Effectiveness of the Air-Filled Technique to Reduce the Dead Space in Syringes and Needles during ChAdox1-n CoV Vaccine Administration.

In the current study, we calculated the vaccine volume and amount of dead space in a syringe and needle during ChAdox1-n CoV vaccine administration using the air-filled technique. The aim is to reduce the dead space in syringes and needles in order to administer up to 12 doses per vial. The hypothetical situation uses a vial with a similar size as the ChAdox1-n CoV vial. We used distilled water (6.5 mL) to fill the same volume as five vials of ChAdox1-n CoV. When 0.48 mL of distilled water is drawn according to the number on the side of the barrel, an additional 0.10 mL of air can be used in the dead space of the distilled water in the syringe and needle for 60 doses, which can be divided into an average of 0.5 mL per dose. ChAdox1-n CoV was administered using a 1-mL syringe and 25G needle into 12 doses using this air-filled technique. The volume of the recipient vaccine will increase by 20% and save on the budget for low dead space syringes (LDS).

Controlling Coronavirus Infection: 'Plan B' Based on Non-vaccine / Drug Interventions

COVID-19 pandemic affected over 227 countries with more than 147 million infections that claimed 31.22 lacs lives. The first case of the pandemic was reported from China in Dec, 2019 showing pneumonia like symptoms that turned out to be the novel strain of coronavirus (2019-n-CoV). The WHO declared 2019-nCoV infection as the Public Health Emergency of International Concern and the disease named coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The infection curve of the pandemic has been flattened in many countries around the world, but the effective new antiviral drugs or vaccine has not yet developed. So far, we are saved by non-pharmaceutical interventions like handwashing, social distancing, quarantine, masks and health-care workers by personal protective equipments. Now the question arises that what we do if no effective drug or vaccine emerges? In the absence of effective drug/vaccines, pandemic has to be fought at community level not at hospi-tals. For such emergent situations, we need a 'Plan B' based non-vaccine/drug interventions.Copyright © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers.

Predicted impacts of government policies and actions on the SARS-CoV-2 disease in the northwestern Himalayan region, India.

AIM: The outbreak of the new coronavirus pandemic (SARS-CoV-2) was initiated in December 2019, and within a couple of months it became a global health emergency. Given the importance to assess the evolution and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 and to forecast the next scenario of the pandemic, mainly in countries with limited healthcare systems, we estimated the reproductive number (R0) of SARS-CoV-2 in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), India, and a possible scenario for this pandemic in the region. SUBJECT AND METHODS: We estimated the reproductive number (R0) of SARS-CoV-2 in its first outbreak stage in the northwestern region of Himalaya, India, and we also predicted new daily cases for the next 90 days using different R0, testing a plausible end of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. RESULTS: Our results showed a considerable increase in the number of cases, but with a tendency to asymptote. Anantnag, Bandipora, Baramulla, Shopian, and Srinagar districts showed more than 100 cases and Kulgam and Kathua districts showed strong growth of the number of cases from the beginning of May, without a tendency to normalization. The estimated R0 for the J&K region was 1.041; but by decreasing the RO by 10, 25, and 50%, we observed a great decrease in the daily number of new cases, especially by decreasing by 50%. CONCLUSION: In this study, we indicate positive effects of the preventive measures, such as lockdown and social distancing, taken in the J&K region, showing a stabilization of the growth curves of new cases of SARS-CoV-2, which tends to a strong decrease over time as the R0 decreases.

Identification of Novel Coronavirus (n-CoV) Using a Two-Dimensional (2-D) Photonic Crystal (PhC) Structure and Finite Element Method (FEM) Via a Violet Laser Beam

