Managing health education during the COVID-19 pandemic: the RCSI Bahrain experience

The pandemic of Coronavirus disease- 2019 (COVID-19) introduced great challenges to the higher education sector and at the same time opened the door for future opportunities. This review aims to present the experience of Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain in managing teaching and learning during COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the pandemic, the university implemented several initiatives in ensuring that final year students graduate on time and quality of assessment in a fully digitised environment. The guiding principle for the university as the examination were redesigned, was to ensure that they remained valid to ensure students could demonstrate achievements of the core learning outcomes and be safely assessed as competent graduates. In achieving these goals, the university has well-developed formal and informal mechanisms to ensure the student voice is heard and listened to, and it was of paramount importance to ensure that this was continued and enhanced during these times. While university was successful in managing this unprecedented situation, more work must be done on analysing the author's experience, and that of others, to implement the needed changes to ensure student access to learning, without compromising their safety or that of the staff. The university sees the current impetus to provide education through technology enhanced learning as an opportunity to expand and diversify learning opportunities and resources for students. In universities such as ours, which has only healthy subjects, practice become essential components of the programme, making a blended model of face-to-face and online delivery the ideal fit.

Usage of digital library services during COVID-19 pandemic: a study of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)

Purpose: This paper aims to find out the digital services of management libraries provided during the library closure and the challenges and initiatives the libraries have taken up to fulfill the need of their user community during the pandemic crisis. Design/methodology/approach: To meet the purpose of the study, the investigators have used a survey method. An online questionnaire was devised and administered among the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) librarians using Microsoft Forms. Findings: The study's findings suggested that all the libraries under investigation must avail of various digital library services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Further, the investigators recommend that libraries formulate a disaster preparedness and management plan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic so that libraries can prepare themselves for the future. Originality/value: The pandemic has affected every aspect of life and changed the digital library services scenario. Thus, it is essential to examine the role libraries have played during the COVID-19 pandemic and distinguish the challenges and initiatives libraries have taken to tackle the problems they faced. This study has been conducted on the digital library services that were provided by the libraries of IIMs. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Title: Effect of COVID-19 on Mental Health: The perspectives

The year 2020 saw the emergence of a novel, highly contagious, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that originated in the Wuhan province of China and spread across the globe. This led to a worldwide pandemic. The World Health Organisation (WHO), within a month of cases being detected, declared the illness as a -public health emergency of international concern". COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 not only affected the public health resulting in neurological manifestations (headache, dizziness, or cerebrovascular symptoms), but also initiated a plethora of mental health issues like anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies. Having spread to over 200 countries, this virus has been a dire cause of concern for primarily two reasons: the threat they possess to the physiological and psychosocial health of the individuals;and the fear, anxiety and panic that has arisen as a result of the pandemic. Most nations, including India, underwent a complete lockdown with stringent norms of social distancing, self-isolation, and quarantine (for infected patients). As the nation tried to manage the situation, guidelines were set up for all its citizens by providing personal protective equipment (PPE), instilling practices like wearing a protective mask, gloves and frequent sanitisation in order to curb the spread of disease and safeguard public health. This review discusses the influence of COVID-19 on the mental health of the general population, focusing on the adolescent, pregnant and elderly;its proposed mechanism of action, and possible strategic interventions to protect the people, offer supportive measures to enhance quality of life, and prevent the spread.Copyright © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

Impact of Coronavirus-2019 on General Health Anxiety Among Students of Iranian Medical Sciences

