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The extraction of features from unstructured clinical data of Covid-19 patients is critical for guiding clinical decision-making and diagnosing this viral disease. Furthermore, an early and accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 can reduce the burden on healthcare systems. In this paper, an improved Term Weighting technique combined with Parts-Of-Speech (POS) Tagging is proposed to reduce dimensions for automatic and effective classification of clinical text related to Covid-19 disease. Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) is the most often used term weighting scheme (TWS). However, TF-IDF has several developments to improve its drawbacks, in particular, it is not efficient enough to classify text by assigning effective weights to the terms in unstructured data. In this research, we proposed a modification term weighting scheme: RTF-C-IEF and compare the proposed model with four extraction methods: TF, TF-IDF, TF-IHF, and TF-IEF. The experiment was conducted on two new datasets for COVID-19 patients. The first dataset was collected from government hospitals in Iraq with 3053 clinical records, and the second dataset with 1446 clinical reports, was collected from several different websites. Based on the experimental results using several popular classifiers applied to the datasets of Covid-19, we observe that the proposed scheme RTF-C-IEF achieves is a consistent performer with the best scores in most of the experiments. Further, the modified RTF-C-IEF proposed in the study outperformed the original scheme and other employed term weighting methods in most experiments. Thus, the proper selection of term weighting scheme among the different methods improves the performance of the classifier and helps to find the informative term. © 2023 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.
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Background: The coronavirus disease "COVID-19" was reported in 2019 as an outbreak in Wuhan, China, and categorized as a pandemic disease in 2020 with severe complications. Objective: This study aimed to test the effects of COVID-19 infection on blood parameters and to assess these effects with disease progress. Patients and Methods: 120 patients with COVID-19 in Al-Amal Specialized Hospital for Communicable Diseases in Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf province with 30 healthy (control) individuals of both genders were included in this study. Blood parameters (complete blood count, PLT and ferritin) were measured for 3 weeks from the 1st day of hospitalization. Results: The study revealed significant differences in the hematological parameters for COVID-19 patients in comparison with the control group and these variations increased with the progress and severity of the disease. No significant variations were noticed in Hb and HCT of patients compared to control, but these parameters decreased with disease progression. Conclusion: A comparison of COVID-19 patients with healthy individuals revealed significant differences in hematological parameters, which became more pronounced with the progression and severity of the disease. © 2022, Ain Shams University Faculty of Medicine. All rights reserved.
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Religious beliefs are defined as thinking, feeling and behaving in accordance with the beliefs and teachings of a religious system. In other words, religious beliefs are indicative of the role of religion in the individual and social life of people, as well as adherence to values and beliefs in daily life, performing religious practices and rituals and participating in activities of religious organisations. Religious beliefs are a set of dos and don’ts, and values are considered one of the most important psychological supports that can provide meaning in all moments of life and save a person from meaninglessness by providing explanatory support in specific situations. In addition, work conscience is defined as a feeling of inner commitment to comply with agreed-upon requirements for work. In other words, work conscience means heartfelt satisfaction and practical commitment to the tasks that a person is supposed to perform properly, in a way that there will be no negligence in performing the duty even if no supervisor oversees the activity. Given the significant role of nurses in hospitals, especially during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the religious beliefs of healthcare employees have become more important. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of religious beliefs on the work conscience of 1800 Muslim nurses in Iraq during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Standard questionnaires were applied to assess the respondents’ religious beliefs and work conscience. In addition, data analyses (Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson’s correlation, etc.) were performed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the results, religious beliefs have a positive effect on nurses’ work conscience (p = 0.822). Contribution: The findings of this study showed that the employees of an organisation, especially nurses and healthcare staff, can rely on their religious beliefs and benefit from their advantages in order to strengthen their work conscience during a hard time such as the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022. The Authors.
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Background: Data on SARS-CoV-2 in infants ≤ 90 days are limited with conflicting reports regarding its presentation and outcomes. Methods: We conducted an ambispective cohort study using prospectively collected Health Electronic Surveillance Network Database by the Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia. Infants of ≤ 90 days of age who had a positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 virus were included. Patients were divided in Early neonatal (0-6 days), late neonatal (7-27 days), and post- neonatal (28-90 days) groups and were compared for clinical characteristics and outcomes by contacting parents and collecting information retrospectively. Results: Of 1,793 infants, 898 infants were included for analysis. Most infants in the early neonatal group had no features of infection (tested based on maternal positivity), whereas most infants in the late and post- neonatal groups were tested because of clinical features of infection. Fever and respiratory signs were the most common presenting feature in the late and post-neonatal groups. Hospitalization was higher in the early neonatal group (80%), compared to the two other groups. The overall mortality in the cohort was 1.6%. Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 infection in infants ≤ 90 days might not be as rare as previously reported. The clinical presentation varies based on age at positive RT-PCR result.
