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Objective: To assess the course of COVID-19 infections and the tolerability of the mRNA vaccines of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech and the viral vector vaccines from Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson in adult patients with epilepsy (PWE). Method(s): From July 2020 to July 2021, we consecutively included adult outpatients with confirmed epilepsy. These PWE were interviewed about COVID-19 infections and vaccinations. Results of follow-up visits were added until the cut-off date (December 31, 2021). The data of COVID-19-infected without vaccinations or fully vaccinated PWE without COVID-19 infections were analyzed. Full vaccination was defined as a double vaccination with the Pfizer/BionTech, Moderna, or Astra Zeneca vaccines or a single Johnson & Johnson vaccination. Result(s): At cut-off, 612 of 1152 PWE fulfilled the inclusion criteria: 51 PWE had been infected without vaccination and 561 had full vaccination without infection. Among the infected PWE, 76.5% presented with symptoms;9.8% had a severe course (one death). The leading symptoms were influenza-like disorders (48.7% of infected PWE with symptoms), anosmia (28.2%), and ageusia (20.5%). Seizure increases or relapses after sustained seizure freedom occurred in 7.8%. Adverse events (AEs) were reported by 113 vaccinated PWE (20.1% of all vaccinated PWE). The leading AEs were fatigue, fever, and headache. The AE rate per vaccine was 14.0% for Pfizer/BionTech, 32.7% for Moderna, 25.8% for Astra Zeneca, and 46.2% for Johnson & Johnson. Of the AEs, 93.3% lasted <=1 week. Seizure increase or relapse occurred in 1.4% and was significantly less frequent than in the infected group (p= 0.0016). Conclusion(s): The course of COVID-19 infections and the tolerability of the vaccines were similar as in the general population, yet, seizure worsening occurred more often after the infection than after the vaccination.Copyright © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, part of Springer Nature.
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Vaccination has been proved to be the most effective strategy to prevent the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The mRNA vaccine based on nano drug delivery system (NDDS) - lipid nanoparticles (LNP) has been widely used because of its high effectiveness and safety. Although there have been reports of severe allergic reactions caused by mRNA-LNP vaccines, the mechanism and components of anaphylaxis have not been completely clarified yet. This review focuses on two mRNA-LNP vaccines, BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273. After summarizing the structural characteristics, potential allergens, possible allergic reaction mechanism, and pharmacokinetics of mRNA and LNP in vivo, this article then reviews the evaluation methods for patients with allergic history, as well as the regulations of different countries and regions on people who should not be vaccinated, in order to promote more safe injection of vaccines. LNP has become a recognized highly customizable nucleic acid delivery vector, which not only shows its value in mRNA vaccines, but also has great potential in treating rare diseases, cancers and other broad fields in the future. At the moment when mRNA-LNP vaccines open a new era of nano medicine, it is expected to provide some inspiration for safety research in the process of research, development and evaluation of more nano delivery drugs, and promote more nano drugs successfully to market.Copyright © 2023, Chinese Pharmaceutical Association. All rights reserved.
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Worldwide, infectious diseases have contributed significantly to morbidity and mortality;among the leading causes of death are pneumonia, respiratory infections and Covid-19. Stem cell therapy will be used to treat virus-infected patients in an effective and safe manner. A cross-sectional questionnaire was used to collect data from doctors. Most doctors are aware of the applications of stem cells, but they do not confirm their usage because clinical trials are ongoing. Instead, they show support for using stem cells to treat patients. Stem cells have been hoping to help repair damaged tissues in the respiratory system to promote faster recovery. Stem Cells are being studied in current clinical trials for their efficacy and safety in virus severe pneumonia and respiratory infections. The doctors suggested that stem cells have been used in infectious diseases to improve their health.Copyright © 2023 Health Biotechnology And Biopharma. All rights reserved.
