Prevalence and factors associated with mental illness symptoms among school students post lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Arab Emirates: A cross-sectional national study.

Limited data exists on the mental health of children in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This study aimed to fill this gap by examining the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among school students in post-lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 3,745 school students participated, responding to standardized tests (Mood and Feeling Questionnaire-Child Self-Report, Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders-Child Version, and Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale-8). Findings showed that the risk for PTSD was the most prevalent (40.6%), followed by symptoms of anxiety (23.3%), and depression (17.1%). For gender differences, symptoms of the three conditions (depression, anxiety, and PTSD) were higher in female students (9.2%) compared to male peers (7.7%) (p = 0.09). Moreover, symptoms of depression and anxiety were found to be higher among late adolescents (p<0.05). Further analysis revealed that having medical problems was a positive predictor for anxiety (OR = 2.0, p<0.01) and risk for PTSD (OR = 1.3, p = 0.002); similarly, witnessing the death of a close family member due to COVID-19 (OR for depression, anxiety, and PTSD = 1.7, p<0.01) were positive predictors associated with PTDS, depression, and anxiety. The study concluded that post COVID-19 lockdown, symptoms of anxiety, depression, and risk for PTSD were found to be prevalent among school students in the UAE. Researchers put forward recommendations on the initiation of a national school mental health screening program, the provision of follow-up services for vulnerable students, and the integration of a mental health support system in the disaster preparedness plans.

Risk of hospitalization and vaccine effectiveness among COVID-19 patients in the UAE during the Delta and Omicron outbreaks.

Introduction: A rapid increase in COVID-19 cases due to the spread of the Delta and Omicron variants in vaccinated populations has raised concerns about the hospitalization risk associated with, and the effectiveness of, COVID-19 vaccines. Method: This case-control study aims to determine the hospitalization risk associated with the inactivated BBIBP-CorV (Sinopharm) and mRNA BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BionTech) vaccines, and their effectiveness reducing the rate of hospital admission between 28 May 2021 and 13 January 2022, during the Delta and Omicron outbreaks. The estimation of vaccine effectiveness of 4,618 samples was based on the number of patients hospitalized at different vaccination statuses, adjusted for confounding variables. Results: Hospitalization risk increases in patients affected with the Omicron variant if patients are aged ≤ 18 years (OR 6.41, 95% CI 2.90 to 14.17; p < 0.001), and in patients affected with the Delta variant if they are aged > 45 years (OR 3.41, 95% CI 2.21 to 5.50; p < 0.001). Vaccine effectiveness reducing the rate of hospital admission for fully vaccinated participants infected with the Delta and Omicron variants was similar for both the BBIBP-CorV (94%, 95% CI 90% to 97%; 90%, 95% CI 74% to 96%) and BNT162b2 vaccines (95%, 95% CI 61% to 99.3%; 94%, 95% CI 53% to 99%), respectively. Discussion: The BBIBP-CorV and BNT162b2 vaccines utilized in the UAE vaccination program were highly effective in reducing the rate of COVID-19-related hospitalization during the Delta and Omicron outbreaks, and further effort must be taken to achieve high vaccine coverage rates in children and adolescents in the global context to reduce the hospitalization risk associated with COVID-19 on an international scale.

The effect of lockdowns and distant learning on the health-related behaviours of school students in the United Arab Emirates.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic began to affect the world in early 2020. As a preventive measure, schools in the UAE adopted remote learning. This study aimed to assess the effects of the lockdown and remote learning on the health-related behaviours of school students in the UAE. METHODS: A cross-sectional study using an online survey comprising 33 questions related to physical activity, eating, sleeping and screen time was answered by the students' parents. Chi-square tests, paired Student's t tests and frequency tables were used for analysis. RESULTS: A total of 27,754 responses were received: 46.3% of the parents indicated a significant decrease in physical activity; 44.6% indicated an increase in unhealthy snack consumption; and 51.9% indicated decreased food ordering from restaurants. The percentage of students who slept more than 9 hours and those who slept less than 6 hours increased. Screen time increased significantly for both educational and entertainment purposes (P value < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: The study showed changes in the lifestyle and health-related behaviours of school students as indicated by their parents. Risk factors such as a lack of physical activity, increased food consumption, sleeping and screen time were directly affected. Therefore, it is important to further investigate these changes and their effects to help design targeted health education programs and promotion campaigns.

Genomic epidemiology and emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern in the United Arab Emirates.

Since the declaration of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak as a pandemic, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public health authorities have adopted strict measures to reduce transmission as early as March 2020. As a result of these measures, flight suspension, nationwide RT-PCR and surveillance of viral sequences were extensively implemented. This study aims to characterize the epidemiology, transmission pattern, and emergence of variants of concerns (VOCs) and variants of interests (VOIs) of SARS-CoV-2 in the UAE, followed by the investigation of mutations associated with hospitalized cases. A total of 1274 samples were collected and sequenced from all seven emirates between the period of 25 April 2020 to 15 February 2021. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated multiple introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into the UAE in the early pandemic, followed by a local spread of root clades (A, B, B.1 and B.1.1). As the international flight resumed, the frequencies of VOCs surged indicating the January peak of positive cases. We observed that the hospitalized cases were significantly associated with the presence of B.1.1.7 (p < 0.001), B.1.351 (p < 0.001) and A.23.1 (p = 0.009). Deceased cases are more likely to occur in the presence of B.1.351 (p < 0.001) and A.23.1 (p = 0.022). Logistic and ridge regression showed that 51 mutations are significantly associated with hospitalized cases with the highest proportion originated from S and ORF1a genes (31% and 29% respectively). Our study provides an epidemiological insight of the emergence of VOCs and VOIs following the borders reopening and worldwide travels. It provides reassurance that hospitalization is markedly more associated with the presence of VOCs. This study can contribute to understand the global transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Pre-diagnostic biomarkers of type 2 diabetes identified in the UAE's obese national population using targeted metabolomics.

Currently, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and obesity are major global public health issues, and their prevalence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the highest in the world. In 2019, The UAE diabetes national prevalence was 15.4%. In recent years there has been a considerable investigation of predictive biomarkers associated with these conditions. This study analysed fasting (8 h) blood samples from an obese, normoglycemic cohort and an obese, T2DM cohort of UAE nationals, employing clinical chemistry analysis, 1D 1H NMR and mass spectroscopy (FIA-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS) techniques. The novel findings reported for the first time in a UAE population revealed significant differences in a number of metabolites in the T2DM cohort. Metabolic fingerprints identified by NMR included BCAAs, trimethylamine N-oxide, ß-hydroxybutyrate, trimethyl uric acid, and alanine. A targeted MS approach showed significant differences in lysophosphatidylcholines, phosphatidylcholines, acylcarnitine, amino acids and sphingomyelins; Lyso.PC.a.C18.0, PC.ae.C34.2, C3.DC..C4.OH, glutamine and SM.C16.1, being the most significant metabolites. Pearson's correlation studies showed associations between these metabolites and the clinical chemistry parameters across both cohorts. This report identified differences in metabolites in response to T2DM in agreement with many published population studies. This contributes to the global search for a bank of metabolite biomarkers that can predict the advent of T2DM and give insight to its pathogenic mechanisms.