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Background: SARS-Cov-2, the culprit responsible for the 2019 new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has posed a serious threat to worldwide public health. At the moment, it is estimated that the novel coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has infected It has infected a huge number of people worldwide and is responsible for the clinical syndrome of coronavirus sickness 2019 (COVID-19). Although the primary clinical manifestation is pulmonary disease, mounting evidence supports the involvement of multiple organ systems, including the Gastro Intestinal (GI) tract and liver. To evaluate the potential changes in liver function tests, and their association with illness severity and mortality in patients with COVID-19. Materials and methods: This case-control study of 90 subjects were included, 60 patients admitted to Merjan Hospital, Babel, Iraq infected with COVID-19 and 30 samples of healthy subjects as a control group. The serum levels of ALT, AST, Alp, and albumin were measured by colorimetric methods. Serum ferritin and d-dimer were measured by ichroma, and CBC conducting a statistical analysis and associated with the severity of disease. Results: In this study, the results demonstrated a significant increase in levels of ALT, AST, ALP, ferritinin, and D-dimer in patients compared with the healthy group. Levels of serum ferritin have a significant positive correlation with D-dimer, ALP, AST, ALT, and NLR levels. While, it has a significant negative correlated with serum albumin in patients with corona virus group. The neutrophil percentage significantly higher than normal. While, the lymphocyte percentage was significantly lower in patients with elevated ferritin and d-dimer levels than the healthy group. Conclusion: COVID-19 patients with abnormal liver function testes are common in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, and associated with illness severity and rate of death as a higher incidence of severity illness and liver injury in patients with increased levels of serum ferritin, and D-dimer. © 2021 Norman WA, et al.
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Biomedical waste (BMW) contains pathogenic microorganisms that may severely harm the community and environment. Due to the Covid pandemic-2019, isolated wards at health care units and even due to the home treated patients;vast quantities of BMW are generated. Covid-19 converts even ordinary waste such as gloves, testing kits, and personal protective equipment into high-risk BMW. The appropriate disposal of such waste involves safety, affordability, and efficacy;hence can be considered a complex issue. A solution proposed in this article is an OSBMWTU (on-site biomedical waste treatment unit) by using microwave radiation. The possibility of enhancing the thermal effect of microwave radiation by using chemical additives was tested. The proposed machine reduces waste volume, inactivates microorganisms, and disposes BMW on-site. Findings suggest that adding butter spray to microwave radiation enhances thermal effectiveness by 43%, increasing treatment temperature while minimizing time, power, and running costs. The proposed machine will work automatically after filling the BMW, thus, minimizing the human involvement. It prevents bio-hazardous waste accumulation and decreases its volume by up to 80%. The designed machine is characterized by safety, low cost, and small dimensions. A machine that can handle 72 kg BMW/day can be set up on-site in an area of 1.5 m2. The suggestion of the proposed machine as a BMW management and treatment system will reduce environmental pollution due to BMW during COVID-19 and even after the pandemic. © The Author 2022. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows others to share and adapt the material for any purpose (even commercially), in any medium with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
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Background Data on SARS-CoV-2 in infants ≤ 90 days are limited with conflicting reports regarding its presentation and outcomes. Methods We conducted an ambispective cohort study using prospectively collected Health Electronic Surveillance Network Database by the Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia. Infants of ≤ 90 days of age who had a positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 virus were included. Patients were divided in Early neonatal (0–6 days), late neonatal (7–27 days), and post- neonatal (28–90 days) groups and were compared for clinical characteristics and outcomes by contacting parents and collecting information retrospectively. Results Of 1,793 infants, 898 infants were included for analysis. Most infants in the early neonatal group had no features of infection (tested based on maternal positivity), whereas most infants in the late and post- neonatal groups were tested because of clinical features of infection. Fever and respiratory signs were the most common presenting feature in the late and post-neonatal groups. Hospitalization was higher in the early neonatal group (80%), compared to the two other groups. The overall mortality in the cohort was 1.6%. Conclusion SARS-CoV-2 infection in infants ≤ 90 days might not be as rare as previously reported. The clinical presentation varies based on age at positive RT-PCR result.
