ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the pattern of drug abuse from different clinical settings in a reference laboratory of Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic and assess any change from the previous trend. Study Design: Comparative cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Chemical Pathology and Endocrinology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), Rawalpindi Pakistan from Mar to Dec 2020. Methodology: Out of 6902 subjects tested for drug abuse, 672 subjects with positive results were included in the study. The study population was divided into three main Groups. i.e., Psychiatry, ITC/Emergency and Workplace testing. A pattern of drug abuse was compared in the pre (Mar-Dec 2019) and post-COVID (Mar-Dec 2020) periods. Results: Out of 672 study subjects, 338(50%) were psychiatry patients. Around 629(94%) subjects were males. Mainly young individuals (306, 46%) were affected. Cannabis was the most frequent drug of abuse detected (357, 53%), followed by Benzodiazepines (BZD) (236, 35%) individuals and Opiates (47, 7%). Compared with pre-COVID data, an overall increase of 3% in the total frequency of drug abuse from 392(7%) to 672(10%) was found in 2020. About 14% decrease, from the frequency of 81(21%) to 47(7%) in Opiates usage, while 8% increase in frequency, from 106(27%) to 236(35%) in Benzodiazepines, was observed. There was significant mean difference (p<0.001) between Psychiatric and ITC patients. Conclusion: Most frequent drug abuse in our settings is Cannabis, followed by Benzodiazepines and Opiates. An overall increase in drug abuse frequency while a decrease in the frequency of Opiates users has been observed, a finding different from previous studies. © 2022, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 spread worldwide after its outbreak in December 2019. This review paper aims to educate the readers regarding SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic and detection tools and the issues experienced by researchers. We identify on-the-horizon point-of-care diagnostic tests and inspire scholars to develop their innovations past conception. It will also effectively avoid potential pandemics to establish plug-and-play diagnostic information to handle the SARS infection. The authors agree that arbitrary-access, interconnected systems with flexible functionality accessible at the point-of-care, would enable fast and precise diagnosis and tracking.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 spread worldwide after its outbreak in December 2019. This review paper aims to educate the readers regarding SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic and detection tools and the issues experienced by researchers. We identify on the-horizon point-of-care diagnostic tests and inspire scholars to develop their innovations past conception. It will also effectively avoid potential pandemics to establish plug-and-play diagnostic information to handle the SARS infection. The authors agree that arbitrary-access, interconnected systems with flexible functionality accessible at the point-of-care, would enable fast and precise diagnosis and tracking.
ABSTRACT
The ongoing outbreak of coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) has been declared as Pandemic by the World Health Organization and now become a global health emergency. Low and Middle income-countries lack standard pharmacy services in terms of staff, education, training, pharmaceutical care, research, and practice. The literature aimed to provide emerging pharmacy services and recommend it to be implemented in low and middle-income countries. Currently, pharmacies were easily accessible sites by the community, a trained staff under the guidance of pharmacist can be helpful for the management of visiting customers. In the surge of disease, pharmacists proved themselves as a frontline defense for the community by significant contribution in identifying, reporting, and managing COVID-19 patients through pharmaceutical care services at the community level, hospital/clinical level, and through Tele-pharmaceutical services.