Semantic Pneumonia Segmentation and Classification for Covid-19 Using Deep Learning Network

Early detection of the Covid-19 disease is essential due to its higher rate of infection affecting tens of millions of people, and its high number of deaths also by 7%. For that purpose, a proposed model of several stages was developed. The first stage is optimizing the images using dynamic adaptive histogram equalization, performing a semantic segmentation using DeepLabv3Plus, then augmenting the data by flipping it horizontally, rotating it, then flipping it vertically. The second stage builds a custom convolutional neural network model using several pre-trained ImageNet. Finally, the model compares the pre-trained data to the new output, while repeatedly trimming the best-performing models to reduce complexity and improve memory efficiency. Several experiments were done using different techniques and parameters. Accordingly, the proposed model achieved an average accuracy of 99.6% and an area under the curve of 0.996 in the Covid-19 detection. This paper will discuss how to train a customized intelligent convolutional neural network using various parameters on a set of chest X-rays with an accuracy of 99.6%.

In vitro virucidal effect of povidone-iodine against SARS-CoV-2

As of September 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has infected over 30 million people worldwide, and the death toll has now risen to 950,000. Given that Povidone-iodine (PVP-I) had consistently been showing the virucidal efficacy against various types of viruses, such as SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and Ebola, we conducted this study to figure out the virucidal effect against SARS-CoV-2 by using a viral plaque assay. We performed Kill-Time assays to assess the viral inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 contaminants after the application of the PVP-I product (Betadine® Throat Spray, PVP-I 0.45%). This test consisted of clean and dirty conditions and was designed to check the viral titers at a contact time of 60 seconds, which were evaluated by plaque-reduction rates in Vero cells. This PVP-I product fully achieved ≥4 log10 reductions in viral titers under both clean and dirty conditions. This level of reduction, ≥4 log10 (99.99%), in viral titers presented to be effective in terms of virucidal efficacy, according to the European standards, EN14476. This study revealed the virucidal efficacy of Betadine® Throat Spray against SARS-CoV-2 virus. Given that the convenience and availability of this product, we think that it may contribute to inhibit viral infection and transmissibility as an active type of personal protective equipment (PPE) by managing the hygiene of patients and medical professionals.