Covid 19, a deadly virus is spreading exponentially across the globe that leads to loss of precious life. Recent data suggests that more than 4.6 million people have been died due to this, so it is requiring an ample precaution to stop it. Development of good vaccine along with rapid testing could reduce the mortality rate. Though recently few good vaccines have developed but adequate numbers of doses are not available for every individual due to lack of mass production. Not only are the production issues but also their prob-lems lie in transportation and distribution to huge population. In this sce-nario testing will play a vital role so that affected people could get a dose in priority basis. To meet the nitty-gritty of such problem. A violet laser beam interacted with a photonic crystal (PhC) structure having dimension of 600 x 600 nm2 to identify the novel coronavirus (n-CoV) know as SARS CoV-2. The device finds 16 squares which hold the samples of the swab collected from a patient where the signal of 412 nm (728 THz) incident to it. The principle of mechanism deals with the analysis of scattering parameters (S11 and S12) of the signals which is obtained through the finite element method (FEM). The S11 and S12 parameters deal with the transmittance and reflec-tance of the signal pertaining to the chosen structure. Further, the investiga-tion of transmittance identifies the nature of the virus;for example, the present research claims that blue and violet colours are two possible implica-tions at the output when the structure containing sample excited with a violet laser beam. The output with blue colour indicating the presence of just ordi-nary coronaviruses. On the other hand, if we receive violet colour then it is novel corona viruses (n-CoV)

Evaluation of Turkey’s contribution to SCI-E indexed publications on COVID-19

BackgroundIn December of 2019, a new disease which is caused by SARS-CoV-2, as an epidemic disease out of Wuhan, China, began to circulate. On March 11, 2020, the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health had announced the first case from Turkey. The aim of this study is to analyze the scientific publications in the field of COVID-19 included in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) from Turkey and to establish a theoretical background for future studies in the health literature with obtained valuable information about the publications. We searched all papers published in the field of COVID-19 by using the terms of “COVID-19,” “2019-n-CoV,” “SARS-CoV-2,” “Coronavirus disease 19,” and “2019 novel coronavirus” as scientific nomenclatures of COVID-19 in the topic search section of the software.ResultsOverall, 47,368 papers, indexed by SCI-E, were found related to COVID-19 between January 1, 2020, and December 13, 2020. Of these, 931 were from Turkey. In terms of specialities, the most contribution was from the Medicine General Internal followed by Dermatology. Most of the publications were article. English was the most preferred language in papers. Dermatological Theraphy published the most paper.ConclusionsApplying this kind of analysis on an intermittent basis gives a general perspective for contribution of a countries to scientific publications and useful for the further studies.

Identification of Coronavirus (n-CoV) Using a Two-dimensional (2-D) Photonic Crystal Structure (PCS) via the Plane Wave Expansion (PWE) Technique Using a Laser Diode (LD)

COVID 19, a furious virus, exploded across the globe in 2020. Treatment, tracing and testing are the only way to retain a normal life. But the biggest obstacle is the shortage of proper testing kits which makes life horrendous. As a consequence it demands time to ramp up the development of a suitable test kit. In this scenario we propose a kit that is made up of a two-dimensional (2-D) Si-based photonic crystal structure (PCS) that could distinguish the novel coronaviruses (n-CoV) from ordinary coronaviruses. The principle of identification relies on the reflectance, absorbance and transmittance characteristics at the signal of 412 nm wavelength obtained from a laser diode (LD);moreover, the operational mechanism deals with the manipulation of the signal with the proposed PCS structure which contains the virus solution. Finally, the output transmitted energy differentiates the viruses pertaining to their nature;for example, an output with visible light energy gives an indication of normal flu;on the other hand, output energy within the infrared (IR) range confirms the case of novel coronavirus infection.

Prevalence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Asymptomatic Infections in 2 Large Academic Health Systems in Wisconsin.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) asymptomatic infections may play a critical role in disease transmission. We aim to determine the prevalence of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection at 2 hospital systems in 2 counties in Wisconsin. The SARS-CoV-2 prevalence was 1% or lower at both systems despite the higher incidence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Milwaukee County.

Modelling COVID-19 contagion: risk assessment and targeted mitigation policies.

