ABSTRACT
ImportanceEarly and effective treatment of COVID-19 is vital for control of SARS-CoV-2 infection ObjectivesThe primary objective of the study was to assess the degree of clinical improvement in severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients, treated early with early CPT. DesignsAn interventional, single-arm, non-randomized clinical trial conducted in Egypt from April 15 to July 21, 2020. SettingsThis was a multi-centre study conducted in 3 hospitals in Egypt. Participantsa total of 94 COVID-19 laboratory-confirmed patients using qRT-PCR were enrolled in the study. InterventionAll patients were administered with two plasma units (each unit is 200cc). The volume of donated plasma was 800cc. Main Outcome and MeasuresPrimary measure was the degree of clinical improvement among the COVID-19 patients who received CPT within seven days ResultsA total of 94 patients were enrolled who received CPT either within seven days or after seven days of hospitalization. 82 were severely ill, 12 were critically ill. The average age remained 58 years ({+/-}SD 15.1 years). Male were 69% and 49% patients got cured while 51% died with CFR 51%. 75% deaths were above 45years of age. The symptoms were dyspnoea (55%), fever (52%), cough (46%), and loss of taste and smell (21%), and cyanosis (15%). The most common co-morbidities among the <40 years remained Diabetes Mellitus (21%) and Asthma (14%). Among 40-60 years Hypertension (56%), Diabetes Mellitus (39%) and among >60 years age group Hypertension (57%) and Chronic Heart Disease (24%) were reported. CPT within seven days remained significant as compared with the CPT after seven days with the number of days to cure (p=0.007) and ICU stay (P=0.008) among severely ill cured cases. Conclusion and RelevanceAmong patients with COVID-19 and severe or critical illness, the use of CPT along with routine standard therapy resulted in a statistically significant improvement when administered within seven days of hospital admission. However, plasma transfusion, irrespective of days to transfusion may not help treat critically ill patients. The overall mean time to cure in severely ill patients was 15 days if CPT provided within seven days with 65% cure rate. Trial RegistrationClinical Intervention identifier: MOHP_COVID-19_Ver1.1
ABSTRACT
The construction and performance characteristics of new sensitive and selective in situ modified screen printed (ISPE) and carbon paste (ICPE) electrodes for determination of naphazoline hydrochloride (NPZ-HCl) have been developed. The electrodes under investigation show potentiometric response for NPZ-HCl in the concentration range from 7.0 ? 10-7 to 1.0 ? 10-2 M at 25 1C and the electrode response is independent of pH in the range of 3.1-7.9. These sensors have slope values of 59.770.6 and 59.270.2 mV decade?1 with detection limit values of 5.6 ? 10-7 and 5.9 ? 10-7 M NPZ-HCl using ISPE and ICPE, respectively. These electrodes show fast response time of 4-7 s and 5-8 s and exhibits lifetimes of 28 and 30 days for ISPE and ICPE, respectively. Selectivity for NPZ-HCl with respect to a number of interfering materials was also investigated. It was found that there is no interference from the investigated inorganic cations, anions, sugars and other pharmaceutical excipients. The proposed sensors were applied for the determination of NPZ-HCl in pharmaceutical formulation using the direct potentiometric method. It showed a mean average recovery of 100.2%and 102.6%for ISPE and ICPE, respectively. The obtained results using the proposed sensors were in good agreement with those obtained using the official method. The proposed sensors show significantly high selectivity, response time, accuracy, precision, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) compared with other proposed methods.
