Frequency of underlying diseases, symptoms and mortality rate of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is known to be affected by underlying diseases of the respiratory system. In this meta-analysis, the keywords of COVID-19, underlying diseases, symptoms, and mortality were searched in national and international databases to obtain the related studies. The inclusion criteria were as follows: interventional, clinical, descriptive and cross-sectional, and studies focusing on COVID-19. This study was conducted based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. Eighteen studies were selected to be finally analyzed. The mean percentage of mortality was 14% (I2 ¼ 98.9, P < 0.001). The most common symptoms were fever (91%, I2 ¼ 88.5, P < 0.001) and cough (71%, I2 ¼ 84.5, P < 0.001), and the most frequent underlying diseases were hypertension (41%, I2 ¼ 98.9, P < 0.001), diabetes mellitus (18%, I2 ¼ 88.7, P < 0.001) and cardiovascular disease (11%, I2 ¼ 87.7, P < 0.001). Findings of present study suggest that individuals with underlying diseases have a higher rate of mortality following COVID-19 infection.

Evaluation of the therapeutic effect of the plasma of recovered COVID-19 patients for treating the patients admitted to the intensive care unit.

The novel coronavirus has infected about 141 million people around the world. So far, about 80.4 million people have been discharged, and nearly 3.01 million people have died (an estimated mortality rate of 2.13%). The study aimed to investigate the effect of plasma therapy from recovered COVID-19 patients to treat the patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital of Ilam in 2020. The present prospective study was conducted in 2019-2020. Overall, 57 cases of plasma therapy were analysed using the Cox proportional hazard regression model in STATA 12 software. The results showed in patients receiving plasma treatment, the hazard ratio was (HR = 0.68, 95% CI, 0.45-1.04), indicating a 32% lower risk of death in the COVID-19 patients who received plasma therapy compared to those who did not. However, this relationship does not reach statistical significance (p = 0.07). Plasma therapy seems to yield some efficacy among patients with severe COVID-19 and those who have no underlying diseases. It is recommended to be used in combination with pharmaceutical interventions, for example, Actemra, to assess its therapeutic efficiency.

Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of COVID-19 in Infants and Children: A Systematic Review Study of Performed Protocols

Context: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is one of the most dangerous viral diseases that started spreading in China in 2019 and has caused many deaths so far. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review studies on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of coronavirus in infants and children. Evidence Acquisition: This is a systematic review study conducted in PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Embase, Cochrane Library, Science Direct, and Web of Science (ISI) databases on October 82020. Also, we searched Google Scholar to find all in-press articles. To extract data, a checklist was used, which included the author's name, year of publication, purpose, age group of patients under study, and the protocol applied for coronavirus prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. The search was done with AND, OR, NOT strategies. The results of the study were reported in a descriptive manner using Endnote version 8 software. Results: According to the results of the basic search,120 articles were extracted on the management of coronavirus. Of the articles extracted, 30 were articles related to children, of which only eight developed protocols for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in infants and children. Of the studies extracted, six were from China, one from Iran, and one from Australia. It should be noted that the protocols for infants were extracted from two studies on infants and four studies on the pediatric group. Conclusions: It is proposed to consider and study this systematic review of coronavirus management in infants and children.

The frequency of arrhythmias in COVID-19 patients, a study in the Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital of Ilam from March to August 2020.

Cardiac arrhythmias are important causes of death among populations and are always responsible for a high percentage of mortality in hospitalized patients. The aim of this descriptive analytical study was to evaluate the frequency of arrhythmias in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital of Ilam from March to August 2020. All the COVID-19 patients with a cardiac condition admitted to the intensive care unit were enrolled in the study by census. Electrocardiography (ECG) and Holter monitoring were used to diagnose arrhythmias. Data analysis was performed in Microsoft Excel using descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage). The total number of eligible patients was 45, of whom 26 (57.8%) were men and 19 (42.2%) were women. The mortality rate of arrhythmias among COVID-19 patients was 17.77% (8 out of 45 patients), and the recovery rate was 82.13% (37 out of 45 patients). Tachycardia and a lack of response to heart-rate-reducing drugs were observed in patients with COVID-19. Owing to an overlap between these symptoms and those of heart diseases, there is a need to further evaluate patients with arrhythmias. Although arrhythmias are not common in COVID-19 patients, they can be fatal and have a high mortality rate, which can be prevented by early detection.

Case series of four pregnant women with COVID-19 in Ilam, Iran.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has quickly become the most important health burden globally as a result of the pandemic. Pregnant women are considered to be in a high-risk group because COVID-19 infection in this group may result in extensive damage. We aimed to describe COVID-19 infections in four pregnant women in Ilam, Iran. All had positive results first by real-time PCR, then by computed tomographic scan. All of these patients were hospitalized, and all of them were treated successfully. This study showed that although pregnant women are at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection, they can be treated successfully. It also demonstrated that receiving care and treatment at the hospital can be a good experience for pregnant women.

Report of five nurses infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 during patient care: case series.

The high prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has received much attention all over the world. Nurses are in the first line of defence against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and are placed in a high-risk situation. This study aimed to report on infection with SARS-CoV-2 during patient care among nures in the Mostafa Khomini Hospital, Ilam, Iran. In this hospital 125 nurses were enrolled in the COVID-19 centre. Five out of 125 nurses (4%) who enrolled in the COVID-19 infection centre, developed COVID-19. They were first positive by real-time PCR but the CT scan was positive for only one of them. None of the infected nurses were hospitalized and all of them preferred to quarantine at home and receive the necessary care and treatment (oseltamivir, azithromycin and lopinavir/ritonavir). This study showed that, regardless of self caring, the nurses were exposed to the virus, because at the start of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Iran, there was no special protection against this infection, so the nurses were placed at risk. This study also reported that receiving the necessary care and treatment at home was a good experience for nurses and can be used in some cases.