We use a spatial epidemic model with demographic and geographical heterogeneity to study the regional dynamics of COVID-19 across 133 regions in England. Our model emphasizes the role of variability of regional outcomes and heterogeneity across age groups and geographical locations, and provides a framework for assessing the impact of policies targeted towards subpopulations or regions. We define a concept of efficiency for comparative analysis of epidemic control policies and show targeted mitigation policies based on local monitoring to be more efficient than country-level or non-targeted measures. In particular, our results emphasize the importance of shielding vulnerable subpopulations and show that targeted policies based on local monitoring can considerably lower fatality forecasts and, in many cases, prevent the emergence of second waves which may occur under centralized policies.

Molecular Communication Theoretical Modeling and Analysis of SARS-CoV2 Transmission in Human Respiratory System.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-CoronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) caused the ongoing pandemic. This pandemic devastated the world by killing more than a million people, as of October 2020. It is imperative to understand the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV2 so that novel and interdisciplinary prevention, diagnostic, and therapeutic techniques could be developed. In this work, we model and analyze the transmission of SARS-CoV2 through the human respiratory tract from a molecular communication perspective. We consider that virus diffusion occurs in the mucus layer so that the shape of the tract does not have a significant effect on the transmission. Hence, this model reduces the inherent complexity of the human respiratory system. We further provide the impulse response of SARS-CoV2-ACE2 receptor binding event to determine the proportion of the virus population reaching different regions of the respiratory tract. Our findings confirm the results in the experimental literature on higher mucus flow rate causing virus migration to the lower respiratory tract. These results are especially important to understand the effect of SARS-CoV2 on the different human populations at different ages who have different mucus flow rates and ACE2 receptor concentrations in the different regions of the respiratory tract.

RSNA Expert Consensus Statement on Reporting Chest CT Findings Related to COVID-19: Interobserver Agreement Between Chest Radiologists.

PURPOSE: To assess the interobserver variability between chest radiologists in the interpretation of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) expert consensus statement reporting guidelines in patients with suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia in a setting with limited reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction testing availability. METHODS: Chest computed tomography (CT) studies in 303 consecutive patients with suspected COVID-19 were reviewed by 3 fellowship-trained chest radiologists. Cases were assigned an impression of typical, indeterminate, atypical, or negative for COVID-19 pneumonia according to the RSNA expert consensus statement reporting guidelines, and interobserver analysis was performed. Objective CT features associated with COVID-19 pneumonia and distribution of findings were recorded. RESULTS: The Fleiss kappa for all observers was almost perfect for typical (0.815), atypical (0.806), and negative (0.962) COVID-19 appearances (P < .0001) and substantial (0.636) for indeterminate COVID-19 appearance (P < .0001). Using Cramer V analysis, there were very strong correlations between all radiologists' interpretations, statistically significant for all (typical, indeterminate, atypical, and negative) COVID-19 appearances (P < .001). Objective CT imaging findings were recorded in similar percentages of typical cases by all observers. CONCLUSION: The RSNA expert consensus statement on reporting chest CT findings related to COVID-19 demonstrates substantial to almost perfect interobserver agreement among chest radiologists in a relatively large cohort of patients with clinically suspected COVID-19. It therefore serves as a reliable reference framework for radiologists to accurately communicate their level of suspicion based on the presence of evidence-based objective findings.

A case series and literature review of multiple sclerosis and COVID-19: Clinical characteristics, outcomes and a brief review of immunotherapies.

BACKGROUND: In view of the emerging coronavirus pandemic, the demand for knowledge about the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) continues to grow. Patients receiving disease modifying therapy (DMT) for MS have a higher background risk of infection-related health care utilization when compared to the general population. Therefore, there is a need of evidence-based recommendations to reduce the risk of infection and also managing MS patients with SARS-CoV-2. CASE DESCRIPTION: We present three patients with history of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) on DMTs presenting with worsening MS symptoms likely pseudo exacerbation who were diagnosed with COVID-19. DISCUSSION: An extensive review of 7 articles was performed, in addition to a brief review on DMTs use in MS patients with COVID-19. In our cases, all patients were on DMT and severe course of disease was noted in 2 cases. No fatality was observed. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides a base on the clinical characteristics, outcomes and the roles of DMTs in MS patients suffering from n-cov-2. Physicians need to be vigilant about considering COVID-19 infection related relapse in the MS patients, especially in this COVID-19 pandemic era and look for pseudo-exacerbation. As most cases are found to have mild course and full recovery on DMTs, further research is needed to formulate evidence-based guidelines. This review will particularly be helpful for the researchers and registries to collect future data on MS and COVID-19.