Background: During the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, Iranian medical sciences students were at higher risk of contracting this virus because they were in infected environments. So, they are predisposed to high levels of anxiety that could worsen their lives. The determent of factors and levels of anxiety could be helpful to reduce anxiety and control its worse effects. Hence, this study aimed to measure the anxiety index and its factors among medical sciences students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, an online survey was sent to students from 27 medical sciences universities in Iran from 20th December 2020 to 10th March 2021. The online survey consists of the Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI) for measured general health anxiety as well as the baseline characteristics of students. Results: 723 students responded, including 483 (66.8%) females and mean HAI score was 16.76 +/- 8.35. Based on our findings, gender, past medical, and drug history were significantly related to the high level of anxiety. However, there was no coloration between HAI scores with age, the field of study, study duration, university location, and attendance in the hospital and/ or COVID-19 ward (P>0.05). Conclusions: Students with notable past medical history and/or drug history and female students more than others were predisposed to anxiety in a pandemic such as COVID-19. Hence, in a pandemic situation, psychological care should concern them. [GMJ.2022;11:e2537] DOI:10.31661/gmj.v11i.2537

Evaluation of H5P interactive videos in enhanced e-learning of an environmental engineering course during COVID-19 pandemic

CONTEXT In the autumn session of 2020, COVID-19 outbreak forced the transition of teaching and learning from face-to-face mode into remote delivery in Australian universities. Over this unplanned, unprepared, and rapid move to remote delivery for lecturers and online learning for students, many strategies, designs, and technologies were applied to replace conventional classes, tutorials, laboratory classes, project assignments, and assessments. PURPOSE OR GOAL This study investigated the design, use and impact of videos for lectures, tutorials, and laboratory experiments for a combined undergraduate and postgraduate Environmental Engineering course during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The course was delivered through both face-to-face and online delivery modes, which we employed conventional video recordings and H5P interactive videos to support e-learning on the Moodle platform. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS H5P interactive videos, slides and quizzes were also used to design the pre-lab and recorded lab experiments, as our labs were closed due to social distancing requirements. Students' performance was evaluated through their marks of weekly quizzes;and their engagement was analyzed using Moodle activity logs and anonymous surveys through teacher evaluation and polling in Zoom meetings. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES The attendance to online Zoom lecture and tutorials ranged from 70-87%. These data collectively demonstrate a high level of student engagement and satisfaction under the COVID-19 impacted teaching and learning environment compared to rate of lecture attendance at traditional lectures. H5P interactive videos helped students to achieve higher marks, compared to conventional videos. Student has watched the video more than once to obtain enough information to write the lab class report. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY It was shown that H5P interactive videos had higher views than conventional videos, which subsequently led to higher marks in weekly quizzes. The tutorials were delivered using Zoom meetings, supplemented with pre-recorded videos which supported students who could not attend the tutorial or for their revisions. The virtual laboratory experiments enabled with H5P provided adequate data and information for students to write their lab reports comparable to the requirements of a real-life lab class. Different approaches of video design and their limitations and improvements are discussed for the future development of e-learning in the post-COVID era. Copyright © Guangming Jiang, Ashley Ansari, Muttucumaru Sivakumar, Timothy McCarthy, 2021.

Clinical Course of SARS CoV-2 Infection in Hospitalized Pregnant Patients

Objective: To determine the clinical course and outcome of hospitalized pregnant patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection Study Design: Prospective longitudinal study Place and Duration of Study: Obstetrics Units of Pak Emirates Military Hospital and Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi Pakistan, from May to Jun 2020. Methodology: All patients reporting for childbirth were tested for SARS-CoV-2, and those testing positive were included. The primary outcome was virus clearance time and categorization according to the severity of the disease into asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe and critical. Furthermore, a comparison was made between the presence of comorbid conditions and symptoms in the category of COVID-19. In addition, neonatal sample evaluation for SARS-CoV-2 was done. Results: Out of the 881 women giving birth, 41(4.6%) tested positive for SARS Cov-2. Majority were asymptomatic 28(68.3%) followed by mild 8(19.5%), moderate 4(9.8%) and severe 1(2.4%) category. There was a significant association of the COVID categories with symptoms (p-value<0.005) and comorbid condition (p-value<0.001). The mean virus clearance time was 8.20±1.66 days. During hospital stay 34(82.9%) delivered. All 34(100%) delivered babies had no evidence of vertical transmission. Conclusion: Pregnant women with COVID-19 infection have a nearly similar clinical course to non-COVID women in this study. There is also no evidence of vertical transmission to the neonate. © 2022, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.

