Follow-up studies in COVID-19 recovered patients - is it mandatory?

The novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an illness caused due to Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this outbreak a global health emergency and as on April 24, 2020, it has spread to 213 countries, with 25,91,015 confirmed cases and 742,855 cases have been recovered from COVID-19. In this dreadful situation our team has already published an article in the Science of the Total Environment, which elaborates the various aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this situation, it is imperative to understand the possible outcome of COVID-19 recovered patients and determine if they have any other detrimental illnesses by longitudinal analysis to safeguard their life in future. It is necessary to follow-up these recovered patients and performs comprehensive assessments for detection and appropriate management towards their psychological, physical, and social realm. This urges us to suggest that it is highly important to provide counselling, moral support as well as a few recommended guidelines to the recovered patients and society to restore to normalcy. Epidemiological, clinical and immunological studies from COVID-19 recovered patients are particularly important to understand the disease and to prepare better for potential outbreaks in the future. Longitudinal studies on a larger cohort would help us to understand the in-depth prognosis as well as the pathogenesis of COVID-19. Also, follow-up studies will help us provide more information for the development of vaccines and drugs for these kinds of pandemics in the future. Hence, we recommend more studies are required to unravel the possible mechanism of COVID-19 infection and the after-effects of it to understand the characteristics of the virus and to develop the necessary precautionary measures to prevent it.

Evaluation of bioactive potential of an Aloe vera sterol extract.

We prepared a crude gel material from Aloe vera succulent leaf tissues. The ethanolic extract of lyophilized A. vera gel was used for the GC-MS analysis. Hexadecanoic acid (22.22%) was identified as major compound. Sitosterol and stigmasterol were found to be 2.89% and 2.1% in the extract. HPLC analysis was carried out to confirm the presence of stigmasterol. The concentration of sterol extract needed to scavenge DPPH free radical by 50% was calculated as 5.2 mg mL(-1). In the FRAP assay, the sterol extract showed significant hydroxyl radical scavenging in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 value 1.17 µg mL(-1)). Concentration of the sample required to reduce lipid peroxidation was found to be 4.18 µg mL(-1), and the extract also possessed acetylcholinesterase activity (IC50 - 5.26 µg mL(-1)). Catalase activity was 0.196 µM H2 O2 decomposed min(-1) µg(-1) protein, whereas the peroxidase activity was 17.01 µM of pyragallol oxidized min(-1) µg(-1) protein. The extract recorded higher activity against growth of S. greseus and C. albicans in the experiments carried out to determine antibacterial and antifungal activity, respectively.