 using Machine Learning Techniques

A Contact Tracking Model is designed to combat the COVID-19 outbreak by incorporating Clustering/DBSCAN Algorithms, which fall under the realm of Machine Learning. The procedure used by public health ministry's to assist control the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19 within a community is known as contact tracing. Performing contact tracing correctly during a pandemic can assist limit the number of people who become infected or speed up the process of treating those who are already affected. We will create clusters using this model, which will assist us find infections by filtering the data in the clusters. The high-density clusters are the areas where a big number of people are likely to come into contact with an infected person, whereas the low-density areas can be overlooked because they contain a lower number of people collected together. © 2022 IEEE.

COVID-19 Serological Survey-3 Prior to Second Wave in Mumbai, India.

Background: Subsequent to serosurveys 1 and 2 for COVID-19 carried out in three wards of Mumbai in July and August 2020, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai conducted serosurvey 3 in March 2021. This was to identify the extent of exposure by testing specific IgG antibodies against COVID-19. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to find the prevalence of seropositivity in Mumbai, which included 10,197 samples belonging to patients visiting public dispensaries (slum population, 6006) and private (nonslum population, 4191) laboratories of Aapli Chikitsa network for blood investigations for non-COVID illnesses. The ward-wise number of unlinked anonymous samples from 24 wards was predecided by using probability proportionate sampling. The samples were collected using quota sampling technique as per predecided sample for each ward. These samples collected from nonimmunized individuals were tested for IgG antibodies at the Molecular Biology Laboratory of Kasturba Hospital for Infectious Diseases by chemiluminescence assay (CLIA) method. Results: The overall seropositivity was found to be 36.3% (41.6% in slum and 28.59% in nonslum population). It was more in city wards (38.28%) followed by western suburb (36.47%) and then eastern suburb wards (34.86%), matching with the proportion of cases in these wards during the study period. There was no significant difference in seropositivity among males and females and in different age groups. Conclusions: Seropositivity is higher in slum areas than nonslum areas. It has reduced in slum areas and increased in nonslum areas as compared to findings of serosurveys 1 and 2. This explains the detection of a greater number of cases from nonslum areas in the second wave. The average seropositivity of 36.3% justifies the necessity of immunization on a wider scale in the city. Periodic serosurveys are required at fixed intervals to monitor the trend of infection and level of herd immunity.

Synthesis, Spectral, Crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface, Computational analysis, and Antimicrobial studies of Ethyl-(E)-4-(2-(2arylidenehydrazinyl)-2-oxoethyl)piperazine-1-carboxylat es

A new series of ethyl-(E)-4-(2-(2-arylidenehydrazinyl)-2-oxoethyl)piperazine-1-carboxylates (hydrazones) 4a-4e and 5a-5c were designed and synthesized from 1-ethoxycarbonylpiperazine. The hydrazones structure interpretations were achieved by spectroscopic analysis using FT-IR, 1D and 2D NMR and mass. Among the aforementioned hydrazones 4a-4e and 5a-5c, single crystal XRD structure was reported for hydrazone 4a. Both NMR and single crystal XRD analysis are clearly indicated the existence of E configuration of the azomethine group (-C=N-) and cis conformation of the amide group. Hirshfeld surface analysis and 2D fingerprint plot were employed to get a better understanding of non-covalent interactions (NCIs), which showed that the N-H center dot center dot center dot O and C-H center dot center dot center dot O intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions are the key contributor to stabilize the molecular solids. Density functional theory (DFT) study was carried out to explore the geometrical parameters and electronic properties of frontiers molecular orbitals (FMO), global chemical reactivity descriptor parameter (GCRD), natural bond orbital (NBO), and non-linear optical (NLO) properties for 4a at B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level. The molecular docking study was performed for hydrazone 4a with nCoV-SARS-2 main protease for COVID-19. Finally, the hydrazones in this synthetic series were screened for their antibacterial and antifungal activities using selected strains. Antimicrobial studies revealed that 4a and 5b against A. niger, 4c and 5c against K. pneumonia, 4e against B. subtilis, 5a, 5b, and 5c against A. flavus, A.niger and C. neoformans, respectively exhibits remarkable antibacterial and antifungal activity at a minimum concentration of 6.25 mu g/mL. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Immune profile and responses of a novel dengue DNA vaccine encoding an EDIII-NS1 consensus design based on Indo-African sequences.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to tackle viral variants, expand the number of antigens, and assess diverse delivery systems for vaccines against emerging viruses. In the present study, a DNA vaccine candidate was generated by combining in tandem envelope protein domain III (EDIII) of dengue virus serotypes 1-4 and a dengue virus (DENV)-2 non-structural protein 1 (NS1) protein-coding region. Each domain was designed as a serotype-specific consensus coding sequence derived from different genotypes based on the whole genome sequencing of clinical isolates in India and complemented with data from Africa. This sequence was further optimized for protein expression. In silico structural analysis of the EDIII consensus sequence revealed that epitopes are structurally conserved and immunogenic. The vaccination of mice with this construct induced pan-serotype neutralizing antibodies and antigen-specific T cell responses. Assaying intracellular interferon (IFN)-γ staining, immunoglobulin IgG2(a/c)/IgG1 ratios, and immune gene profiling suggests a strong Th1-dominant immune response. Finally, the passive transfer of immune sera protected AG129 mice challenged with a virulent, non-mouse-adapted DENV-2 strain. Our findings collectively suggest an alternative strategy for dengue vaccine design by offering a novel vaccine candidate with a possible broad-spectrum protection and a successful clinical translation either as a stand alone or in a mix and match strategy.

Rapid Classification of COVID-19 Severity by ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy of Plasma Samples.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to ravage the world, with many hospitals overwhelmed by the large number of patients presenting during major outbreaks. A rapid triage for COVID-19 patient requiring hospitalization and intensive care is urgently needed. Age and comorbidities have been associated with a higher risk of severe COVID-19 but are not sufficient to triage patients. Here, we investigated the potential of attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy as a rapid blood test for classification of COVID-19 disease severity using a cohort of 160 COVID-19 patients. A simple plasma processing and ATR-FTIR data acquisition procedure was established using 75% ethanol for viral inactivation. Next, partial least-squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models were developed and tested using data from 130 and 30 patients, respectively. Addition of the ATR-FTIR spectra to the clinical parameters (age, sex, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension) increased the area under the ROC curve (C-statistics) for both the training and test data sets, from 69.3% (95% CI 59.8-78.9%) to 85.7% (78.6-92.8%) and 77.8% (61.3-94.4%) to 85.1% (71.3-98.8%), respectively. The independent test set achieved 69.2% specificity (42.4-87.3%) and 94.1% sensitivity (73.0-99.0%). Diabetes mellitus was the strongest predictor in the model, followed by FTIR regions 1020-1090 and 1588-1592 cm-1. In summary, this study demonstrates the potential of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy as a rapid, low-cost COVID-19 severity triage tool to facilitate COVID-19 patient management during an outbreak.