High-priority contact lens patient care during COVID-19 in the UK

Purpose: Early in the global COVID-19 pandemic hospital eye departments had to alter their service delivery due to the imposed lockdown. During this period essential and high-priority contact lens cases still had to be seen. The aim of the audit was to evaluate how the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown affected the contact lens service for patients requiring contact lenses for extended-wear aphakia or bandage contact lens patients. Method: A retrospective audit was carried out at the Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre (BMEC) between March and July 2020 to assess essential contact lens services during the first phase of the UK lockdown. The essential patients were those requiring bandage contact lenses or those requiring extended-wear contact lenses due to aphakia. Details of the age of the patient, gender, lens type, presenting condition and frequency of attendance were extracted from the patient’s notes. As a comparator the same period from the previous year was audited to see how the pandemic affected the contact lens service for such contact lens patients. Results: A total of 101 patient episode visits were analysed in 2019 compared to 72 in 2020. Forty-eight per cent of episodes were for bandage contact lenses in 2019 whereas 52% of visits were for bandage contact lenses in 2020. The patients who had ‘trauma’, ‘no intraocular lens’ and ‘glaucoma’ were wearing contact lenses for aphakia for both years whereas ocular pathologies such as severe dry eyes or decompensated corneas were for bandage contact lenses. Most patients were asymptomatic at the time of the visits for both aphakic and bandage contact lens wearers. Over 90% of all patients during both years were seen within 1 week of their recommended recall appointment. Conclusion: This study highlighted that patient care for high-priority contact lens patients was not compromised due to the COVID-19 pandemic at BMEC optometry department. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Optometry in Practice is the property of College of Optometrists and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Engineering of a Multi-Epitope Subunit Vaccine Against SASRS-CoV-2 Through the Viroinformatic Approach

The COVID-19 outbreak has infected millions of people worldwide, but no vaccine has been discovered to combat it efficiently. This research aims to design a multi-epitope vaccine using highly efficient B- and T-cell epitopes from the SARS-CoV-2 Surabaya isolate through a viroinformatic approach. First, the putative epitopes were linked together to develop tertiary structures and then docked with toll-like receptor 4 (TLR-4) that demonstrated a robust interaction with a low eigenvalue of 4.816138 e¡06. Furthermore, the structure's high immunogenic response was observed and successfully cloned into the expression vector pET28a (þ). This implies that the designed vaccine can prove effective in combating SARS-CoV-2. © 2022 University of Kerbala.

Molecular characterization and prediction of B-cell epitopes for the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine through bioinformatics approach

Context: The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a severe public health crisis worldwide. Aims: To analyze the SARS-CoV-2 isolates of Surabaya and predict ORF1ab polyprotein epitopes through the bioinformatics approach for vaccine candidate development. Methods: Three genomic sequences of Surabaya isolates were obtained from the GISAID, NCBI and PDB Gen-bank databases and MEGA-11 software were used to understand the transformations in the isolates. The IEDB and VaxiJen, AllerTop, and ToxinPred web servers were used to predict B-cell epitopes and analyze their antigenicity, non-allergenicity, non-toxicity, respectively. Moreover, these epitopes were linked by EAAAK for 3D modeling, refinement, and validation through Swiss- Model, Galaxy Refine, and RAMPAGE web tools. Results: The Surabaya isolates, RSDS-RCVTD-UNAIR-49-A, 54-A, and 42-A, had 10, 20, and 16 mutations in nucleotides and depicted a phylogenetically close relationship to isolates of Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, respectively. A total of 71 sequential Orf1ab B-cell epitopes were predicted, and only three peptides were found to be antigenic, non-allergenic, and non-toxic. These epitopes were linked with the EAAAK linker to develop a 3D refined and validated structure. This construct was docked with TLR-3 receptor by the Cluspro webserver and found a high affinity of ORF1ab+TLR3 due to 15 hydrogen bonds. The construct demonstrated good humoral and cellular immune responses in the C-ImmSim server, and cloning in the expression vector pET28a (+) yielded a colon of 846bp. Conclusions: ORF1ab B-cell epitopes could be useful for developing effective vaccines to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The impact of COVID-19 on soft contact lens wear in established European and US markets.

PURPOSE: To characterise changes in soft contact lens wearing habits during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A detailed online questionnaire was circulated to individuals aged 40-70 years, during the period April to May 2021. Data sampling took place in the United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Only data pertaining to individuals who were soft contact lens wearers were included. Data were extracted for questions relating to contact lens wearing habits pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and expectations for future lens wear beyond the pandemic. RESULTS: Seven-hundred and twenty-eight individuals were identified as soft contact lens wearers of which six-hundred and nineteen wore a combination of contact lenses and spectacles. Most respondents indicated contact lens wear times had either remained the same (57.3%) or increased (9.8%) during the pandemic. The country with the greatest proportion of respondents decreasing wear time during COVID-19 was the UK (45.3%), and the least in the Netherlands (20.0%). The primary cause of decreased lens wear was attributed to leaving the home less often (70.0%), and the second most common reason due to concerns about hygiene (10.8%). Most respondents (83.9%), however, expressed a desire to return to pre-pandemic wear times once the pandemic was over. CONCLUSIONS: Practitioner concerns about contact lens market recovery ought to be assuaged by the survey outcomes which show most individuals to have maintained lens wear during the pandemic. In view of the continued lens wear, as and when restrictions ease, ECPs may wish to encourage patients to return for routine check-ups that may have been missed due to the pandemic.

