Frequency of Inactivated COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Karachi

Objective: to determine the frequency of the possible side effects of the COVID-19 inactivated vaccine. Study Design: Cross-sectional survey. Place and Duration of Study: Pakistan Naval Ship Shifa Hospital, Karachi Pakistan from Jan to Apr 2021. Methodology: A total of 305 recipients of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine were asked to fill out a questionnaire themselves or by the health care worker via telephonic conversation. The questionnaire comprised queries regarding general and local side effects that the participants experienced after getting vaccinated for COVID-19. Results: Out of 305 recipients, 270(88.5%) were men, and 35(11.5%) were women. Participants' age ranged from 18-60 years. After the first dose, 83(27.2%) cases [male 63(23.3%) vs. female 20(57.1%)], were reported with side effects, while 75(24.5%) recipients, [male: 54(19.9%) vs. female: 21(58.8%)], had side effects after the second dose. Generalized symptoms were fever, headache, dizziness, and body aches, while local side effects were pain, itching, swelling and rash at the injection site. 259(84.9%) recipients reported spontaneous recovery after the first dose. After the second dose, 286(93.8%) recipients recovered spontaneously. The remaining 44(13%) of the recipients' required symptomatic treatment. After the second dose, only 19(6%) recipients needed symptomatic treatment. Conclusion: It is important to document the possible side effects of COVID vaccine so that public awareness and education can be made to minimize public fear of vaccine side effects. Inactivated vaccine for COVID-19 has minimal reported side effects and hence has a good safety profile. © 2022, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.

Privacy-Preserving Adaptive Trajectory Storage on Blockchain for COVID-19 Contact Tracing

Privacy preservation in various contact tracing approaches for the COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 virus is challenging, as such applications tend to reveal users' points of interest (POIs) and other sensitive data shared together with their location information. This paper proposes COVID-19 eavesdropping resistant tracing (COVERT)-Blockchain, a novel distributed-ledger-based platform to facilitate contact tracing without invading users' privacy. COVERT-Blockchain enables infected users to share only their anonymized location traces on the Blockchain with a sliding window of the previous 15 days, thereby avoiding constant location information sharing with third party users. To further reduce the chances of revealing the corresponding users' trajectories, in COVERT-Blockchain we employ an adaptive logging mechanism to store trajectory data for contact tracing only if the users stayed in a location where there is significant presence of other humans around them for a relatively long duration of time. This ensures anonymity where the trajectory is generated differently each time for each user, and such infrequent and random trajectory generation enables us to generate unidentifiable trajectories for each user and thus preserve their privacy. COVERT-Blockchain is evaluated for scalability and robustness in relation to overhead and delays in storing and retrieving data from the Blockchain. Results show it to efficiently achieve contact tracing without any breaches of privacy.

COVERT-Blockchain: Privacy-Aware Contact Tracing for COVID-19 on a Distributed Ledger

Privacy preservation in contact tracing for COVID-19 is challenging as such applications tend to reveal users sensitive data which is shared together with their location. This paper proposes COVERT-Blockchain, a novel distributed ledger based platform for contact tracing without revealing users privacy where infected users only share their anonymized location traces on the Blockchain with a sliding window. To further reduce the chances of revealing the corresponding users' trajectories, in COVERT-Blockchain we employ an adaptive logging mechanism to store trajectory data for contact tracing only if the users stayed in a location for longer time duration. COVERT-Blockchain is evaluated for scalability and robustness in terms of overhead and delays in storing and retrieving data, results show it to be efficiently achieving contact tracing without privacy leakage. © 2021 IEEE.

High-resolution CT (HRCT) chest findings in PCR positive patients of covid-19 at combined military hospital Rawalpindi