Synthesis, structural investigations, XRD, DFT, anticancer and molecular docking study of a series of thiazole based Schiff base metal complexes

A novel Schiff base (SB) ligand, abbreviated as HDMPM, resulted from the condensation of 2-amino-4 -phenyl-5-methyl thiazole and 4-(diethylamino)salicyaldehyde, and its metal complexes with [Co(II), Cu(II), Ni(II), and Zn(II)] ions in high yield were formed. The physico-chemical techniques such as elemental analysis, molar conductance, IR, 1 H and 13 C NMR, mass spectroscopy, and electronic absorption studies were utilized to characterize the synthesized compounds. The studied compounds were examined for their possible anticancer activity against a number of human cancerous cell lines, including A549 lung carcinoma, HepG2 liver cancer, HCT116 colorectal cancer, and MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines, with dox-orubicin serving as the standard. The study revealed that Zn(II) complex showed significant activity to inhibit growth of HepG2, MCF7, A549, and HCT116 cell lines by a factor of 88, 70, 75, and 70, respec-tively, when compared to untreated. In addition, the reported compounds were optimized by employing Gaussian16 program package with B3LYP functional incorporating dispersion with two different basis sets (LanL2DZ and 6-31G(d,p)). Moreover, Autodock Vina software was used to assess the biological effective-ness of the studied compounds against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (PDB ID: 7T9K).(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How our families fared with type 1 diabetes home management during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020 lockdown

Introduction: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was limited data and conflicting evidence regarding the effect of the pandemic on type 1diabetes (T1DM). It was expected that there may be adverse effects on glycemic control and mortality, more so in developing countries like India, with the additional burden of the lockdown on economy and health care. Subsequently, adult and pediatric data from developed countries regarding glycemic control in patients with T1DM were reassuring. Indian data, as well as data from other developing countries from pediatric T1DM addressing such issues are sparse and have conflicting conclusions. Furthermore, possible factors influencing glycemic control were not evaluated by most reports from our country. Objective(s): We evaluated the effect of the 2020 lockdown on glycemic control and lifestyle of children withtype1diabetes (T1DM). Method(s): Children and young adults with T1DM (n = 104, mean +/- SD age 13.4 +/- 4.5 years), were questioned telephonically, regarding access to health care, insulin, food and lifestyle changes during lockdown. Pre and post lockdown HbA1c, body weight, and modifying factors were analyzed. Result(s): A change in brand of insulin was necessary in 54% and physiologically wrong insulin was being used in 4.8% patients. HbA1c improved significantly post lockdown versus the 1 year pre-COVID average (7.59 +/- 1.77 vs. 8.61 +/- 1.80, p < 0.05). Parents attributed it to better supervision by (both) parents due to their presence at home, and less opportunity to consume energy dense food. Median (IQR) home blood glucose testing frequency was significantly low during lockdown [14(15) vs. 21.5(3.7) pre-lockdown, p < 0.001]. Decreased exercise occurred in 40% and excess weight gain in 51.5%. Conclusion(s): Despite problems of access to health care and adverse lifestyle conditions, improved parental supervision and meal quality and timing had favorable effect on diabetes management, which is reflected by improvement of HbA1c in a small cohort of our children.

