Level of awareness of preventive protocols amongst special educators in schools during COVID-19

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge of special educators on COVID-19, impart evidence based scientific information through health education program and reassess the knowledge through a self-constructed close ended questionnaire. The aim to educate and recommend alternate ways of maintaining COVID safe environments in special school's post pandemic. Material and methods: A total of 42 special educators participated in the study. The knowledge of special educators on COVID-19 was assessed through self-constructed pre-test form. Post health education, knowledge gained was reassessed with help of the same close ended questionnaire. A power point presentation on COVID-19, including evidence based scientific information was done. This was followed by an interactive session. The obtained responses were tabulated evaluated for the correct and incorrect responses. The results obtained were subjected to statistical analysis.

Is Non-Restorative Cavity Treatment a Practical Choice in Primary Teeth?

For years, "extension for prevention" was considered as the standard protocol for the restoration of caries. With advances in the field of cariology regarding the biofilm and improvement in materials, this perspective is being challenged. This is being challenged by more biological and less-invasive approaches, where the emphasis is on biofilm alteration to arrest carious lesions. This minimally invasive intervention is based on the concept that biofilm overlying the carious lesion is a driving force for the carious process and not the bacteria present in the infected dentin. Hence, daily removal or disruption of this biofilm will slow down the carious process or bring it to halt. One such approach is non-restorative cavity treatment, where no caries is removed but lesions are made self-cleansable that allows it to be brushed by the parent or the child. This wholesome approach targets the disease at a causal level. This review of literature describes the various advantages and limitations of this technique and the practicability of its use in pediatric patients during the pandemic COVID-19.

Covan, COVID-associated nephropathy: An evolving epidemic of kidney disease

Introduction: We highlight COVID-19 related renal characteristics in 6 African American patients with positive nasopharyngeal RT-PCR for SARS-COV-2 infection, presenting without severe respiratory symptoms but with acute kidney injury and nephrotic range proteinuria. Case Description: One of the patients was a transplant recipient. None required mechanical ventilation and no COVID-19 specific therapy was prescribed. All underwent a renal biopsy that showed varying combinations of collapsing glomerulopathy, podocytopathy and protein overload tubulopathy (Fig 1A). Additionally, tubulo-reticular inclusions and virions (suspected to be SARS-COV-2 virions) were seen in electron micrographs (Fig 1B). APOL1 genotype was tested in 3 patients who were all found to carry high-risk genotypes, suggesting possible susceptibility of patients with high-risk APOL1 alleles to kidney involvement in SARS-Cov-2 (Fig 1C) Discussion: There was discordance between the high risk G1/G1 genotype of the transplant recipient and the low risk G1/G0 donor kidney genotype, suggesting the important possibility of a systemic APOL1-related mechanism in kidney injury. In conclusion, these 6 cases draw attention to proteinuric kidney disease in COVID-19 infection, possibly associated with a milder form of respiratory disease and high risk APOL1 genotype, emphasizing the need for ongoing vigilance and further investigation into this phenomenon.