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Viral infections have been proven a severe threat to human beings, and the pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a societal health concern, including mental distress and morbidity. Therefore, the early diagnosis and differentiation of viral infections are the prerequisite for curbing the local and global spread of viruses. To this end, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based virus detection strategies are developed that provide feasible alternatives to conventional diagnostic techniques. Here in this review, an overview of the design and engineering of CNTs-based sensors for virus detection is summarized, followed by the nano-bio interactions used in developing biosensors. Then, we classify the viral sensors into covalently engineered CNTs, non-covalently engineered CNTs, and size-tunable CNTs arrays for viral detection, based on the type of CNTs-based nano-bio interfaces. Finally, the current challenges and prospects of CNTs-based sensors for virus detection are discussed.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the lives of healthcare workers due to the frontline nature of their work. Their hard work and sacrifice have forged new perceptions of healthcare workers. These changes may potentially influence students' interest in medicine. This study explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected premedical students' decisions to pursue medicine as a career. Methods: A cross-sectional study using a self-designed online questionnaire was carried out amongst pre-medical students across Pakistan. Results: A total of 1695 students from 93 public and private schools filled in the survey. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly more pre-medical students want to pursue medicine (60.7%-62.9%) and less are unsure (20.2%-17%). Students are significantly more likely to be motivated to pursue medicine due to altruistic benefits to society (57% vs. 62.7%) and be deterred by the risk of contracting infections on duty (10%-14.6%). There is a minor but significant increase in the popularity of internal medicine (17.1%-18.9%), public health (4.1% vs. 5.7%), emergency medicine (3.8% vs. 5.7%), pediatrics (3.8% vs. 4.7%), and radiology (2.1% vs. 2.9%). Most pre-medical students felt that doctors routinely undergo physical and emotional turmoil (84%). Conclusions: Although awareness of hardships faced by medical professionals has increased, motivation to pursue medicine has grown. Through understanding trends in the motivations of students to pursue medicine, medical schools can accommodate the expectations of incoming students and reach out to potential applicants.
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Background: Digital contact tracing apps have the potential to augment contact tracing systems and disrupt COVID-19 transmission by rapidly identifying secondary cases prior to the onset of infectiousness and linking them into a system of quarantine, testing, and health care worker case management. The international experience of digital contact tracing apps during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how challenging their design and deployment are. Objective: This study aims to derive and summarize best practice guidance for the design of the ideal digital contact tracing app. Methods: A collaborative cross-disciplinary approach was used to derive best practice guidance for designing the ideal digital contact tracing app. A search of the indexed and gray literature was conducted to identify articles describing or evaluating digital contact tracing apps. MEDLINE was searched using a combination of free-text terms and Medical Subject Headings search terms. Gray literature sources searched were the World Health Organization Institutional Repository for Information Sharing, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control publications library, and Google, including the websites of many health protection authorities. Articles that were acceptable for inclusion in this evidence synthesis were peer-reviewed publications, cohort studies, randomized trials, modeling studies, technical reports, white papers, and media reports related to digital contact tracing. Results: Ethical, user experience, privacy and data protection, technical, clinical and societal, and evaluation considerations were identified from the literature. The ideal digital contact tracing app should be voluntary and should be equitably available and accessible. User engagement could be enhanced by small financial incentives, enabling users to tailor aspects of the app to their particular needs and integrating digital contact tracing apps into the wider public health information campaign. Adherence to the principles of good data protection and privacy by design is important to convince target populations to download and use digital contact tracing apps. Bluetooth Low Energy is recommended for a digital contact tracing app's contact event detection, but combining it with ultrasound technology may improve a digital contact tracing app's accuracy. A decentralized privacy-preserving protocol should be followed to enable digital contact tracing app users to exchange and record temporary contact numbers during contact events. The ideal digital contact tracing app should define and risk-stratify contact events according to proximity, duration of contact, and the infectiousness of the case at the time of contact. Evaluating digital contact tracing apps requires data to quantify app downloads, use among COVID-19 cases, successful contact alert generation, contact alert receivers, contact alert receivers that adhere to quarantine and testing recommendations, and the number of contact alert receivers who subsequently are tested positive for COVID-19. The outcomes of digital contact tracing apps' evaluations should be openly reported to allow for the wider public to review the evaluation of the app. Conclusions: In conclusion, key considerations and best practice guidance for the design of the ideal digital contact tracing app were derived from the literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Objective This study aims to gather public opinion on the Irish “COVID Tracker” digital contact tracing (DCT) App, with particular focus on App usage, usability, usefulness, technological issues encountered, and potential changes to the App. Methods A 35-item online questionnaire was deployed for 10 days in October 2020, 3 months after the launch of the Irish DCT App. Results A total of 2889 completed responses were recorded, with 2553 (88%) respondents currently using the App. Although four in five users felt the App is easy to download, is easy to use and looks professional, 615 users (22%) felt it had slowed down their phone, and 757 (28%) felt it had a negative effect on battery life. Seventy-nine percent of respondents reported the App's main function is to aid contact tracing. Inclusion of national COVID-19 trends is a useful ancillary function according to 87% of respondents, and there was an appetite for more granular local data. Overall, 1265 (44%) respondents believed the App is helping the national effort, while 1089 (38%) were unsure. Conclusions DCT Apps may potentially augment traditional contact tracing methods. Despite some reports of negative effects on phone performance, just 7% of users who have tried the App have deleted it. Ancillary functionality, such as up-to-date regional COVID-19, may encourage DCT App use. This study describes general positivity toward the Irish COVID Tracker App among users but also highlights the need for transparency on effectiveness of App-enabled contact tracing and for study of non-users to better establish barriers to use.
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BACKGROUND: Digital Contact Tracing is seen as a key tool in reducing the propagation of Covid-19. But it requires high uptake and continued participation across the population to be effective. To achieve sufficient uptake/participation, health authorities should address, and thus be aware of, user concerns. AIM: This work manually analyzes user reviews of the Irish Heath Service Executive's (HSE) Contact Tracker app, to identify user concerns and to lay the foundations for subsequent, large-scale, automated analyses of reviews. While this might seem tightly scoped to the Irish context, the HSE app provides the basis for apps in many jurisdictions in the USA and Europe. METHODS: Manual analysis of (1287) user reviews from the Google/Apple playstores was performed, to identify the aspects of the app that users focused on, and the positive/negative sentiment expressed. RESULTS: The findings suggest a largely positive sentiment towards the app, and that users thought it handled data protection and transparency aspects well. But feedback suggests that users would appreciate more targeted feedback on the incidence of the virus, and facilities for more proactive engagement, like notifications that prompt users to submit their health status daily. Finally, the analysis suggests that the "android battery" issue and the backward-compatibility issue with iPhones seriously impacted retention/uptake of the app respectively. CONCLUSION: The HSE have responded to the public's desire for targeted feedback in newer versions, but should consider increasing the app's proactive engagement. The results suggest they should also raise the backward compatibility issue, regarding older iPhones, with Apple.