The relation between SARS-CoV-2 cases in Bahrain and meteorological parameters: 27 months of data

Background: There has been a belief in and strong thought about the existence of a relationship between meteorological parameters and the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Many studies have been conducted but with a short period of investigation, i.e., not more than 4 months. Therefore, the relation between 27 months of SARS-CoV-2 recorded data and meteorological parameters is reported. The aim of this study is to use this vast data to examine whether average temperature, average wind speed, and absolute humidity are clearly correlated with the number of infected SARS-CoV-2 cases in Bahrain or not, which may be applicable to countries that have similar topography.Method: The official recorded data of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Bahrain from the first day that SARS-CoV-2 cases were detected (February 24, 2020) until May 18, 2022, along with 4 meteorological parameters (temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, and absolute humidity) were used. The data were analyzed using SPSS where a p-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.Result: There is a negative significant correlation between new daily cases of SARS-CoV-2 and temperature, T, and absolute humidity, AH, (r = -0.290, -0.317;p < 0.001, respectively). The results also show a positive significant correlation between daily cases of SARS-CoV-2 and wind speed (V) (r = -0.110;p = 0.002). No correlation was found between daily cases of SARS-CoV-2 and relative humidity (r = -0.028;p = 0.429). An empirical relation is reported, allowing the estimation of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Bahrain as a function of three weather parameters: T, AH, and V.

Dried Blood Spot Testing "A game changer" in Anti-doping strategies: A Review

BACKGROUND: Dried blood spots (DBS) have been used for years as a supplementary matrix in sports drug testing. Dried Blood Spots are a promising technique for minimally invasive sample collection in a variety of analytical disciplines, such as therapeutic drug monitoring, preclinical drug development, and diagnostic investigation of metabolic abnormalities in newborns. The increasing potential of DBS has been highlighted in the scientific literature, particularly when it comes to drugs prohibited in world sports. World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has planned to incorporate DBS as a new and much more efficient way of assessing the athletes for any prohibited ergogenic aid in upcoming Tokyo Olympics 2021. This literature seeks to evaluate the scope of effectiveness of the DBS method in identification of various banned drugs by examining previous data derived from literatures on DBS. Based on the researches analyzed, it is concluded that DBS methods is very much implementable in identification of variety of ergogenic aids along with being much more efficient way of identification. KEY MESSAGE: DBS method of blood doping analysis can prove to be a new and time saving process of doping analysis in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics 2021 due to its vast applications & cost effectiveness and considerable safety during COVID-19. © 2021. RED FLOWER PUBLICATIONS PVT LTD. All Rights Reserved.

COVID-19 Impact Sentiment Analysis on a Topic-based Level

Last December 2019, health officials in Wuhan, a province from China, identified a novel coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 causing pneumonia. In March 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 disease being a pandemic. During quarantine periods, people all over the globe were living under severe and overwhelming circumstances and expressing feelings of loneliness, dread, and anxiety. The pandemic has had a significant impact on the labor markets. As a result, several employees have lost their jobs while others are in grave danger to lose their positions the next day. In this paper, we developed a hybrid approach integrating sentiment analysis combined with topic modeling to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Moroccan citizens. The data used in this study includes comments collected from a well-known news website in Morocco called Hespress. Our approach follows a two-step process. In the first step, we implement a topic modeling method to analyze and extract topics from Arabic comments, and in the second step, we perform topic-based sentiment analysis to classify people’s feedback on extracted topics. The final results revealed that the expressed sentiments regarding all the topics are highly negative. © 2022 River Publishers

Prophylactic efficacy of Unani herbal and herbo-mineral preparations in population at risk of COVID-19 – A randomised controlled prospective field trial

