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COVID-19 originated from Wuhan (China) in December 2019 and has spread rapidly throughout the world. As of August 2020, COVID 19 has affected more than 200 countries and has caused approximately 8 million casualties to date. Government agencies are announcing several mitigation measures based on the guidelines issued by the WHO and the UN. Presently, the top five countries badly affected by this virus are the USA, Brazil, India, Russia, and South Africa. Geographic Information System (GIS) is the technology used to detect, store, manipulate, and analyze spatial (latitude and longitude) information and may be used effectively for understanding and responding to the disease outbreak by real- or near real-time mapping of the diseases. In this study, we make an attempt to generate the Heatmaps (a graphical representation) in a GIS environment using QGIS (an open-source GIS software). Further, we extend the analysis of the study to the prediction of possible COVID-19 outbreak in India using SEIR (Susceptible—Exposed-Infectious-Recovered) model. SEIR model may be used for the prediction of any epidemic disease. This study may help researchers to analyze and predict the COVID-19. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has now become an endemic disease and a definitive set of protocols should be applied worldwide for safe clinical and surgical practice. Minimal access surgery is becoming more popular and standard of care for many routine surgeries. However, during COVID-19, a lot of dilemmas were there about whether to perform minimal access surgery or not. As of now, most of the guidelines are established on the opinions of expert committees and the level of evidence is not much high. Minimal invasive approaches are still a safe approach during the COVID-19 pandemic with proper case selection and with additional safety precautions. Hence, we have reviewed the literature for the safe practice of minimal access surgery during COVID-19.Copyright ©2022 Published by Scientific Scholar on behalf of Global Journal of Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Biomedical Update.
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Purpose : Patients on systemic immunomodulatory therapy (IMT) for uveitis are at higher risk of infection and infectious complications. While other medical specialties have studied the safety of IMT in non-ocular, autoimmune conditions vis-à-vis coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), little is known about the effects of these drugs in uveitis patients specifically. The objective of this study was to determine if uveitis patients with COVID-19 were at higher risk of hospitalization for this pandemic illness and whether systemic IMT affected this risk. Methods : Retrospective cohort study of uveitis patients in 2020 in the United States. The Symphony health insurance claims dataset was used. Inclusion criteria were an ICD10 code for COVID-19, a code for any form of non-infectious uveitis or scleritis, and age 18 or greater. Drugs studied included methotrexate, mycophenolate, azathioprine, tacrolimus, cyclosporine, adalimumab, infliximab, tocilizumab, rituximab, and JAK, IL-17, and IL-12/23 inhibitors. The main outcome measure was adjusted odds of hospitalization for COVID19. Multivariable logistic regression was used to adjust for major risk factors for severe COVID-19 disease, including age, biological sex, cardiac, pulmonary, hepatic, and renal disease, obesity, organ transplant, stroke, and certain cancers. Results : 3,974,272 patients in the dataset were diagnosed with COVID-19 in 2020. Of these, 6389 (0.16%) had established diagnoses of uveitis or scleritis. Within the uveitis group, mean age was 54 years (SD 16), and 62% were female. 708 (11.1%) of the uveitis patients were hospitalized for COVID-19, significantly greater than the 7.3% rate amongst all adult, COVID-19-positive patients in the dataset (p < 0.001) and the CDC estimate of 7.5% for the US population in 2020 (p < 0.001). No agent showed a statistically significant effect on hospitalization. The higher rate of hospitalization in uveitis patients was partly, though not completely, explained by higher rates in uveitis-associated autoimmune conditions in the dataset as a whole. Conclusions : Uveitis patients have a greater risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 compared with the general population. As a whole, conventional IMT and biologics do not increase the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization amongst uveitis patients infected with the virus.
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Purpose : Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic viral illness which may predispose to co-infections and whose ophthalmic manifestations are still not well understood. This study was performed to determine the rate of bacterial or fungal coinfection and associated endogenous endophthalmitis in inpatients with COVID-19. Methods : This was a retrospective cohort study of inpatients with COVID-19-associated pneumonia at seven general hospitals in Louisville, Kentucky from March to May 2020. All patients were positive by polymerase chain reaction for SARS-CoV-2 and had clinical evidence of pneumonia necessitating hospital admission. Records were reviewed for demographic data, clinical evidence of systemic bacterial or fungal co-infection, culture results, and evidence of endophthalmitis. Results : There were 632 patients in this study. Median age was 63 (IQR 48-74), and 53% were female. 65 of them (10.3%) had a systemic, culture-positive bacterial or fungal coinfection (60 bacterial, 5 fungal). Of these 65 patients, 11 developed bacteremia (16.9% of co-infected patients;1.7% of all COVID inpatients). One patient with Streptococcal bacteremia and septic arthritis developed endogenous endophthalmitis in one eye (1/65 co-infected patients, 1.5%;1/632 total COVID inpatients, 0.16%), which was successfully treated with intravitreal antibiotics. No patients with negative blood cultures developed endophthalmitis, although the sole endophthalmitis patient presented with intraocular infection prior to blood cultures being positive. Conclusions : Bacterial or fungal co-infection is relatively common in inpatients with COVID-19. Endogenous bacterial endophthalmitis, while rare, is still a possible and potentially devastating complication of the disease. Consequently, visual complaints in COVID-19 inpatients should be assessed promptly.
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Purpose: This meta-analysis and systematic review was conducted to highpoint the current literature and establish data relating the mortality of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients with and without asthma. Search criteria: The Scopus, Embase, PubMed, medRxiv. org and Google Scholar databases were explored for studies associating the clinical results with and without asthmatic patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Mortality data were summarizing with the Mantel-Haenszel OR with 95% CI in a randomeffects model. Five retrospective studies encountered the inclusion criteria. A meta-analysis of data from 1181 asthmatic patients and 8,847 nonasthmatic patients specified that the presence of asthma had no extensive consequence on mortality rate (OR = 0.96;95% CI 0.70-1.30;I2 = 0%;p = 0.79). Result: Results were steady in a sensitivity analysis. A descriptive examination of other clinical outcomes selected no modification in the duration of hospitalization and the risk of intensive care unit (ICU) transfer between asthmatic and nonasthmatic patients. Conclusion: Asthma may not upsurge the mortality of COVID-19.