Second wave of COVID-19 - Not a matter of great concern for pediatric hematologist/oncologist

Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a global pandemic and is giving rise to a serious health threat globally. SARS-CoV-2 infection ranges from asymptomatic carrier state to severe illness requiring intensive care unit (ICU) management. It is postulated that with COVID-19 infection, children are less prone to develop severe symptoms as compared with adults. The data on immunocompromised children affected with COVID-19 infection is limited and not many publications are there on the effects of 2nd wave of COVID-19 infection in pediatric hematology/oncology patients till date. In our experience during second wave, 17 patients were found to be positive for SARS-CoV-2 with a male: female ratio of 2.4: 1 and median age of 8 years (range 1-18 years). Out of these 17 patients, 10 (58.8%) patients required hospital admission whereas the remaining were managed at home. Only 1 patient required ventilatory support and there was no mortality. Though the number of pediatric patients with COVID-19 infection were more during the second wave but majority had mild to moderate symptoms and were easily managed.Copyright © 2022 Pediatric Hematology Oncology Chapter of Indian Academy of Pediatrics

High-Cited Papers in Global COVID-19 Vaccine Research

Aim and Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) virus pandemic is still ravaging the world with its ongoing resurgence and the continuous mutation, suggesting the need for continuous research on safe and effective novel vaccines. Presently several types of vaccines have been developed and emerged in the global market to control COVID-19 virus. Consequently, the knowledge and information on COVID-19 have been expanding at a high level. Researchers need to gain relevant knowledge regarding the different vaccines;however scattered information makes this process time-consuming and laborious. The present study aimed to evaluate the characteristics and trends in global COVID-19 vaccine high-cited literature using bibliometric and visualizations methods and offer some directions and suggestions for future research. Methodology: Studies published between December 2019 and 22 Nov 2022 on COVID-19 vaccines were retrieved from the Scopus database. From the 16026 studies retrieved, 406 were identified as high-cited papers (HCPs) having received 100 or more citations. From the 406 HCPs, information about publications outputs, countries, institutions, journals, keywords, and citation counts was identified. Data analysis and visualization were conducted using Microsoft Excel, VOSviewer and Bibliometrix R software. Result(s): The 406 global HCPs on COVID-19 vaccines research were identified in Scopus database since Dec 2019 till 30 Nov 2022 using a search strategy, which received 123614 citations, averaging 304.17 citations per publication (CPP). An external funding was received by 53.20% (216 publications), which were cited 76107 times (with an average of 352.35 CPP). The 7086 authors from 694 organizations affiliated to 76 countries and publishing in 121 journals were involved in global COVID-19 vaccine research. The most productive countries were USA (n=213), U.K (n=91), China (n=36) and Germany (n=35). The most impactful countries in terms of citations per paper (CPP) and relative citation index (RCI) were South Africa (794.68 and 2.61), Germany (507.11 and 1.67), U.K. (396.59 and 1.30) and Spain (367.5 and 1.121). The most productive organizations were University of Oxford, U.K., Imperial College London, U.K. (n=25 each), Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA and Tel Aviv University (n=19 each) and the most impactful organizations were University of Cambridge, U.K (783.4 and 2.57), Emory University, USA (780.1 and 2.56), John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA (702.67 and 2.31) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. USA (676.41 and 2.22). The most productive authors were A.J. Pollard (n=16) and T. Lambe (n=14) (of University of Oxford), O. Tureci and P.R. Dormitzer (n=12 each) (of BioNTechSE, Germany) and the most impactful were D. Cooper (1239.22 and 4.07), K.J. Janseu (1228.11 and 4.03) (BioNTechSE, Germany, K.A. Swanson (987.0 and 3.24) (University of Oxford, U.K.) and P.R. Dormitzer (983 and 3.23) (BioNTechSE, Germany). The most productive journals were New England Journal of Medicine (n=53), The Lancet (n=28), Nature (n=22) and JAMA (N=17). The most impactful journals (as per citations per paper) were New England Journal of Medicine (613.15), Lancet (496.39), Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics (369.67) and Nature (360.64). Among population age groups, the major focus was on adults (51.48%) and Middle Aged (39.16%). Among publication types, the major focus was Clinical Studies (26.85%), Epidemiology (22.66%) and Genetics (21.92%). The most significant keywords by frequency of appearances were "Covid-19" (n=388), "Covid-19 Vaccines" (n=357), "Vaccination" (n=221), "Prevention and Control" (n=181) and "Vaccine Immunogenicity" (n=133), Conclusion(s): The HCPs in COVID-19 vaccine research was done mainly by the authors and institutions of high-income Countries (HIC) and was published in high-impact medical journals. Our research has identified the leading countries, institutions, journals, hotspots and development trend in the field that could provide the foundati n for further investigations. The bibliometric analysis will help the clinicians to rapidly identify the potential collaborative partners, identify significant studies, and research topics within their domains of COVID-19 vaccines.Copyright Author (s) 2023.