Development of a multi-epitope spike glycoprotein vaccine to combat SARS-CoV-2 using the bioinformatics approach

Context: The current COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted health and socio-economic status worldwide. The only way to combat this situation is to develop an effective vaccine and immunize people around the globe. Aims: To construct a multi-epitope spike glycoprotein-based vaccine from the SARS-CoV-2 Surabaya isolate using a bioinformatics approach. Methods: The spike protein was submitted to IEDB, VaxiJen, AllerTOP, and ToxinPred webservers to predict antigenic, non-allergic, non-toxic, B- and T-cell epitopes. To develop a multi-epitope vaccine, an adjuvant cholera toxin B subunit was linked to B-cell and B-cell with T-cell through EAAAK and GPGPG linkers, respectively. The designed vaccine 3D structure development, refinement, and validation were done through PHYRE2, Galaxy Refine, and RAMPAGE webservers. Moreover, the Cluspro-2.0 webserver was used for the molecular docking of the vaccine designed with TLR3. The vaccine+TLR3 complex was docked with Surfactant protein A as a control to validate the docking results. Finally, immune-simulation and in silico cloning of the vaccine were carried out by C-ImmSim webserver and SnapGene software, respectively. Results: A multi-epitopic vaccine containing B and T-cell was developed using 392 amino acids with a molecular weight of 40825.59 Da. The docking and immunogenicity results of the vaccine met all established parameters for constructing a quality vaccine. Furthermore, the optimized sequence of the vaccine was successfully cloned in expression vector pET 28 a (+) that yielded a colon of 2724 bp. Conclusions: The vaccine's immunogenicity demonstrates its effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further confirmatory testing may therefore be performed as soon as possible in the public interest.

Data-Driven Decision-Making in COVID-19 Response: A Survey

COVID-19 has spread all over the world, having an enormous effect on our daily life and work. In response to the epidemic, a lot of important decisions need to be taken to save communities and economies worldwide. Data clearly play a vital role in effective decision-making. Data-driven decision-making uses data-related evidence and insights to guide the decision-making process and verify the plan of action before it is committed. To better handle the epidemic, governments and policy-making institutes have investigated abundant data originating from COVID-19. These data include those related to medicine, knowledge, media, and so on. Based on these data, many prevention and control policies are made. In this survey article, we summarize the progress of data-driven decision-making in the response to COVID-19, including COVID-19 prevention and control, psychological counseling, financial aid, work resumption, and school reopening. We also propose some current challenges and open issues in data-driven decision-making, including data collection and quality, complex data analysis, and fairness in decision-making. This survey article sheds light on current policy-making driven by data, which also provides a feasible direction for further scientific research. IEEE

Contact lens education for the practitioners of the future.

The World Health Organization has identified a shortage of trained human resources as one of the greatest challenges to increasing the availability of eye care services and reducing preventable visual impairment around the world. Increased prevalence of myopia and new strategies for myopia management have raised the prospect of various interventions, including contact lenses for therapeutic use as well as for refractive correction. More personnel skilled in contact lens fitting will be needed to address potential worldwide demand for these interventions. This review investigates the current status and future requirements of global contact lens education in light of these developments. The COVD-19 pandemic led educational institutions worldwide to move towards online delivery. An online survey among 546 educators, conducted in May 2020, investigated changes to contact lens education delivery before and after the onset of the pandemic. A total of 214 responses were received from 32 countries. Prior to COVID-19 restrictions, 23% of educators had conducted more than 50% of their total teaching online; however, 69% expected to conduct more than half of their teaching online by the end of 2020 and 12% anticipated 90% or more of their teaching would be online. Some 76% of educators expected to provide more online lectures after the pandemic and 63% anticipated new methods to deliver practical education. Around half were planning to introduce new teaching online platforms (54%) and more online assessment methods (53%). The global need for increasing numbers of skilled personnel points to a crucial role for educators in teaching the contact lens practitioners of the future. Contact lens education delivery was already evolving prior to COVID-19, and changes that are currently occurring may lead to permanent differences in the way contact lenses are taught in future. The International Association of Contact Lens Educators (IACLE) provides educators with a standardised global curriculum, online resources and teaching technology that could also serve as a model for wider ophthalmic education in future.

The impact of COVID-19 on global contact lens education.

PURPOSE: To investigate the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on contact lens education around the world. METHODS: An online survey among contact lens educators (educator members of the International Association of Contact Lens Educators), conducted in May 2020. RESULTS: A total of 214 responses were received from 32 countries (representing a 39% response rate). Overall, 71% of respondents' institutions were closed to students to attend at that time. A majority (58%) were delivering more online education than they would normally provide. Live online lectures and discussion was the most commonly used method (68%). Zoom was the most common videoconferencing technology (56%) and the most popular social media platform for communicating with students was WhatsApp (48%). About half (54%) were running online exams or assessments, 24% holding these for students to attend in person, and 27% were conducting practical sessions. Two in three (68%) said they would conduct more than 50% of their total teaching online by the end of 2020, and 12% anticipated 90% or more of their teaching would be online. Of all respondents, 74% expressed interest in an online platform delivering educational resources. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the teaching of contact lenses, as educational institutions worldwide move to online delivery. Major challenges remain with online contact lens education, with respect to teaching practical skills, student assessment and interaction. More support will be needed for educators to meet these challenges as the recovery from the pandemic continues.