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Child maltreatment, especially during health crises, is a major public health issue transcending cultural, social, and racial contexts. We assessed the sociodemographic and related risk factors associated with the types and rates of child maltreatment. We also assessed the economic, social, and environmental characteristics of child maltreatment victims and their perpetrators, as they were reported to the Saudi National Family Safety Program (NFSP), with consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact. A secondary data analysis of a retrospective review was conducted to compare types and rates before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, utilizing descriptive and multivariate analyses on anonymized data from the NFSP. According to a predetermined list of relevant risk factors for child maltreatment outlined by the NFSP, these anonymized data were obtained and analyzed with no exclusion criteria (n = 1304). The findings showed that a child's age correlated significantly and positively with their odds of being physically maltreated; as a child's age increased by one year, on average, their corresponding predicted odds of being physically maltreatment tended to rise by a factor equal to 7.6% (p < 0.001). Neglected children, compared to those who had not been previously neglected, were predicted to be almost twice (2.23 times more) as likely to be victims of physical maltreatment on average (p < 0.001). Children were notably more likely to experience sexual abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic than those exposed to abuse during the period before (1.69 times). The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with significantly lower odds of physical child maltreatment (47.7% less). This study found no statistically significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's odds of being emotionally maltreated (p = 0.169). These findings support the existence of specific risk factors for child maltreatment for both child victims and perpetrators. They also attest to the significant differences between different types of maltreatment. A systematic, proactive system is needed to screen and document child maltreatment with a higher degree of integration with community reporting systems.
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Background: Vascular injury has been implicated as a major cause of clinical complications in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Autopsy studies have revealed destruction of the endothelial cell lining, which might explain cardiovascular alterations arising from the infection. However, data demonstrating endothelial dysfunction during ongoing infection are sparse, and the underlying mechanisms are still largely unknown. Red blood cells (RBCs) are affected by COVID-19 with alterations in their structure and function, possibly contributing to vascular injury via increased oxidative stress. Purpose: To determine the presence of endothelial dysfunction in patients with COVID-19 and to explore the RBC as a possible mediator of such dysfunction. Methods: The study was performed on 17 patients hospitalized for moderate COVID-19 infection and age-and sex-matched healthy subjects. Inclusion criteria of the COVID-19 patients were PCR-verified SARS-CoV2 infection, pulmonary infiltrates on x-ray, oxygen demand during hospital stay and ≤ one cardiovascular co-morbidity. Microvascular endothelial function in vivo was assessed with a pulse amplitude tonometry device on each index finger at baseline and during reactive hyperemia and expressed as reactive hyperemia index (RHI). RBCs from COVID-19 patients (C19-RBCs) and healthy subjects (H-RBCs) were incubated with isolated rat aortic segments for evaluation of endothelium-dependent and -independent relaxation. Results: COVID-19 patients displayed profound impairment in endothelial function in vivo with RHI 1.56 (1.30-1.81, median and interquartile range) compared to healthy subjects 2.36 (1.97-2.79, p<0.001). C19-RBCs induced severe impairment in both endothelium-dependent (27% maximal relaxation) and -independent relaxations (54%) compared to H-RBCs (67% and 95% relaxation, respectively). Further, C19-RBCs induced upregulation of vascular arginase 1 (∼2 fold increase compared to H-RBCs) and markers of oxidative stress (∼6 fold). Consequently, inhibition of vascular arginase or superoxide attenuated the impairment in endothelial function induced by C19-RBCs. C19-RBCs were characterized by increased production of reactive oxygen species (∼1.4 fold) and reduced export of the nitric oxide metabolite nitrate. Following pre-incubation with interferon-γ, but not interleukin-6 or tumor necrosis factor-α, H-RBCs induced impairment in endothelial function. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the presence of marked endothelial dysfunction in an otherwise mainly healthy patient group hospitalized for COVID-19, and clearly implicates a central role of the RBC as a mediator of endothelial injury through enhancement of reactive oxygen species and arginase. These data shed light on a new pathological mechanism underlying vascular dysfunction in COVID-19 patients and may lay the foundation for future therapeutic developments.
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BACKGROUND: Vaccines have helped in eradicating many communicable diseases. They are considered major players in preserving children's health. However, concerns about vaccines' ingredients and safety became hot topics globally. With doubt, some parents became hesitant to vaccinate their children. A recent study documented high prevalence of vaccine hesitancy among Saudi parents. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to explore preparedness of current and future pediatricians to face vaccine hesitancy, a growing public health issue in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This study adopted non-interventional cross-sectional online questionnaire specifically designed to encompass general vaccine hesitancy related questions including Covid-19's vaccines. RESULTS: The study recruited 119 participants form three main tertiary centers in Riyadh. Trainees were the majority with pediatric consultants representing 22%. Females were more than half of total participants (53%). Although familiarity with the term "vaccine hesitancy" was common, it was affected by training level. Among participants, 66% heard about it from social media. Furthermore, only 32% received designated training. Knowledge was suboptimal among all levels except for those who received formal training. Despite 80% encountered vaccine hesitancy, only 55% consider it a common public health issue. Attitude toward vaccine hesitant parents was negative among male physicians (odds ratio of 2.3, P value 0.045). Additionally, majority consider it a form of child neglect (95%). In regard to COVID19's vaccine, 31% were reluctant to get vaccinated themselves. CONCLUSION: Pediatric workforce in Saudi Arabia commonly encounters vaccine hesitancy. The strong stand against vaccine hesitant parents might affect rapport with families. Sub-optimal knowledge, negative attitude and emerging COVID19 vaccine hesitancy might negatively impact future efforts. Tailored training and innovative educational platforms are essentials to address vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia.