Analysis and Prediction of Purchase Intention of Online Customers with Deep Learning

Nowadays, online shopping has transformed the traditional shopping trend enormously. This shift has taken a altogether enlarged view after the COVID-19 pandemic which provided world full of opportunities for customers to make purchasing online with ease of home and without compromising the safety parameters. But now every new or old, small, or big platform wants to grab their customers at any cost for which they really need to understand the demand or expectations of customer popping in. Understanding the need of the customer is the key of success for online shopping sites. In our paper, we have made use of a deep learning model to first predict whether the customer is going to make a purchase or not. After deciding this broader category, we can actually provide offers for non-purchaser or a better deal which can make them shop, and for purchasers, we can provide some loyalty cash or coupons to make them stay. In our model, we have got training accuracy of 90.24% and validation accuracy of 88.15%. And the loss of both is 23% and 28%, respectively. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Life skills for resilient leadership during pandemic times: the current and ancient Indian perspectives

Purpose: Leaders today are continuously seeking models to navigate through the challenges posed by the pandemic times, so as to help the organizations flourish in the volatile business environment. This paper attempts to explore the alignment of insights drawn from the ancient Indian scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, with today's leadership requirements, towards the betterment of both the leaders and organizations. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach with thematic analysis is used to identify leadership qualities pertinent in difficult times through interviews with 15 employees at leadership positions. It establishes the alignment of the qualities with the sapient advice from the Holy Scripture, maneuvered by today's leaders to become more purposeful and impactful. Findings: The discernments from the Bhagavad Gita holistically entwine the emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects of resilient leaders and provide guidance on the leaders' attitude towards work, behaviour and self management, to help steer through the challenging environment. With turbulent changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, conventional leadership skills would be outmoded, and hence the leaders need to strengthen the critical shifts in their own established sets of attitudes as well as that of their workforce. Originality/value: Under the changing work environment, while the new leadership narrative of the world beyond takes shape, this study delves both into ancient Indian wisdom and current opinion to identify a template of workable practices that would differentiate extraordinary leaders from the rest. © 2023, Monika Bansal and Surbhi Kapur.

Analysis and Forecasting of the COVID-19 Epidemic Curve

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a supreme challenge for the whole world as well as India. As of now approximately 6.5 million people died in the world. However, the major setback to the world was in 2021 as a result of the second and third waves of COVID-19, which were caused by a different variation of COVID-19 than the first variant. The governments and health sectors were not aware of the subsequent possible waves due to the lack of data analysis competency and improper forecasting models. Hence finding an inflection point of this epidemic curve for COVID-19 infection and death is very imperative to understand different waves and variants instigating these waves. Similarly predicting the epidemic curve for the future is vital to make the government and the systems aware of the impending situation and make them prepare accordingly. Hence this work attempts to demonstrate conditions for finding inflection points and intervals which helps in finding the number of waves and the variants of COVID-19. Simultaneously the forecasting of the number of infections in forthcoming wave is also done using the auto-regressive integrated moving average model to identify the number of waves in India. The prediction of the two months data was compared with actual data for proper analysis. © 2022 IEEE.