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Objectives: Since its first appearance in Wuhan December 2019, SARS-CoV2 virus received great attention due to its severe symptoms and high spread causing COVID-19 disease which spread all over the world like a pandemic. The causative virus is capable of human-to-human transmission via droplet and direct contact suggesting that upper respiratory tract is the main site to virus manifestations. There is a great diversity in its clinical picture, although the severe respiratory and neurological symptoms are commonly present;however, other symptoms are present. Although otological manifestations are reported in many COVID-19 patients even in asymptomatic cases, they did not receive much attention compared with other critical manifestations. In this article, we paid our attention specifically to the otological manifestations of COVID-19 and their relevance either to the virus infection, treatment, or vaccination through literature review. Conclusion(s): COVID-19 disease has a deleterious effect on the inner ear. This effect is not only due to SARS-Cov-2 infection, but it could be also due to the ototoxic drugs used for treatment. The COVID-19 vaccinations are found to be implicated in the otological symptoms in some cases.Copyright © 2022, The Author(s).
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Since the introduction of COVID-19 vaccine, various adverse events have been reported including injection site pain, fatigue, headaches, and myocarditis. Cranial neuropathies and optic neuritis, have been also rarely reported, however, the significance of these autoimmune manifestations after the administration of COVID-19 vaccine remain controversial. In this report we present a case of myocarditis and bilateral optic neuritis that occurred in a young healthy male patient after the administration of first dose of mRNA-1273 vaccine (Moderna).Copyright © 2022 The Author(s)
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The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has been especially detrimental to patients with end-stage renal disease. History with other vaccines suggests that patients with renal disease may not respond adequately to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. The aim of this study is to evaluate the immunity to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines in renal patients. Post SARS-CoV-2 vaccination first, and after the booster dose, antibodies and cellular immunity were studied in patients on hemodialysis (N = 20), peritoneal dialysis (N = 10) and renal transplantation (N = 10). After the two doses of vaccine, there was an effective immunity in dialysis patients, with 100% seroconversion and 87% detection of cellular immunity (85% in hemodialysis and 90% in peritoneal dialysis). In contrast, in renal transplant recipients there was only 50% seroconversion and cellular immunity was detected in 30% of patients. After the booster dose, all dialysis patients achieved a cellular and antibody immunity, whereas in transplant patients, despite improvement, 20% did not produce antibodies and in 37.5% cellular immunity could not be detected. The mRNA vaccine plus booster performs excellently in dialysis patients, whereas in kidney transplant recipients, despite the booster, complete immunization is not achieved.Copyright © 2022
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Paediatric population is the high-risk segment for the infection of COVID-19 due to weak immune status and low compliance to COVID-19 prevention protocols. The first dose of vaccination for the paediatric population is started in the fifth phase of vaccination, after the vaccination was administered to health workers, elderly individuals, and young adults. Present article aims to analyse the status, trends, and challenges in the implementation of the paediatric vaccination for COVID-19 and provide recommendations that could be taken under consideration by healthcare authorities while designing the second and third vaccination protocols for the paediatric population. Relevant articles published by various journals related to paediatric COVID-19 vaccination were searched from the different databases and analysed for the current status of vaccination, trends, challenges, compliance level, implementation hurdles, and other relevant information. Limited research is available in the paediatric domain for the COVID-19 vaccination. Few vaccines are approved for the paediatric population in India, including the Covaxin, ZyCoV-D, Corbevax and Covovax. It is recommended that the vaccination trials should be accelerated by the government agencies to make COVID vaccines available from other indigenous manufacturers. It is also recommended that the COVID-19 prevention protocol should be made in such a manner that children find that interesting and like to follow them.Copyright © The Author(s) 2023.