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BACKGROUND: The educational process in different medical schools has been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. As a part of the Saudi government's attempts to contain the spread of the virus, schools' and universities' educational activities and face-to-face lectures have been modified to virtual classrooms. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of the faculty and the students of an electronic objective structured clinical examination (E-OSCE) activity that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic in the oldest medical school in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: An e-OSCE style examination was designed for the final-year medical students by the pediatrics department, College of Medicine at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The examination was administered by Zoom™ video conferencing where both students and faculty participated through their laptop or desktop computers. In order to explore the students' and the faculty's perceptions about this experience, a newly designed 13-item online questionnaire was administered at the end of the e-OSCE. RESULTS: Out of 136 participants (23 faculty and 112 students), 73 respondents (e.g., 54% response rate) filled out the questionnaire. Most of the respondents (69.8%) were very comfortable with this new virtual experience. Most participants (53.4%) preferred the e-OSCE compared to the classic face-to-face clinical OSCE during the pandemic. Regarding the e-OSCE assessment student tool, 46.6% reported that it is similar to the classic face-to-face OSCE; however, 38.4% felt it was worse. CONCLUSIONS: The e-OSCE can be a very effective alternative to the classic face-to-face OSCE due to the current circumstances that still pose a significant risk of infection transmission. Future studies should examine different virtual strategies to ensure effective OSCE delivery from the perspective of both faculty and students.
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In late December 2019, an epidemic of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was informed, and because of the quick diffusion of the infection in various regins of the world, the World Health Organization proclaimed an emergency. In this context, researchers are urged and encouraged to research in various fields, to stop the spread of this deadly virus. To this end, we propose a systematic review that addresses the techniques and methods of artificial intelligence in diagnosing COVID-19 disease. The main aim of the current systematic review was to highlight the gaps and challenges within the academic literature of the disease COVID-19, which included the characteristics of the data, machine learning algorithms applied to the diagnosis of COVID-19, and using natural language processing (NLP)to reveal clinical data for COVID-19 disease.Seven reliable databases were used, namely Web of Science, ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, PubMed, springer and google scholar, to obtain studies related to the specific topic many filtering and surveying stages were conducted consistent with the inclusion and exclusion criteria, to screen the acquired 1115 papers.We identified the bottleneck in explaining data as one of the major barriers to machine learning and NLP approaches. Supervised machine learning has been explored as an active method for diagnosing COVID-19 disease. Future studies in this area will benefit from alternatives like increasing the volume of data, using intelligence swarms to obtain accurate features, and using unsupervised learning that does not require explanatory data. Thus, this research supported us to get a more practical comprehension of the gaps and provide possible solutions for filling these gaps. © 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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Oxford COVID-19 Database (OxCOVID19 Database) is a comprehensive source of information related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This relational database contains time-series data on epidemiology, government responses, mobility, weather and more across time and space for all countries at the national level, and for more than 50 countries at the regional level. It is curated from a variety of (wherever available) official sources. Its purpose is to facilitate the analysis of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus and to assess the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce the impact of the pandemic. Our database is a freely available, daily updated tool that provides unified and granular information across geographical regions. Design type Data integration objective Measurement(s) Coronavirus infectious disease, viral epidemiology Technology type(s) Digital curation Factor types(s) Sample characteristic(s) Homo sapiens.
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BACKGROUND: As cases of COVID-19 climb worldwide, academic medical centers (AMCs) are scrambling to balance the increasing demand for medical services while maintaining safe learning environments. The scale and nature of the current pandemic, limitations on key resources, risks of transmission, and the impact on trainee wellbeing pose additional challenges to AMCs. We propose a framework for AMCs to utilize in facilitating health system, organization and program-level adjustments to meet the needs of medical trainees during the pandemic. APPROACH: In February 2020, we developed a three-level approach to the pandemic response of training programs at our AMC. The first level involved AMC alignment and engagement with regulatory stakeholders. The second level utilized the graduate medical education committee and leveraged organizational functions such as human resources, finance, and clinical departments. The third level of intervention focused on common approaches used by programs to ensure continuity of learning in the context of dynamic changes in workflows and service operations. EVALUATION: Outcomes at each level are reported. These include the co-development of a national framework on medical trainee responses to COVID-19, the composition of an operational guidance document, organizational protocols to accommodate novel challenges posed by the pandemic, and multiple program-level interventions. REFLECTION: This methodical approach, employed during a global crisis, was critical in facilitating interventions required to fulfill the mission of AMCs. Future steps include assessing the impact of these changes on trainee performance and the applicability of the approach in diverse settings.