Stressful events induce long-term gut microbiota dysbiosis and associated post-traumatic stress symptoms in healthcare workers fighting against COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: The microbiota-gut-brain axis is a key pathway perturbed by prolonged stressors to produce brain and behavioral disorders. Frontline healthcare workers (FHWs) fighting against COVID-19 typically experience stressful event sequences and manifest some mental symptoms; however, the role of gut microbiota in such stress-induced mental problems remains unclear. We investigated the association between the psychological stress of FHW and gut microbiota. METHODS: We used full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing to characterize the longitudinal changes in gut microbiota and investigated the impact of microbial changes on FHWs' mental status. RESULTS: Stressful events induced significant depression, anxiety, and stress in FHWs and disrupted the gut microbiome; gut dysbiosis persisted for at least half a year. Different microbes followed discrete trajectories during the half-year of follow-up. Microbes associated with mental health were mainly Faecalibacterium spp. and [Eubacterium] eligens group spp. with anti-inflammatory effects. Of note, the prediction model indicated that low abundance of [Eubacterium] hallii group uncultured bacterium and high abundance of Bacteroides eggerthii at Day 0 (immediately after the two-month frontline work) were significant determinants of the reappearance of post-traumatic stress symptoms in FHWs. LIMITATIONS: The lack of metabolomic evidence and animal experiments result in the unclear mechanism of gut dysbiosis-related stress symptoms. CONCLUSION: The stressful event sequences of fighting against COVID-19 induce characteristic longitudinal changes in gut microbiota, which underlies dynamic mental state changes.

The immunology and immunotherapy for COVID-19.

The ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and significantly impacts the world economy and daily life. Symptoms of COVID-19 range from asymptomatic to fever, dyspnoea, acute respiratory distress and multiple organ failure. Critical cases often occur in the elderly and patients with pre-existing conditions. By binding to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor, SARS-CoV-2 can enter and replicate in the host cell, exerting a cytotoxic effect and causing local and systemic inflammation. Currently, there is no specific treatment for COVID-19, and immunotherapy has consistently attracted attention because of its essential role in boosting host immunity to the virus and reducing overwhelming inflammation. In this review, we summarise the immunopathogenic features of COVID-19 and highlight recent advances in immunotherapy to illuminate ideas for the development of new potential therapies.

Associations between Indoor Environmental Quality and Infectious Diseases Knowledge, Beliefs and Practices of Hotel Workers in Wuhan, China.

Knowledge, beliefs, and practices regarding infectious diseases are key elements that ensure practitioners' health and safety. It is important to carry out such a survey in hotels. This study aims to determine the levels of knowledge, beliefs, and practices regarding infectious diseases among practitioners and their associations with the environmental quality of hotels in Wuhan, China. We surveyed infectious disease knowledge, beliefs, and practices of practitioners in 18 hotels and detected these hotels' environment, including physical factors of temperature, humidity, noise, and the indoor air quality of benzene, toluene, xylene, formaldehyde, CO, CO2, the total count of fungi, aerobic plate count, PM10, and PM2.5. 128 practitioners were included, and 28.9% were male. The questionnaire included knowledge, beliefs, and practices regarding infectious diseases. Our study found moderate levels of knowledge and beliefs, and good health practices. People's beliefs toward COVID-19 were correlated significantly with their knowledge (p < 0.05). Beliefs and health practices were correlated significantly with environmental quality (p < 0.05). However, the environmental quality was correlated negatively with the classification of hotels. Conclusively, despite the good health practices of practitioners, the knowledge and beliefs toward infectious diseases need to strengthen. Hotels should emphasize health education in practitioners and the improvement of environmental hygiene. Integrating all three components into a comprehensive environmental promotion program is warranted.