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Predicting the humoral, cellular and clinical response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination remains a central aspect for efficiently tackling the ongoing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Several current studies have focused on predicting the clinical response to COVID-19 vaccination by testing both immunological and cellular biomarkers. Nonetheless, this strategy is plagued by a number of drawbacks, so that a "biological marker" which may help predicting vaccine efficacy, efficiently surrogating laboratory-based tests, would be a valuable resource for optimizing vaccine delivery. A number of recent studies, summarized in this clinical practice review, have repeatedly emphasized the existence of a significant relationship between increased body temperature and humoral response after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, we put forward the idea that fever should be no longer considered only an adverse (almost undesirable) post-vaccination side effect, wherein its onset may actually reflect enhanced immunological response to vaccine, and its measurement could hence be used for screening at least mRNA-based vaccine immunogenicity in terms of humoral response up to 3 months after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination by using specifically validated algorithms incorporating the integrate assessment of body temperature and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.Copyright © Journal of Laboratory and Precision Medicine. All rights reserved.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak started in Wuhan, China when people started with the symptoms of respiratory disorder. The onset of this disease have symptoms like fever, dry cough, fatigue, and difficulty in breathing. The nature of SARS-CoV-2 seems highly contagious as it also can be spread with asymptomatically infected individuals. It has been more than a year which this outbreak have been announced as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) due to major public health crisis and uncontrollable around the globe. Some countries have taken initiatives in inventing vaccines and step up in the clinical trial process since a vaccine is an all-powerful tool which it always been a saviour in fighting infectious disease. In searching for the vaccine, researchers had studied the previously published article of SARS-CoV or MERS as in the beginning, in light, there will be a suitable vaccine to fight this pandemic situation. Recent research on the vaccine has been tested to seek the right vaccine for COVID-19. This study is to focus on the current vaccine development against COVID-19 and to explore the potential vaccines' characteristics that have been studied by the previous proven research findings. This review was done based on the research articles and reviews published until the end of April 2021 through established scientific search engines and related scientific platforms based on the inclusion criteria with its related keywords like coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 Vaccine, clinical trials, and COVID-19 vaccine development. This review summarized a few vaccine candidates that have entered clinical trials and some supported evidence from Phase I until Phase III clinical trial studies that have been published and reported. In this review, 12 vaccine candidates have the potential to against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, their vaccine platform, characteristic as well as its efficacy studies have been discussed.Copyright © RJPT All right reserved.
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Background: There has been lot of speculation around the possible side effects associated with COVID vaccination and incidence of facial palsy is one of them. Bilateral facial palsy is less likely to be idiopathic as compared to unilateral facial nerve palsy and warrants further investigations to find any secondary cause. COVID 19 infection and the vaccinations for the same are also included in the unique list of differentials. Case report: We report an interesting case of bilateral rapidly sequential facial nerve palsy following the administration of COVID vaccination that showed subsequent improvement. We provide literature review to report the current incidence of same, secondary to the vaccination as well the infection itself Case presentation: Following the introduction of COVID 19 vaccine, there have been reports of various cranial nerve involvement including lower motor neuron type facial paresis. Bilateral facial palsy is less likely to be idiopathic as compared to unilateral palsy(23% vs 70%) and requires further work up to determine the etiology before determining to be idiopathic. Unilateral facial palsy(FP) has been reported in the Phase I and II trials for Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, with a total of 7 cases reported in these initial trials. To date, there is no direct evidence that these vaccines have increased the incidence of facial palsy as compared to adverse events reported with other vaccines or compared to COVID 19 infection itself. We report a unique case of bilateral lower motor neuron type facial palsy noted in a young male within hours of receiving the vaccine that later improved with treatment. Reports of simultaneous bilateral facial palsy after vaccine are rare with only few cases reported to date in literature. Conclusion(s): In conclusion from current available literature, we would like to postulate that though there is a risk of facial nerve palsy following the vaccination, it is comparable to the risks associated with any other vaccinations and not been higher than the non-vaccinated population. The overall risk is higher with the actual COVID 19 infection itself as compared to the vaccine.Copyright © 2022
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Background: Currently, the present world is facing a new deadly challenge from a pandemic disease called COVID-19, which is caused by a coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. To date, no drug or vaccine can treat COVID-19 completely, but some drugs have been used primarily, and they are in different stages of clinical trials. This review article discussed and compared those drugs which are running ahead in COVID-19 treatments. Method(s): We have explored PUBMED, SCOPUS, WEB OF SCIENCE, as well as press releases of WHO, NIH and FDA for articles related to COVID-19 and reviewed them. Result(s): Drugs like favipiravir, remdesivir, lopinavir/ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, ivermectin, corticosteroids and interferons have been found effective to some extent, and partially approved by FDA and WHO to treat COVID-19 at different levels. However, some of these drugs have been disapproved later, although clinical trials are going on. In parallel, plasma therapy has been found fruitful to some extent too, and a number of vaccine trials are going on. Conclusion(s): This review article discussed the epidemiologic and mechanistic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, and how drugs could act on this virus with the comparative discussion on progress and drawbacks of major drugs used till date, which might be beneficial for choosing therapies against COVID-19 in different countries.Copyright © 2022 Bentham Science Publishers.