Forecasting of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per Capita Using (ARIMA) Data-Driven Intelligent Time Series Predicting Approach

Gross Domestic Product is the aggregate value of all final services and products generated by the country during the measurement period, including private inventories, paid-in capital expenditures, government purchases, personal consumption, and the balance of international commerce. During the Pandemic period of the last two years, the COVID-19 outbreak has caused chaos in the worldwide economy. Sickness outbreaks, supply-chain disruptions, and, more recently, inflation have made policymaking exceedingly difficult. This research aims to forecast GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita for the coming years while also examining historical and present trends in India. This study's objective is to forecast India's future GDP per capita over ten years, from 2021 to 2030, using ARIMA. According to a study, India's GDP per capita has been growing during the last 10 years, and this movement is likely to last over the following ten years. © 2022 IEEE.

Secure Watermarking to Protect Colour Images on Social Media from Misuse

Nowadays the use of electronic media is increasing very rapidly. Especially during the pandemic situation of COVID-19, it has been increased very fast. During lockdown people shared their images on social media, IT industries are working online and people are sharing data to each other in online mode, i.e. in multimedia mode. Multimedia data contains text, video, audio and software, etc. Social media is one of the big platforms to share their contents in multimedia form. Every person is sharing his/her data without knowing about intruders. Intruders can misuse the data posted on web. Social media is the biggest platform for scammers. Hence, the security of digital content is the major issue before us. Various researchers are doing work in this area. Watermarking technique is the most usable protecting techniques from misuse of digital information. The proposed technique in the paper using secure watermarking is useful to protect colour images using unique ID Aadhar number, Discrete Wavelet Transform and Singular Value Decomposition. The experimental results show that this technique is robust and can be used to claim the authenticity during any legal issue. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Accent Classification of Native and Non-Native Children using Harmonic Pitch

To combat the Covid-19 outbreak, the education system shifted away from the classroom to distinct e-learning on digital platforms, which made effective use of voice-based recognition systems, especially for preliterate children. Children’s speech recognition systems face multiple challenges owing to their immature vocal tracts, and they demand more intelligence due to the fact that children with diverse accents utter words differently. Accent refers to a unique style of pronouncing a language, particularly one associated with a specific nation, place, or socio-economic background. This paper aims to extract reliable acoustic and prosodic speech cues of accent for classification of native and non-native preschool children using harmonic pitch estimation along with Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) to train the k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN) classifier. The experimental results reveal that the proposed robust model outperforms various feature extractors in accent classification of native and non-native children in terms of accuracy & F-Measure and more discriminate against noisy environments. © 2022 IEEE.

Mucormycosis During Second Wave of COVID-19 in India: Exploratory Analysis from Tertiary Care Centre of Uttar Pradesh

Background: In April and May 2021, India faced massive second wave of COVID-19 pandemic and then became the hotspots of mucormycosis across globe. Hence, we planned the first analysis of mucormycosis in Uttar Pradesh. Aim and Objectives: coThe objectives were to explore the epidemiology, vaccination status, clinical features, microbiological findings, treatment of mucormycosis and outcome. Material and Methods: This was an observational study of mucormycosis at tertiary care centre of Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India from 20 May 2021 to 15 July 2021. Results: 98 patients’ data with mucormycosis was analyzed. Patients had median age of 55 years. COVID-19 infection was present in 69.4% of participants and diabetes mellitus was present as underlying co-morbid condition in more than 85% of patients. 91.8 % of cases were unvaccinated with steroid consumption in almost 60% of patients. R. arrhizus was among the most common agent while we found less commonly reported fungi like R.homothallicus, Apophysomyces, Cunninghamella. 41.8% of cases were successfully treated and 16.3% of cases expired. Conclusion: Diabetes mellitus was labeled as major predisposing factor and most patients were unvaccinated. Awareness about fungal infections, rigorous monitoring of chronic diseases, judicious use of drugs, early diagnosis and prompt treatment is decisive for better outcome. © 2021, Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine. All rights reserved.