Therapeutic Options for COVID-19: A Review.

An acute respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), previously known as 2019-nCoV], the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in Wuhan, China. Since then, the virus has spread rapidly worldwide leading to a global public health crisis. Due to its devastating effect on public health, it is crucial to identify a viable therapeutic option to mitigate the damage the disease causes. In spite of various governments implementing aggressive global lock-down and quarantine protocols, the number of cases continues to follow an upward trend. At present, the therapeutic strategies are supportive or preventative, focusing on reducing transmission. Given the gravity of the situation, we aim to explore the drugs that have been tried so far and their efficacy when applied in clinical trials. Since newer interventions would take months to years to develop, by looking at the pool of existing therapeutic options, including remdesivir (RDV), plasma exchange or cytapheresis, hydroxychloroquine, baricitinib, and lopinavir (LPV), we have tried to detail the principles behind their use to treat COVID-19, current application, and adverse effects. Many coronaviruses have a highly mutable single-stranded RNA genome and hence discovering new drugs against the virus is going to be challenging owing to the possible viral genetic recombination. Extensive research is still needed to safely advocate the efficacy of the currently available therapeutic options.

Protein structure analysis of the interactions between SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and the human ACE2 receptor: from conformational changes to novel neutralizing antibodies.

The recent severe acute respiratory syndrome, known as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread so much rapidly and severely to induce World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a state of emergency over the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. While several countries have chosen the almost complete lock-down for slowing down SARS-CoV-2 spread, the scientific community is called to respond to the devastating outbreak by identifying new tools for diagnosis and treatment of the dangerous COVID-19. With this aim, we performed an in silico comparative modeling analysis, which allows gaining new insights into the main conformational changes occurring in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, at the level of the receptor-binding domain (RBD), along interactions with human cells angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, that favor human cell invasion. Furthermore, our analysis provides (1) an ideal pipeline to identify already characterized antibodies that might target SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD, aiming to prevent interactions with the human ACE2, and (2) instructions for building new possible neutralizing antibodies, according to chemical/physical space restraints and complementary determining regions (CDR) mutagenesis of the identified existing antibodies. The proposed antibodies show in silico high affinity for SARS-CoV-2 spike RBD and can be used as reference antibodies also for building new high-affinity antibodies against present and future coronaviruses able to invade human cells through interactions of their spike proteins with the human ACE2. More in general, our analysis provides indications for the set-up of the right biological molecular context for investigating spike RBD-ACE2 interactions for the development of new vaccines, diagnostic kits, and other treatments based on the targeting of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and COVID-19 transmission risk from environmental matrices and surfaces.

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading around the world, representing a global pandemic, counting, as of June 5th, 2020, over 6,600,000 confirmed cases and more than 390,000 deaths, with exponentially increasing numbers. In the first half of 2020, because of the widespread of the COVID-19, researches were focused on the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in water, wastewater, sludge, air, and on surfaces, in order to assess the risk of contracting the viral infection from contaminated environments. So far, the survival of the novel Coronavirus out of the human body has been reported for short time periods (from hours to few days, in optimized in vitro conditions), mainly because of the need of an host organism which could consent the viral attack, and due to the weak external membrane of the virus. SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding strategies in the environment, either through animate and unanimate matrices, or exploiting the organic matter in water, wastewater, and waste in general, have been discussed in the present article. We concluded that, besides the high infectuousness of the novel Coronavirus, the transmission of the pathogen may be efficiently contained applying the adequate preventive measures (e.g., personal protection equipments, and disinfecting agents), indicated by national and international health authories.

CT Imaging and Differential Diagnosis of COVID-19.

Since the beginning of 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread throughout China. This study explains the findings from lung computed tomography images of some patients with COVID-19 treated in this medical institution and discusses the difference between COVID-19 and other lung diseases.