Objective: To study High resolution computed tomography chest findings in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive patients of COVID-19. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital Rawalpindi, from May to Jun 2020. Methodology: Study included high resolution computed tomography chest of 200 patients admitted to COVID ward who were polymerase chain reaction positive. Patients having previously diagnosed Interstitial lung disease were excluded. Informed consent from patients were taken. Different findings on High resolution computed tomography chest were summarized as percent of total cases. British society of thoracic imaging (BSTI) classification was used to classify high resolution computed tomography chest patterns of COVID-19 pneumonia. Results: Out of 200 patients included in study, 7 had previous changes on their chest imaging and were excluded. 193 patients (145 males and 48 females) enrolled had a median age of 52 years. One hundred and two patients (52.9%) showed classical pattern for COVID-19, 81 patients (41.9%) had indeterminate changes, 3 patients (1.6%) had atypical changes while 7 (3.6%) had normal high resolution computed tomography chest. Four had pleural effusions while 5 had mediastinal lymphadeno-pathy. One hundred and eight nine (97.9%) patients had bilateral lung involvement, 145 (75.1%) had central and peripheral while 48 (24.9%) had peripheral invol-vement only. One hundred and forteen (59%) patients had ground glass opacities while 70 (36.3%) had ground glass opacities with consolidation. Nine (4.7%) patients presented with consolidation only. Conclusion: High resolution computed tomography chest and COVID polymerase chain reaction done at the same time gives better diagnostic accuracy and helps in classifying these patients into different categories with early detection and treatment of patients. © 2021, Army Medical College. All rights reserved.

Frequency of depression and anxiety in patients with COVID-19

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the frequency of depression and anxiety in the patients due to COVID-19. Study Design: Cross-sectional Place and Duration: Conducted at Medicine department of District Headquarter Hospital Timergara for duration of six months from February 2020 to July 2020. Methods: Total 120 patients of both genders presented with covid-19 disease were enrolled in this study. Patients detailed demographics age, sex and BMI index were recorded after taking written consent. Patients aged between 15-60 years of age. Prevalence of depression and anxiety were measured among hospitalized patients. Structural questionnaires were implemented. Complete data was analyzed by SPSS 24.0 version. Results: Mean age of the patients was 25.69 ±8.21 years with mean BMI 23.41±3.34 kg/m2. Out of 120 patients, 70 (58.33%) were males and 50 (41.67%) were females. Prevalence of depression was 50% among the patients and frequency of anxiety was 40% observed. 80 (66.7%) patients were from urban areas and 40 (33.3%) were from rural areas. 100 (83.3%) were married and 20 (16.7%) were unmarried. Conclusion: We concluded in this study that frequency of anxiety and depression among the patients was frequently high. Medically ill patients should develop techniques for rapid diagnosis and treatment of depression and anxiety.

COVID-19: Prospective Challenges and Potential Vaccines

Context . RNA viruses exhibit an extraordinary ability to evolve in a changing environment and to switch from animal hosts to humans. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, recognized as a respiratory disease, is an example of zoonotic transmission of the RNA virus known as SARS-CoV-2. The development and regulatory approval of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 pose multiple preventive and therapeutic challenges, especially during an ongoing pandemic. Objective . The review intended to examine the challenges and recent achievements in the development of vaccine candidates against COVID-19. Design . The research team performed a literature review, searching relevant and up to date information from the literature. The sources of data included Google Scholar, PubMed, NCBI, and Yahoo. The search terms used were COVID-19 challenges, SARS-CoV-2 prospective challenges, RNA viruses adoptability, host switching by RNA viruses, COVID-19 vaccines. Setting . The study took place at the digital libraries of contributing institutions. The data was combined, selected for further analysis and manuscript preparation at King Abdulaziz University. Results . RNA viruses with high rate of genome alterations and evolution have better chances to survive in the adverse environmental conditions by adopting the alternate host species. The recent epidemics such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 are examples of zoonotic transmission of RNA viruses from animal species to the humans. However, the mechanisms involved in the switching-on to new host species need further investigations to control the zoonotic transmissions in near future. As of April 2020, 115 candidate vaccines were being evaluated;78 of them had been found to be active, and a few of them are in Phase I trials. In the development of different types of vaccine candidates against COVID19, multiple international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are involved. Conclusions . Emerging and re-emerging pathogenic RNA viruses pose a serious threat to human health. Little is known about the human-host adoptive mechanism for zoonotic transmission. Deep insights into the molecular mechanism responsible for the switching of animal or bird viruses to humans could provide target molecules or events to prevent such transmissions in the near future. Fast development and approval of efficacious and safe vaccines is key to the effort to provide preventive measures against COVID-19 and future viruses. However, the development and availability of a vaccine candidate is a time-consuming process and often can't be completed during an epidemic. Currently, several types of vaccines are under development, and most of them won't realistically be available in time for the present COVID-19 pandemic.