Covid-19 and Environmental Sciences: A Scientometric Assessment of India's Publications

Background: As the Covid-19 pandemic increased exponentially across the globe, it has threatened the human lives and uprooted the economy of various cities and nations, besides having a major impact on the environment. In a matter of a few months, the world has transformed its way of living. The global disruption caused by the Covid-19 has brought about several effects on the environment and climate. Hence, a scientometric study of the India's publications in impact of Covid-19 on environment has been conducted to identify the emerging research trends in this field. Methods: The study downloaded India's publications on this topic from the Scopus database using a well-defined research strategy, which was based on using all keywords related to Covid-19 in "Keyword" and "Title" search tags of Scopus database. The search was subsequently restricted to "Environmental Sciences" subject, and limited to "India" yielding 805 records. Results: The 805 Indian publications were published on `Covid-19 and Environmental Sciences" as searched in Scopus database and these have received 8275 citations, averaging 10.28 citations per paper. The 30.19% and 36.64% share of India's publications received external funding support and involve international collaboration. Among India's foreign collaborating partner countries, USA contributed the largest share (27.80%), followed by U.K. (21.02%), China and Saudi Arabia (14.24% each) and Australia (13.9%). Among 380 participating organizations, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Nagpur, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, New Delhi contributed the largest number of papers (31, 26 and 26 papers) and Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi (47.5 and 4.68), Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences (28.29 and 2.79) and Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (19.75 and 1.95) registered the largest citation impact. Among 945 participating authors, M. Kumar, S. Gautam and R. Kumar contributed the largest number of papers (25, 13 and 10 papers) and A. Narayanasamy (61.17 and 6.03), S. Gautam. (30.46 and 3.0) and M. Joshi (27.29 and 2.69) registered the largest citation impact. Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Science of the Total Environment and Environmental Science and Pollution Research contributed the largest number of papers (76, 60 and 45 papers) and Environmental Pollution (12.0), Aerosol and Air Quality Research (11.12), Modeling Earth Systems and Environment (10.50) registered the largest citation impact of paper. The most significant keywords associated with "Covid-19 and Environmental Science" along with their frequency are: Air Quality (124), Air Pollution (96), Particulate Matter (91), Atmospheric Pollution (65), Environmental Monitoring (52), etc. Conclusion: The results of the present study are focused on evaluation of the India's contribution, focusing on both national and international issues using quantitative and qualitative methods. Such a study has allowed us to visualize the research trends that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic and will facilitate the researchers to identify significant hotspots and latest trends in the field.

Covid-19 and Thyroid: A Scopus-based Bibliometric Assessment of Research Output

Introduction: A bibliometric assessment of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19)-related thyroid research is unavailable. Materials and Methods: We searched Elsevier's Scopus database for publications on Covid-19 and thyroid disease up to August 18, 2021, using a predefined search strategy. The data were analyzed by publication characteristics, the most active countries, institutions, authors, journals, citations, and research trends. Results: The global publications totaled 599;446 (74.4%) were original articles. Only 18.0% (108) were funded, but these received higher citations per paper (CPP) than the non-funded publications (average CPP 14.8 versus 9.8). Of the 97 countries that participated in the research, the USA, Italy, India, and China were the most productive, whereas China, Germany, UK, and the USA were the most impactful. The studied patient population groups were "Adults" (50.5%), "Middle-Aged" (33.7%), "Aged" (29.3%), "Children" (7.8%), and "Adolescents" (6.5%). The research organizations and authors numbered 272 and 404, respectively. The most productive organizations were Universita Degli Studi Napoli, Italy, Harvard Medical School, USA, and Universita Degli Studi Milano, Italy. The most productive authors were G. Troncone, L. Glovanella, and G. Anedda. The top productive journals were Endocrine, Journal of Endocrine Investigation, and Frontiers in Endocrinology. Only 22 (3.6%) were highly-cited (average CPP 141.8). Conclusion: The Covid-19 research concerning thyroid disorders has been largely conducted in the USA and Europe with contributions from China and India. There is a need to foster collaboration between high- and low-income countries for formulating better strategies to tackle thyroidrelated morbidities in Covid-19. Additionally, such research should involve younger age groups.