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Covid immunization commenced on 2nd Feb 2021 in Pakistan and as of 7th Sep 2021, over 84 million vaccine doses were administered in Pakistan, of which 72% procured by the government, 22% received through Covax and 6% were donated. The vaccines rolled out nationally included: Sinopharm, Sinovac and CanSinoBIO (China), AstraZeneca (UK), Moderna and Pfizer (USA), Sputnik (Russia), and PakVac (China/Pakistan). About half of the eligible population in Pakistan (63 m) had received at least one dose of Covid vaccine as of Sep 2021. Pakistan National Pharmacovigilance Centre (PNPC) in coordination with WHO, MHRA and Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) established pharmacovigilance centers across Pakistan. The Covid vaccine AEFIs in Pakistan were mainly reported via NIMS (National Immunization Management System), COVIM (Covid-19 Vaccine Inventory Management System), 1166 freephone helpline and MedSafety. There have been 39,291 ADRs reported as of 30th Sept 2021, where most reported after the first dose (n = 27,108) and within 24-72 h of immunization (n = 27,591). Fever or shivering accounted for most AEFI (35%) followed by injection-site pain or redness (28%), headache (26%), nausea/vomiting (4%), and diarrhoea (3%). 24 serious AEFIs were also reported and investigated in detail by the National AEFI review committee. The rate of AEFIs reports ranged from 0.27 to 0.79 per 1000 for various Covid vaccines in Pakistan that was significantly lower than the rates in UK (~4 per 1000), primarily atrributed to underreporting of cases in Pakistan. Finally, Covid vaccines were well tolerated and no significant cause for concern was flagged up in Pakistan's Covid vaccine surveillance system concluding overall benefits outweighed risks.Copyright © 2022
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Introduction: Myocarditis is an adverse reaction discovered after the marketing of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. Nevertheless, this effect is not mentioned as an adverse reaction in the summary of product characteristics of other types of vaccines against this disease. Objective(s): In this work, we aim to present the cases of myocarditis after vaccination against COVID-19 reported to the national Tunisian centre of pharmacovigilance. Method(s): We present the cases of myocarditis reported after the COVID-19 vaccination. All cases are diagnosed according to Brighton's case definition of myocarditis. The vaccines causality assessment was estimated by the French imputability updated method of Begaud et al. Result(s): We included five patients. The sex ratio (M/F) was 4. The mean age was 30 years. All patients had no notable cardiovascular history and did not report any significant past medical history. The onset of symptoms was two days post-vaccination in three patients. The predominant reported symptoms are chest pain and dyspnea in the five cases. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the myocarditis diagnosis in four patients (not performed for one patient). All cases were classified as definitive cases according to the Brighton case definition of myocarditis. No patient required hospitalization in a cardiac intensive care unit. All the patients recovered from acute myocarditis within a few days. Conclusion(s): Reported cases of myocarditis post-COVID-19 vaccination in our population are rare, not severe, and have a quick favorable outcome.Copyright © 2022
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Various vaccine platforms are geared against COVID-19 vaccine development to produce immunogens in cells. To design a recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, Vaxine pty Ltd used computer models of the spike protein and its human receptor, ACE2, to identify how the virus infects human cells. Based on this, the COVAX-19 vaccine is synthesized. It does reduce not only COVID-19 disease but also blocks virus shedding and transmission. Researchers are optimistic that this vaccine candidate could be clinically available soon with sufficient vaccine efficacy with a considerable amount of reduction in vaccination-related side effects.Copyright © 2021