ABSTRACT
Aims: To assess medical students' perception of online teaching to suggest transforming the future curriculum in low-economic countries. Study Design: Cross-sectional online interview study. Place and Duration of Study: A team of collaborators interviewed final year medical and dental students of Pakistan from 07/08/2020 till 17/09/2020. Methodology: A questionnaire was developed based on open and close-ended questions in Google forms;focusing on institutional preparedness, views on online education, the institute's closure and COVID-19, and long-term effects of closure of the institute. Independent fellow researchers systematically analyzed the unaltered transcripts of the responses, and themes were then identified and coded to conclude the results. SPSS version 23 used for analysis. As this study was based on final year students. Results: In response to an invitation email, 2442/2661 (91.77%) students voluntarily participate in this qualitative study. Most participants were females (1614, 66.10%). Closing down institutes was directly linked to a lack of motivation and feel of helplessness. As most showed dissatisfaction with online teaching compounded by psychological effects, students feared losing clinical skills and life during the pandemic. Conclusion: The psychological impact of the crisis led to resistance to accepting the change for a better outcome. Incorporating telemedicine, different interactive learning style to online teaching, and resilience training would result in fruitful outcomes. Developed countries may also guide build infrastructure in developing countries to develop a more robust online teaching methodology in the long-run.
ABSTRACT
Indoor air environments contain a complex mixture of bioaerosols containing bacteria, protozoans, viruses possibly including SARS CoV-2 causing COVID-19, and their by-products as well such as endotoxins, mycotoxins, and volatile microbial organic compounds. Bioaerosols are forms of air particles, present mostly in the indoor air that humans inhale. Therefore, the indoor environment is crucial components causing various health-related problems. Almost 40% of individuals spent their quality time at home and the remaining 60 to 70% of individuals spent their day in the workplace. There is a lack of awareness about bioaerosols of the indoor environment and their contribution towards the spread of various infections. This review presents the trend of various elements of bioaerosols in indoor air and their association with pulmonary and other diseases due to indoor air pollution. Recently, the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has alerted us about the importance of bioaerosol research. Hence, the characterizations of bioaerosols including seasonal variation are necessary for its associated risk factor, prevention, and impact on human health.
ABSTRACT
An outbreak of coronavirus pneumonia was firstly documented in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China (December 2019), with an indication of human-to-human transmission. The causative agent identified for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). America, Italy, India, and Africa became new venues of COVID infection;the overall data of patients and death is increasing day by day. Generally inplace of most of the infected people develop respiratory symptoms (throat pain, cough, etc.), fever, and chest opacity on CT scan and X-ray. A few numbers of suspected persons are found asymptomatic;they may serve as carriers for infection. As a point of care, the patient diagnosis is compulsory, and only the diagnosis can provide a real-time condition of patients and can be helpful in arresting the spreading of the infection. In the present chapter, we focused on illustrating various diagnostic techniques that have been employed by the world for the detection of the coronavirus. The diagnostic techniques are categorized into molecular and serologic assay techniques. The nucleic acid is detected in molecular assay, whereas the serologic assay uses antigen-antibody reaction. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) named by the WHO as a result of the global public health emergency. COVID-19 is caused by a new coronavirus named as novel coronavirus (2019-nCOV). From the first case reported in December 2019 it is now a pandemic situation and a major public health emergency. The COVID-19 transmission rate is very high, infecting two to three persons on average with contact to an already infected person. There is a need for the health system, specially in developing countries such as in Pakistan, to combat such a novel disease by rapid, accurate, and high quality diagnostic testing in order to screen suspected cases and also surveillance of the disease. A rapid, accurate and low-cost diagnostic point-of-care device is needed for timely diagnosis of COVID-19 and is essential to combat such outbreaks for compelling preventive measures against the disease spread. This review is to highlight the importance of point-of-care diagnostics device for robust and accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 in physician offices and other urgent healthcare-type settings and encourage academics and stake holders towards advancement in order to control outbreaks and develop the public health surveillance system.