Covid-19 and Heart Diseases: A Scientometric Assessment of Global Publications during 2020-21

Background: Many patients with Covid-19 have underlying cardiovascular disease or develop acute cardiac injury during the course of the illness. Adequate understanding of the interplay between Covid-19 and Cardiovascular disease is required for optimum management of these patients. The study analyzed and evaluated the global publication output on "Covid-19 and Heart Diseases" to find out the current trends and present status of research, by identifing important countries, organizations, authors and journals and important topics and keywords from the global publications, using bibliometric methods. Methods: Relevant published literature from December 2019 to August 2021 were identified and analyzed on the topic "Covid-19 and Heart Diseases" using a well-defined search strategy in Scopus database. A list of keywords were identified for Covid-19 ("Covid 19" or "2019 novel Coronavirus" or "Coronavirus 2019" or "Coronavirus disease 2019" or "2019-novel CoV" OR "2019 ncov" or "Covid 2019" or "Covid19" or "Corona virus 2019" or "ncov-2019" or "ncov2019" or "nCoV 2019" or "2019-ncov" or "covid-19" or "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" or "SARS-CoV-2") and Heart Diseases (cardi* or arrhythmia or myocardial* or heart*) and these keywords are used for search in "Keywords" and Title" tags of Scopus database, yielding 5298 records. Results: A total of 5298 relevant publications indexed in Scopus database were obtained on "Covid-19 and Heart Disease", which received 62459 citations, averaging 11.79 citations per paper. The total publications witnessed the participation of 123 countries, with USA, Italy, U.K. and China leading in global publication productivity (with 1757, 707, 551 and 413 papers) and China (35.31 and 2.99), France (23.01 and 1.95), Germany (23.0 and 1.95) and Italy (20.43 and 1.73) leading in citation impact per publication and relative citation index. The 1761 organizations and 2499 authors participated in these 5298 publications. Harvard Medical School, USA, Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA and Massachsetts General Hospital leads in publications productivity (with 178, 92 and 92 publications each) and New York Presbyterian Hospital, USA (121.53 and 10.31), Tongji Medical College, China (65.65 and 5.57) and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (65.41 and 5.55) leads in citations impact per paper and relative citation index. M. Metra, A. Harky and M.K. Chung leads in publications productivity (with 23, 22 and 153 papers each) and G.Y.H. Lip (U.K.)(114.67 and 9.73), A.J. Kirtane (USA)(109.67 and 9.3) and M. Metra (Italy)(87.04 and 7.38) leads in citations impact per publication and relative citation index. European Heart Journal, Circulation and Stroke leads in publication productivity (with 85, 81 and 73 publications) and JAMA Cardiology (154.23), Journal of the American College of Cardiology (54.99) and Circulation (43.54) leads in citation impact per paper. Major keywords appearing along with "Covid-19 and "Heart Diseases" in co-occurnces were "Cardiovascular Disease" (1176), "Heart Failure" (802), "Hypertension" (664), "Cerebrovascular Accidents" (659), "Stroke" (608), "Mycarditis" (511), "Heart Arrhytthrmia"(464), etc. Conclusion: The study presents the current trends and status of research in the field and indicate the important keywords where research is focused in global literature on cardiovascular manifestations in Covid-19 patients. Such a analysis tmay be useful to the research community and decision-makers to prioritize research needs and identify leading Covid-19 researchers, countries, institutes and authors.

COVID-19 and pregnancy: A scientometric assessment of global publications during 2020-21

