COVID-19 Pandemic: A Serious Threat for Public Mental Health Globally.

Deep emotion traumas in societies around the globe are overcome by extreme human catastrophes such as natural disasters, social crises, war conflicts and infectious virus induced pandemic diseases, etc., can lead to enormous stress-related disorders. The current ongoing pandemic known as COVID-19 caused by novel Corona virus first appeared in Wuhan, city of China and then rapidly spread in the whole world. It has affected various frontiers of lives and caused numerous psychiatric problems like nervousness, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), fear and uncertainty, panic attacks, depression, obsessive compulsory disorder, xenophobia and racism, etc. Globally COVID-19 has persuaded public mental health crisis. Furthermore, inadequate resources of public mental health services in several countries are discussed in this review, which will be further straighten by the upcoming increase in demand for mental health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All mental health sciences including Psychiatry can play a very important role in the comfort of COVID-19 infected individuals and their relatives, healthcare providers and society. We need to learn more about psychological and psychiatric features of COVID-19 from the perceptions of public and global mental health in order to cope up the present deteriorating situation caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Breakthrough cases of Omicron and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 during the fifth wave in Pakistan.

COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected Pakistan with 1,557,134 cases as of August 4, 2022. However, the data regarding breakthrough infections in Pakistan is scant. Hence, the objective was to analyze SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections with respect to vaccines and variants during the fifth wave in Pakistan. Therefore, the Department of Virology (NIH, Pakistan) genotyped 2,467 randomly selected individuals between November 2021 and February 2022 using the SNPsig® SARS-CoV-2 (EscapePLEX) kit (PrimerDesign, UK). P681R and K417N mutations were used to distinguish delta and omicron. Data on the patient's age, gender, date of collection, variant, and vaccination status were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Among 2,467 genotyped samples, Omicron was detected in 58.6% (n = 1445), Delta in 40.4% (n = 998) and undetermined/wildtype variant in 24 samples. The vaccination status of omicron-positive patients showed (49.7%; n = 718/1445) and Delta-positive patients (39.67%; n = 396/998) to be fully vaccinated. Of note, a high percentage 85% of breakthrough cases (n = 947) were identified among fully vaccinated individuals (n = 1114). Among them, 85.9% (n = 617/718) belonged to omicron and 83.3% (n = 330/396) to delta. Moreover, 76.7% (n = 855) of vaccinated individuals (n = 1114) received Sinopharm (n = 432) and Sinovac (n = 423) vaccines. The majority of breakthrough subjects who contracted Omicron were vaccinated with Sinopharm (93.0%, n = 256) and delta with Cansino (100%, n = 44). Individuals vaccinated with Sinovac showed the most frequent breakthrough cases for both Omicron and Delta variant between the 4th and 6th months (n = 278) after primary vaccination as compared to the 7th to 9th months (n = 24) category. While in case of Sinopharm, maximum breakthrough cases occurred between 7th to 9th months (n = 234) as compared to the 4th to 6th months (n = 120) after primary vaccination. Omicron and Delta breakthrough cases in men (n = 364 and 193) are more frequently seen than women (n = 253 and 138) respectively and breakthrough majority cases (n = 392) occurred in individuals aged 18-33 years. Breakthrough cases limiting monitoring in Pakistan impose a substantial constraint on policymakers' ability to take timely effective decisions. Since the current study consists of only a 2,467-genotyped sample, comprehensive data should be analyzed.

Genomic surveillance reveals the detection of SARS-CoV-2 delta, beta, and gamma VOCs during the third wave in Pakistan.

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) have emerged worldwide and gained significant importance due to their high transmissibility and global spread, thus meriting close monitoring. In Pakistan, limited information is available on circulation of these variants as the alpha variant has been reported the main circulating lineage. The current study was designed to detect and explore the genomic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 lineages circulating during the third wave of the pandemic in the indigenous population. From May 01 to June 09, 2021, a total of 16 689 samples were tested using TaqPath™ COVID-19 kit for the presence of SARS-CoV-2. Overall, 2562 samples (15.4%) were COVID-19 positive. Out of these positive samples, 2124 (12.7%) did not show the spike gene amplification (spike gene target failure ([SGTF]), whereas 438 (2.6%) showed spike gene amplification (non-SGTF). A subset (n = 58/438) of non-SGTF samples were randomly selected for whole-genome sequencing. Among VOCs, 45% (n = 26/58) were delta, 46% (n = 27/58) were beta, and one was gamma variant. The delta variant cases were reported mainly from Islamabad (n = 15; 58%) followed by Rawalpindi and Azad Kashmir (n = 1; 4% each). Beta variant cases originated mainly from Karachi (n = 8; 30%) and Islamabad (n = 11; 41%) and the gamma variant case was reported in a traveler from Italy. The delta, beta, and gamma variants possessed lineage-specific spike mutations. Notably, two rare mutations (E484Q and L5F) were found in the delta variant. Furthermore, in the beta variant, two significant rare non-synonymous spike mutations (A879S and K444R) were also reported. High prevalence of beta and delta variants in local population may increase the number of cases in the near future and provides an early warning to national health authorities to take timely decisions and devise suitable interventions to contain a possible fourth wave.

Prevalence and Associated Risk Factor of COVID-19 and Impacts of Meteorological and Social Variables on Its Propagation in Punjab, Pakistan.

The current study identifies the spatial distribution of COVID-19 cases and its association with meteorological and social variables in Punjab (densely populated province of Pakistan). To identify the COVID-19 propagation, the weekly growth, recovery, and deaths rate have also been calculated. The geographic information system (GIS) has used to determine COVID-19 impacts on gender (male/female), age groups, and causalities over an affected population (km-2) for the period of 11th March to 12th August, 2020 in each district of province. Our results show that 43 peak days (where daily positive cases were above 900) have been observed in Punjab during 27th May to 8th July, 2020. The high population density districts, i.e., Lahore and Islamabad, have been affected (five persons per square kilometers) due to COVID-19, whereas the maximum death tolls (> 50 persons per millions) have also been observed in these urban districts. The meteorological variables (temperature, humidity, heat index, and ultraviolet index) show negative significant relationship to basic reproduction number (R0), whereas daily COVID-19 cases are positively correlated to aerosols concentration at 95% confidence level. The government intervention (stringency index) shows a positive impact to reduce the COVID-19 cases over the province. Keeping in view the COVID-19 behavior and climatology of the region, it has been identified that the COVID-19 cases may likely to increase during the dry period (high concentration of aerosols) i.e., October-December, 2020 and post-spring season (April to June), 2021 in urban areas of Pakistan. This study provides an overview on districts vulnerability that would help the policy makers, health agencies to plan their activities to reduce the COVID-19 impacts.

Mental health crisis of Pakistanis population during COVID-19 pandemic

The first country that was affected by pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 was China. Several exclusive features of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and its managing policies globally provoked a sharp public mental health crisis. Pakistan is one of the endemic countries for various infectious diseases and has experienced many outbreaks and epidemics every year which effects it's economy and social life (WHO 2016). SARS-CoV-2 is considered as more contagious than MERS and SARS, with case fatality rate of (6.92%). The ambiguous incubation period and likely asymptomatic transmission of the virus have induced anxiety and fear in the public of Pakistan. Second, extraordinary large scale quarantine actions in all main cities, which basically restrict peoples to their families, caused negative psycho-social impact on citizens. Third, reports of deficiencies personal protective equipment's, medical staff, hospital beds, isolation wards, medicines and sanitizers in Pakistan provoked panic in public. Last, a surplus of misinformation on NEWS and social media increased the fear in public (WHO 2019) and poses major risk to public psychological healthiness during this health crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)