The present study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Unani poly-herbal decoction and Khamira Marvareed (herbo-mineral preparation) in COVID-19 susceptible population. This study was conducted as prospective, open label, randomized controlled, prophylactic community-based clinical trial. Overall, 4500 healthy adults from containment zones were allocated randomly into intervention (n=2250) and control groups (n=2250). The intervention group was given a combination of herbal drugs namely Unnab (Ziziphus jujube Mill.), 5 pieces;Sapistan (Cordia myxa L.), 9 pieces;Behidana (Cydonia oblonga Mill.), 3 g in decoction form and Khameera Marwareed, 5 g as semisolid preparation, orally once daily in the morning for 20 days. No drug was given in the control group. The subjects were assessed on 0, 20th and 35th day. The prophylactic effect of the Unani intervention was evaluated on the basis of difference of COVID-19 incidence between the groups, COVID-19 like symptoms, scores of immunity status questionnaire and WHOQOL-BREF scale after completion of 35th day of study. The study remained inconclusive to find any difference in COVID-19 incidence, but showed highly significant results (p<0.001) in favour of Unani intervention in containing all COVID-19 like symptoms except cough;highly significant results (p<0.001) in score of immunity status questionnaire and highly significant results (p<0.001) in scores of physical and psychological domains of WHOQOL-BREF scale. The highly significant results in almost all secondary outcomes suggest the efficacy of the Unani interventions in control of COVID-19-like symptoms and may be beneficial in prevention of COVID-19 infection. © 2022, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources. All rights reserved.

Smart Gateway Screening for COVID-19

Novel Corona-virus is spreading all over the world. Millions of people have been infected with this disease and unfortunately thousands have lost their lives. Countless others have experienced the impact of Covid-19 on their health as well as in their day-to-day life. For the past one and half year as of May - 2021, the world balance and the economics have changed. Entire workflow has been shifted online, with people continuing to face a lot of difficulties due to this sudden change. But there will be a moment when normalcy will be restored, businesses bereopened and all the offices as well as other institutions start functioning as normal. This will be the most vulnerable momentas people will come in contact with each other and hence there will be a danger of this disease spreading in mass again. Hence, a system needs to be adopted to curb its spread and this can be achieved by identifying people showing the symptoms and thereby preventing them from entering organizations with a lot of attendees. The proposed system implements mask and temperature detection, sanitation while also providing a touch- less Attendance Management system for taking the attendance. © 2021 IEEE

Adaptation from Conventional to Virtual Teaching Practices during COVID-19 Emergence: Perceptions of Multidisciplinary Teaching Faculty of Pakistan

Objectives The perceptions maintained by the teaching profession have a plausible influence on the effectiveness of online teaching practices, but they have not been well comprehended in many institutions in Pakistan. This study is the first to demonstrate how different academic disciplines address the challenges and opportunities regarding online teaching during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and whether there exists a strong correlation between respondents' attitudes and their field of discipline. Materials and Methods A multi-centric cross-sectional survey was conducted online, and data gathered from the online survey were analyzed using SPSS version 16, demographic and categorical data were analyzed in frequencies and percentages. A relationship between the attitudes of teachers with their areas of discipline and a difference in response between genders and age groups were analyzed using a chi-square test. Results The findings of our study provide valuable understandings that most of the higher education faculty felt positively (64.1%) regarding the online mode of teaching. However, their perceived attitudes have a significant influence on the nature of their academic discipline. Conclusion These findings provide relevant suggestions to the core aspects of the use of the e-learning system during the COVID-19 pandemic to foster positive teaching experiences. The administrations and institutions can use it to identify the e-learning constraints within multiple fields of profession and help instructors generate quality materials that will reshape the framework of online education and preserve the practice of blended teaching even after the pandemic. © 2022 Mary Ann Liebert Inc.. All rights reserved.

Real-world Experience with Favipiravir for Treatment of COVID-19 among Indian Healthcare Professionals

