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OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to provide an overview of acute disseminating encephalomyelitis, a potential and serious complication of COVID-19. METHODS: Three primary databases were used, PubMed, LitCovid, and WHO. The final review articles reported acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) in COVID-19-positive patients and were full-text, peer-reviewed articles. Articles which did not have patient data such as in vitro studies and articles with unclear inference were excluded. RESULTS: Out of 21 cases of ADEM, the diagnosis of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 was confirmed in 18 and suspected in 3. Among the neurological symptoms, altered consciousness was most common (7/21), followed by anosmia (3), paraplegia (3/21), brain stem involvement (3/21), sphincter involvement (2/21), and quadriplegia (1/21). Raised inflammatory markers were most commonly seen in 9/17. Central nervous system imaging was abnormal in 19 cases and unavailable in 2 cases. Fifteen patients were treated with corticosteroids, 11 patients received intravenous immunoglobulin, while 3 patients received convalescent plasma. Two patients needed surgical intervention. Complications included seizures (1), acute kidney injury and septicemic shock (1), raised intracranial pressure (1), and supraventricular tachycardia secondary to hydroxychloroquine (1). One patient recovered completely and one had good recovery with mild deficits. Thirteen patients had incomplete recovery with residual neurological deficit while three patients died as the consequence of the disease. CONCLUSION: The physicians and neurosurgeons should be diligent while treating the COVID-19 patients with neurological manifestations and include ADEM as a differential diagnosis and stress on early diagnosis and treatment to reduce mortality and achieve satisfactory clinical outcome.
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BACKGROUND: Understanding the drivers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission is crucial for control policies, but evidence of transmission rates in different settings remains limited. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review to estimate secondary attack rates (SARs) and observed reproduction numbers (Robs) in different settings exploring differences by age, symptom status, and duration of exposure. To account for additional study heterogeneity, we employed a beta-binomial model to pool SARs across studies and a negative-binomial model to estimate Robs. RESULTS: Households showed the highest transmission rates, with a pooled SAR of 21.1% (95% confidence interval [CI]:17.4-24.8). SARs were significantly higher where the duration of household exposure exceeded 5 days compared with exposure of ≤5 days. SARs related to contacts at social events with family and friends were higher than those for low-risk casual contacts (5.9% vs 1.2%). Estimates of SARs and Robs for asymptomatic index cases were approximately one-seventh, and for presymptomatic two-thirds of those for symptomatic index cases. We found some evidence for reduced transmission potential both from and to individuals younger than 20 years of age in the household context, which is more limited when examining all settings. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that exposure in settings with familiar contacts increases SARS-CoV-2 transmission potential. Additionally, the differences observed in transmissibility by index case symptom status and duration of exposure have important implications for control strategies, such as contact tracing, testing, and rapid isolation of cases. There were limited data to explore transmission patterns in workplaces, schools, and care homes, highlighting the need for further research in such settings.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , SARS-CoV-2 , Contact Tracing , Family Characteristics , Humans , IncidenceABSTRACT
Importance/Background: With a scarcity of high-grade evidence for COVID-19 treatment, researchers and health care providers across the world have resorted to classical and historical interventions. Immunotherapy with convalescent plasma (CPT) is one such therapeutic option. Methods: A systematized search was conducted for articles published between December 2019 and 18th January 2021 focusing on convalescent plasma efficacy and safety in COVID-19. The primary outcomes were defined as mortality benefit in patients treated with convalescent plasma compared to standard therapy/placebo. The secondary outcome was pooled mortality rate and the adverse event rate in convalescent plasma-treated patients. Results: A total of 27,706 patients were included in the qualitative analysis, and a total of 3,262 (2,127 in convalescent plasma-treated patients and 1,135 in the non-convalescent plasma/control group) patients died. The quantitative synthesis in 23 studies showed that the odds of mortality in patients who received plasma therapy were significantly lower than those in patients who did not receive plasma therapy [odds ratio (OR) 0.65, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.53-0.80, p < 0.0001, I 2 = 15%). The mortality benefit remains the same even for 14 trials/prospective studies (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.43-0.81, p = 0.001, I 2 = 22%) as well as for nine case series/retrospective observational studies (OR 0.78, 95% CI 0.65-0.94, p = 0.01, I 2 = 0%). However, in a subgroup analysis for 10 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), there was no statistically significant reduction in mortality between the CPT group compared to the non-CPT group (OR 0.76, 95% CI 0.53-1.08, p = 0.13, I 2 = 7%). Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis of 10 RCTs, excluding the study with the highest statistical weight, displayed a lower mortality rate compared to that of non-CPT COVID-19 patients (OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.42-0.97, p = 0.04, I 2 = 0%). The observed pooled mortality rate was 12.9% (95% CI 9.7-16.9%), and the pooled adverse event rate was 6.1% (95% CI 3.2-11.6), with significant heterogeneity. Conclusions and Relevance: Our systemic review and meta-analysis suggests that CPT could be an effective therapeutic option with promising evidence on the safety and reduced mortality in concomitant treatment for COVID-19 along with antiviral/antimicrobial drugs, steroids, and other supportive care. Future exploratory studies could benefit from more standardized reporting, especially in terms of the timing of interventions and clinically relevant outcomes, like days until discharge from the hospital and improvement of clinical symptoms.
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Importance/Background: During current public health emergency of COVID-19 pandemic, repurposing of existing antiviral drugs may be an efficient strategy since there is no proven effective treatment. Published literature shows Remdesivir has broad-spectrum antiviral activity against numerous RNA viruses and has been recently recognized as a promising therapy against SARS-CoV-2. Methods: A systematic search was conducted for full length manuscripts published between inception and July 19th, 2020 focussing on efficacy and safety of Remdesivir in COVID-19. The primary outcomes were defined as mortality rate and median days to recovery based on the available pooled data. The secondary outcome was adverse events rate and drug discontinuation rate. Statistical Analysis: All outcomes were performed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software package (Bio stat, Englewood, NJ, USA). Results: A total of 1,895 patients from 9 studies were included in this qualitative synthesis. In patients treated with Remdesivir, the mean recovery time was 15.84 days (95% CI 11.68-20, SE 2.12; I 2 = 97.24) and the pooled mortality rate was 11.3% (95% CI 7.9-16%; I 2 = 74.85). However, treatment with Remdesivir was associated with adverse effects (55.3%, 95% CI 31.5-76.9%; I 2 = 97.66) eventually warranting the discontinuation of the drug (17.8%, 95% CI 8.6-33.1%; I 2 = 95.64). The meta-analysis of three clinical trials indicated that administration of Remdesivir significantly reduces the mortality compared to the placebo (OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.58-0.84, p ≤ 0.001; I 2 = 16.6). Conclusions and Relevance: The result of contemporary meta-analysis suggests mortality benefit with Remdesivir in COVID-19 and median recovery time was over 2 weeks. The pooled mortality with Remdesivir was found to be very low, and this analysis can shed light on this potential treatment for COVID-19 patients.