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Background: COVID-19 infection is a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The manifestations, effects, and severity of the infection are varied in different waves, especially during pregnancy. Material(s) and Method(s): The study was conducted in two equal time periods during the first and second waves. During the first wave, the period of study was between June and August 2020 corresponding to the peak of the first wave, and in the second wave, the study period was between May and July 2021 corresponding to the peak of the second wave. Result(s): A total of 3,791 pregnant women was screened for COVID-19 infection during the first wave and second wave, the pregnant mothers with COVID-19 positive were 4.2 (n = 163) and 5.1% (n = 191), respectively. Around 60% were antenatal mothers and 37% were postnatal mothers who were COVID-19-positive. The predominant age group affected was between 20 and 25 years of age. Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), gestational hypertension, anemia, previous lower segment cesarean section (LSCS), postdated pregnancy, and past history of infertility were the high-risk factors observed during the study. Hypoxia was observed in 15% of patients in the second wave. About 49.7% (n = 95) of the COVID-19-positive mothers in the second wave required steroids, anticoagulants, and antiviral drugs. Conclusion(s): The incidence of COVID-19 infection was mild and asymptomatic during the first wave and symptomatic as well as with complications during the second wave. The disease severity, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, duration of stay, LSCS delivery, and need for antivirals, anticoagulants, and steroids were more during the second wave of COVID-19.Copyright © The Author(s). 2023.
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Background: Vitamin D recently has been reviewed as one of the factors that may affect the severity in COVID 19 infection. Despite its role in calcium and phosphorus metabolism, vitamin D has multiple effects on cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, immune regulation, genome stability and neurogenesis. Recent studies have also found that vitamin D deficiency is closely associated with infectious diseases, diabetes, cancers, autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular diseases. Material(s) and Method(s): The current study was undertaken for a period of 6 weeks. The study enrolled 125 COVID 19 positive patients, 60 in group A (non-hypoxic) and 65 in group B (hypoxic but not requiring ICU admission). Participants were of age group 20-60 years. Serum levels of 25(OH) vitamin D were measured. Serum vitamin D concentration was estimated by using CLIA (Chemiluminescence Immuno Assay) technique. Standard statistical analysis was performed to analyze the differences. Result(s): The mean level of vitamin D was 31.87 ng/ml in group A and 18.11ng/ml in group B, the difference was highly significant (p value <0.0001). Vitamin D level is markedly low in group B patients. In hypoxic patients (group B), 60% were having deficient serum vitamin D level and 33.8% were having insufficient level of serum vitamin D. Conclusion(s): In our study in comparison to non-hypoxic group, vitamin D level is low in hypoxic group. Vitamin D supplementation may help for COVID19 patients. Copyright © 2022 Authors. All rights reserved.
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BACKGROUND: Corona Virus Disease (COVID 19) is an infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. While most people who were infected experienced mild to moderate symptoms and recovered without any specific treatment, only some acquired serious infection that required In-Hospital admission and intensive care unit (ICU) treatment. OBJECTIVE: To assess and describe the clinical characteristics and risk factors associated with morbidity and mortality in COVID 19 Patients in a tertiary care ICU. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective Cross sectional study A total of 140 COVID19 infected patients with definite outcomes in the period between March-May 2021 were identified and their medical records were obtained from Department of Medical Records,Saveetha Medical College and Hospital. Univariate and Multiple Logistic regression techniques were used to identify the association between potential risk factors, morbidity and mortality. RESULTS: A total of 140 COVID 19 positive patients were included in the study, out of which 101 expired and 39 were discharged from the Hospital.There was male predominance in the mortality group(71%). The mean age of the mortality group was 58 years. Increased risk of in hospital mortality was found in patients who were not vaccinated (p value-0.008) and in those who were vaccinated, vaccination with single dose (p value-0.022) had higher risk of mortality. Other independent risk factors were increasing age (p value-0.017),CT chest Severity(p value-0.000),CRP(p value-0.000),D-Dimer(p value-0.001), Serum Ferritin(0.002), LDH Levels(p value-0.01), Co-morbidities like Diabetes Mellitus (p value-0.015),Hypertension(p value-0.028),COPD and Asthma(p value-0.032). CONCLUSION: Age, male sex, Vaccination status, CT chest Severity, CRP and D-Dimer levels, Co-morbidities like Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, COPD and Asthma were found to be significant independent risk factors for morbidity and mortality among COVID 19 patients admitted in the tertiary care ICU.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of the pandemic - Covid-19 has reoriented the landscape of human perceptions towards life. We started finding novel ways of survival;first for the lives and the second for the livelihoods. The grim reality has posed several uncertainties and unanticipated consequences. The Governments worldwide have been struggling for finding the innovative ways of saving the lives. Physical distancing has confined us in the four walls of our dwelling. An electronic paradise of digitization with high-speed internet is the new normal. In education, this scenario has compacted the place of classrooms and transformed into the virtual platforms like Zoom, MS-Teams, Skype & Google Meet to name a few. The reflections now emerge are: Can these platforms offer sustainable teaching and learning to all the stakeholders? Can the institutions of higher learning transform the digital platforms as an asset and value addition to the institutions and their stakeholders respectively? The researchers, in this research have explored the experiences and opinions of various stakeholders on the effectiveness of digital teaching and learning. The results of this study can be used by the governments, policymakers, and higher educational institutions to have an insight on how to utilize the digital platforms for sustainability.
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A failure in the timely surveillance of domestic and international travelers transformed the 27 cases of pneumonia in China to an epidemic and then to the fifth pandemic of the 21st century. It is ever evident that travel and outbreak are strongly correlated. An imported outbreak compromises global health security, devitalizes economy and strains political relationships among nations. 'World Health Organization' advocated 'International Health Regulations'(IHR), to improve international surveillance and public health reporting mechanisms for events that are global health risks. Travel medicine does exist as a specialty in most nations. Despite all these instruments, there was a gap evident from the failure in the surveillance of travelers at times of CoVID-19, even by the better prepared and ever-alert developed nations, led to the pandemic. An overview on the travel and infectious disease outbreaks, existing policies and protocols and nations' ability in pandemic preparedness and the WHO's response to COVID-19 outbreak is drawn.
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Many real-time systems require end-to-end delay guarantee. After coronavirus (Covid 19) infection spread throughout the world, adoption of telemedicine service has become extremely important. Effective telemedicine may involve providing services having different delay and bandwidth requirements. The traditional network protocols are not suitable for providing Quality of Service (QoS) as the Internet operates in best-effort mode. We explore a solution based on Software Defined Networking (SDN) to offer services varying in end-to-end delay and bandwidth requirements. We leverage programmability and centralized view of SDN network and propose a strategy where different telemedicine services may follow routes based on the available bandwidth on links and total delay along a path from the source to destination. Our simulation results show that the strategy is able to scale to a large number of requests and a large percentage of flows is able to meet the delay requirements. © 2021 IEEE.