Introduction: Favipiravir has shown promising results for COVID-19 globally. Though many Indian patients have received favipiravir, there is a lack of realworld data for its clinical use by the practicing physicians. Hence, a qualitative survey was conducted to understand real-world use of favipiravir in management of COVID-19. Methods: A cross-sectional, web-based, qualitative survey was conducted between September 2020 to October 2020, among Indian physicians from various specialties involved in COVID-19 care and using favipiravir in their practice. Physicians were provided survey link having a structured questionnaire with 32 questions. They were enquired on- 1) demographics,practice information, 2) place of favipiravir in clinical practice, 3) treatment protocol for mild to moderate COVID-19, 4) dosage and duration of favipiravir, 5) effectiveness of favipiravir, 6) tolerability of favipiravir 7) global efficacy and safety assessment of favipiravir. Results: A total of 500 physicians were contacted, of which 50 physicians completed the questionnaire. 25(50.0%) were from south zone followed by 12(24.0%) from west. . Majority physicians (47, 97.9%) stated that favipiravir was used for COVID-19 in outpatient setting. Favipiravir was considered as the current drug of choice for ' mild COVID-19 with fever(86.6%). All physicians agreed that favipiravir was being used as per the recommended dose.. A total of 75% & 62.5% physicians agreed to observed clinical improvement by around 3-5 days & 5-7 days in symptomatic mild & moderate COVID-19 respectively. Conclusion: Majority of the physicians considered favipiravir to be safe and effective in treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19. © 2021 Journal of Association of Physicians of India. All rights reserved.

Arabic Topic Modeling-Based Sentiment Analysis on COVID-19 Feedback Comments

In March 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 disease a pandemic. People worldwide face stressful and overwhelming challenges and express emotions of loneliness, fear, and anxiety during quarantine periods. The pandemic strongly hits labor markets. As a result, many employees lost their jobs, and others are living at a high risk of losing theirs the next day. In this paper, we designed a hybrid approach that combines topic modeling and sentiment analysis methods to mine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Moroccan citizens. The dataset used in this study contains collected comments from Hespress, an online news website. Our approach implements Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to extract topics from the comments. Consequently, we apply a topic-based sentiment analysis using a pre-trained model to mine people’s feedback regarding the extracted topics. The results showed that expressed sentiments towards all extracted topics are more negative than neutral and positive topic-based sentiments. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Comparison of outcomes between vaccinated versus non-vaccinated COVID-19 patients

Objective: To compare the outcomes in term of hospital stay and mortality between vaccinated and nonvaccinated covid-19 patients. Study Design: Prospective/Observational Place and Duration: The study was conducted at Medicine department of Fauji Foundation Hospital Rawalpindi and Pak International Medical College Hayatabad Peshawar for six months duration from December 2020 to May 2021. Methodology: One hundred ten patients of either gender with covid-19 disease were enrolled. All the patients were confirmed with RT PCR. Patients were randomly divided in to two groups. Group I (vaccinated) comprised of 45 patients and group II (non-vaccinated) comprised of 65 patients. Severity of disease, hospital stay and mortality were compared between both groups. Data was analyzed by SPSS 24.0. Results: There were 74 (67.27%) males while 36 (32.73%) patients were females. Mean age of patients was 50.54±12.76 years. Mean BMI was 26.23±2.44 kg/m2. 10 (22.22%) patients in vaccinated group and 40 (61.54%) in nonvaccinated group had severe covid-19 disease, a significant difference was observed regarding severity of disease between both groups with p-value <0.05. Mortality rate and hospital stay were also high in nonvaccinated patients as compared to vaccinated (p-value <0.05). Conclusion: It is concluded that non-vaccinated patients of covid-19 had prolonged hospital stay and high rate of severity of disease and mortality as compared to vaccinated patients.

Lung Transplantation as a way to Escape Pneumonia in Patients with COVID-19: Lessons from ARDS and Influenza

In this era, the novel Coronavirus, referred to as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a life-threatening virus with a high mortality rate (4.2%) and with no absolute treatment as of yet, may ultimately result in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). ARDS is one of the fatal complications, highlighted by pulmonary infiltration and severe hypoxemia. This condition can be developed from primary lung inflammation caused by various viruses, particularly influenza viruses, some of the most common human pathogens. Due to this issue, many studies explored several approaches for ARDS treatment. Lung transplantation has been claimed as an efficient cure for severe ARDS and Influenza, which can also be offered for treating critical lung complications of SARS-CoV-2. Thereupon, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, we aimed to review all available data about capability of lung transplantation for the treatment of critically ill patients with ARDS, Influenza, and SARS-CoV-2.