ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIM: The COVID 19 pandemic created high levels of psychological distress and may have increased suicide risk. This study will determine the frequency and incidence of suicide attempts (defined as a non fatal selfdirected potentially injurious behavior with any intent to die as a result of the behavior) admissions in pediatric patients who required Intensive Care Unit (ICU) before and during de COVID-19 pandemic. We also assessed psychiatric diagnosis and type of suicide attempt. METHOD(S): This was a retrospective study that compared a pre-pandemic cohort (2018-2019) with a pandemic cohort (2020 and 2021) of 91 patients that required pediatric ICU admission in Fundacion Valle del Lili (Cali-Colombia) due to a diagnosis of suicide attempts. Sociodemographic and clinical information was collected. RESULT(S): Nighty-one patients were included from 2018 to 2021 with the diagnosis of suicide attempts. 55% of patients were female, with a higher prevalence in adolescence. Suicide attempt incidence rate per year was: (2018: 1.1%), (2019: 1%) (2020: 2.1%) and (2021 - 6.9%). The difference in the number of cases between the pre-pandemic and pandemic cohorts was significant, clearly increasing in 2020- 2021. CONCLUSION(S): Multiple evidence indicate that de COVID-19 pandemic has important psychological and social effects related with suicidal behavior. This is the first Latin American study to describe the relationship between the SARS COV2 pandemic and suicide attempts in the pediatric population, demonstrating a clear increase in the incidence of suicide attempt. Preventive strategies must be created and implemented in the latinoamerican context. Further larger studies are needed to confirm these findings.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIM: In the context of the current SARS-COV2 pandemic, multiple complications derived from infection have been described in the pediatric population;however, neurological involvement is rare. The objective is to describe two pediatric patients hospitalized during the SARS COV2 pandemic, who were admitted due to unspecified neurological symptoms, with a subsequent institutional diagnosis of Guillain Barre syndrome (GBS). METHOD(S): Description of two cases of pediatric patients with a diagnosis of SARS-COV2 infection and neurological symptoms treated at Fundacion Valle del Lili, with an inhospital diagnosis of Guillain Barre syndrome. Demographic data, clinical and pathological variables, treatment, and outcomes were collected and analyzed to describe the cases. RESULT(S): Male patients, 8 and 10 years old respectively, the first patient with no relevant history, patient # 2 with a history of asthma. Patient # 1 with respiratory symptoms associated with marked neurological symptoms, with sudden and progressive deterioration, clinical and electromyographic diagnosis of GBS managed with immunoglobulin and subsequent plasmapheresis. Patient # 2 with intense respiratory symptoms, requiring orotracheal intubation and vasoactive support, with subsequent neurological involvement, diagnosis of GBS, management with plasmapheresis. Both patients with recovery of mobility, rehabilitation and outpatient follow-up. CONCLUSION(S): In summary, these are the first reported cases of GBS associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in Colombia and the first case report in Latin America describing atypical GBS presentation. Although neurological manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection are infrequent, physicians must be aware to establish early diagnostic suspicion of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children with neurological symptoms.
ABSTRACT
In this work, we propose to use a state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithm to set the discretization thresholds for gene expression profiles, using feedback from a classifier in order to maximize the accuracy of the predictions based on the discretized gene expression levels, while at the same time minimizing the number of different profiles obtained, to ease the understanding of the expert. The methodology is applied to a dataset containing COVID-19 patients that developed either mild or severe symptoms. The results show that the evolutionary approach performs better than a traditional discretization based on statistical analysis, and that it does preserve the sense-making necessary for practitioners to trust the results. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Primer sets are short DNA sequences of 18-22 base pairs, that can be used to verify the presence of a virus, and designed to attach to a specific part of a viral DNA. Designing a primer set requires choosing a region of DNA, avoiding the possibility of hybridization to a similar sequence, as well as considering its GC content and Tm (melting temperature). Coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, have a considerably large genome (around 30 thousand nucleotides) when compared to other viruses. With the rapid rise and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants, it has become a priority to breach our lack of specific primers available for diagnosis of this new variants. Here, we propose an evolutionary-based approach to primer design, able to rapidly deliver a high-quality primer set for a target sequence of the virus variant. Starting from viral sequences collected from open repositories, the proposed approach is proven able to uncover a specific primer set for the B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 variant. Only recently identified, B.1.1.7 is already considered potentially dangerous, as it presents a considerably higher transmissibility when compared to other variants. © 2021 ACM.