Background: Covid-19 pandemic had been a disastrous catastrophe on human race affecting different groups of population differently. Pregnancy is a condition which too has been affected by Covid-19. The present study aims to examine the research productivity of Covid-19 and pregnancy. Methods: Keywords pertaining to “Covid-19” and “Pregnancy” were used in search string in Scopus database for the period 2020-21. Data regarding publications growth, productive countries, authors and institutions, high cited papers and significant keywords was retrieved to analyze results. Results: The search retrieved 2945 global publications for the period 2020-21. The USA, UK and China were the most productive countries (with 28.96%, 11.27% and 9.3% global share) on “Covid-19 and Pregnancy”. The 613 organizations and 953 authors participated in global research on the subject, with top 20 most productive organizations and authors contributing 26.38% and 9.68% global publication share and 53.64% and 38.53% global citation share respectively. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, Tongji Medical College, China and Harvard Medical School, USA were the most productive organizations (with 68, 64 and 52 publications) and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (45.88 and 2.12), Tongji Medical College, China (44.96 and 2.08) and University of Health Sciences, Turkey (22.38 and 1.03) led the world as most impactful organizations in terms of citation impact and relative citation index. A Khalil (23 papers), C. Gyamfi-Bannerman (19 papers) and D. Goffman and I.C. Poon (17 papers each) were the most productive authors and H. Yang (197.4 and 4.66), l. Feng (105.12 and 2.5) and D.A. Schwartz (74.82 and 1.77) were the most impactful authors. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (94 papers), International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (85 papers) and European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology (66 papers) were the most productive journals in global research on “Covid-19 and Pregnancy”. JAMA-Journal of the American Medical Association (45.52), Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica (34.22) and Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (25.95) were leading most impactful journals. The 61 (2.07%) out of 2945 global publications on “Covid-19 and Pregnancy” registered 102 to 1571 citations per paper and they together received 14620 citations averaging 239.67 citations per paper. These 61 publications are assumed as high cited publications and involve 153 authors, 116 organizations and published in 43 journals.

Challenges and opportunities in energy transformation during COVID-19

There was a time in human history when global risks were feared because of nuclear wars, armed rebellions and their aftereffects. In January 2020, when the world was fearing a major war between USA and Iran, who knew that a micro-object would create such destruction that would lock the entire globe. In December 2019, Chinese city of Wuhan reported an increase in the number of patients showing pneumonia-like symptoms and the researchers identified it to be "novel- Corona virus". This was a new virus strain that has not previously affected the human body. It did not discriminate between people on the basis of boundaries, financial status, race, religion, gender, age and any other aspect which a human can identify as a basis of discrimination. This virus has now wrecked almost two-hundred countries across the globe and has taken a heavy toll on the global economy. The pandemic has changed the lifestyle globally as work from home has become the new normal. The devastating situation has generated new challenges in the financial and technical activities of the power sector and hence most of the utilities around the world initiated a disaster management plan to tackle the threats. The report seeks to provide a comprehensive coverage of the prevailing untoward situation particularly in the energy sector, the challenges which have occurred and the various opportunities to uplift the countries by the use of renewable and green resources. The paper also highlights the importance of innovative technologies to be utilized as an alternative source of energy after Covid-19 crisis. © 2021 Novel Carbon Resource Sciences. All rights reserved.

COVID 19-an overview on epidemiology, symptoms, prevention, management, treatment and role of health workers

With the first case of a highly infectious virus named Coronavirus in Wuhan, China in December 2019, this deadly virus was declared a pandemic by WHO. COVID-19 was found to be very similar to patients infected with MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. The virus was transmitted from bats to humans through some unidentified intermediary. Since its introduction in humans, it has infected 118000 people, killing 3583 till last week of May 2020 in India. The reported route of transmission is inhalation or direct contact with the infected surface or patients. This symptomatic disease includes symptoms such as cough, fever, sore throat, fatigue, and in some severe patients, it may cause multiple organ failure, pneumonia, severe or acute respiratory diseases. In some cases people may be asymptomatic till 14 d of infection. The patients with mild illness are usually isolated and others are prevented with protective measures such as medical mask, hand hygiene. In the present article, the epidemiology, route of transmission, clinical symptoms, prevention, management, treatment and role and responsibility of health workers is overviewed on the basis of published research and review articles and current state of knowledge. © 2020 The Authors.

Cardiological society of India document on safety measure during echo evaluation of cardiovascular disease in the time of COVID-19.

An echocardiographic investigation is one of the key modalities of diagnosis in cardiology. There has been a rising presence of cardiological comorbidities in patients positive for COVID-19. Hence, it is becoming extremely essential to look into the correct safety precautions, healthcare professionals must take while conducting an echo investigation. The decision matrix formulated for conducting an echocardiographic evaluation is based on presence or absence of cardiological comorbidity vis-à-vis positive, suspected or negative for COVID-19. The safety measures have been constructed keeping in mind the current safety precautions by WHO, CDC and MoHFW, India.