Knowledge of health care workers regarding COVID-19 pandemic response plan; A study from a university affiliated hospital in Jordan.

BACKGROUND: The education and training of healthcare workers (HCWs) about pandemic response plans, infection control protocols (ICP), and precautions are critical for breaking the virus transmission chain. This study aimed to assess the knowledge of HCWs regarding the COVID-19 pandemic response plan and the ICP. Concomitantly, evaluating the effectiveness and impact of institutional measures, policies, and training programs. METHODS: A cross-sectional study using an electronic questionnaire was used to collect data from 267 HCWs at a University-affiliated-hospital during April 2020. RESULTS: In this study, 90.7% of participants were nurses and 66% were females. 60.3% of participants received specific training about caring for COVID-19 patients while at least 94.3% reviewed the pandemic response plan and ICP for COVID-19. 47.5% and 29.2% of participants provided direct care for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients, respectively. Between 85.7% and 100% of the participants answered all items correctly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic response plan, measures, and precautions. Furthermore, the correct answers were above 95% for each item. CONCLUSION: HCWs have a high level of knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic response plan and ICP. Training and disseminating updated plans and protocols in different methods such as an intranet and onsite training in addition to regular methods were very effective.

Positive COVID19-PCR patients as negative controls for COVID19 antibody tests.

COVID-19 serological antibody tests are recently needed for a relatively quick, affordable, and valuable assessment of the immunity toward COVID-19 infection. Furthermore, they can help with evaluating the sufficiency of the vaccination process and its longevity. There are limitations in the current approach of choosing the positive and negative control samples for the validation of those tests. Herein, we are proposing the use of blood samples from positive COVID-19 patients, at the beginning of the disease course, as negative control blood samples for the antibody tests. For more precision, both the negative and the positive control samples can be obtained from the same patients where the accuracy of the test will depend on its ability to detect the seroconversion, from negative to positive antibodies detection, within the same patient. Furthermore, when the validation of the test is accompanied by detecting/sequencing the viral genome in those COVID-19 patients, this can also aid in determining the accuracy of the test in detecting the immune response to specific viral variants. The latter notion is needed for the proper management of the COVID-19 crisis, new vaccines' manufacturing, and evaluating the vaccines' efficiencies. Finally, this approach could be requested/formulated by the regulatory agencies as part of the tests' validation and can be "in-house" obtained by health facilities before its clinical use.

The lockdown may contribute to the COVID-19 cases in developing countries, different perspectives on the curfew act, a report from Jordan.

COVID -19 has driven an unprecedented challenge to the economic, social, and health aspects of human life worldwide. The daily increasing numbers of human life loss encourage us, the healthcare and public health communities, to share best practices and lessons learned to mitigate the resurgence of this pandemic. On the other hand, the pandemic itself or alternatively our policies in dealing with it has led to a dramatic loss and disastrous effects on many aspects including the food and nutritional systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating; tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year. The number of workers who are losing their jobs and the number of bankruptcies for small businesses are increasing. This report aims to bring the attention of policymakers, especially in the developing countries including Jordan, to different perspectives about crucial law acts, the lockdown and the curfew act, that have tremendous effects on the economy and may soon become a main contributor to the increased level of COVID-19 transmission and the main source of the new COVID-19 cases. We hypothesize for a mathematical model based on the comparison between the number of sporadic new cases, number of new cases/family, and the average number of family members to anticipate the value and the sufficiency of the lockdown or the curfew acts on modulating the transmission and the number of new COVID-19 cases in societies.

Prevalence of positive COVID-19 among asymptomatic health care workers who care patients infected with the novel coronavirus: A retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Limited information is available about COVID-19 infections among health care workers. Sensitive detection of COVID-19 cases in health care workers is crucial for hospital infection prevention policy, particularly for those who work with vulnerable patients. The aim of this study is to describe the prevalence of positive COVID-19 among asymptomatic health care workers who took care of patients with COVID-19 during the pandemic. METHODS: This retrospective study included all health care workers at King Abdullah University Hospital who take care of patients infected with COVID-19 patients from March 18, 2020 to April 29, 2020. They were tested for COVID-19 infection by use of real-time reverse-transcriptase rRT-PCR on samples from nasopharyngeal swabs. RESULTS: A total number of 370 health care workers were screened. The majority were nurses followed by physicians and other personnel. This study showed that all asymptomatic health care workers were tested negative for COVID-19Q. CONCLUSION: Unexpectedly, the prevalence of positive COVID-19 among asymptomatic health care workers who take care of patients infected with the novel coronavirus was 0%. This result must be cautiously interpreted. Further studies are needed in order to find effective strategy of screening health care workers to insure a safe working environment.

Overactive bladder and associated psychological symptoms: A possible link to vitamin D and calcium.

INTRODUCTION: Overactive bladder (OAB) is a prevalent syndrome that is associated with multiple urinary tract symptoms and could affect the patient's quality of life and well-being. Vitamin D is shown to be linked to OAB syndrome, which exacerbated by stress conditions. This study evaluated the relationship between vitamin D status, daily calcium intake and OAB, and the associated psychological symptoms. METHODS: The study included 55 patients with OAB and 129 healthy controls. Psychological symptoms were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Serum vitamin D was measured. Patients with OAB with low vitamin D level received orally vitamin D supplementation. Urinary symptoms, psychological symptoms, and quality of life were evaluated before and after vitamin D supplementation plus dairy products. RESULTS: Vitamin D deficiency was more prevalent in cases (80%) vs controls (34.9%). Depression (43.7% vs 20.2%) and anxiety (52.8% vs 10.9%) scores (HADS, ≥8) were also more frequent in cases vs controls, respectively. Some 85.5% of the patients' group had musculoskeletal pain vs 0.0% for the control. Depression was negatively correlated with daily calcium intake and positively with anxiety. Logistic regression analysis revealed that age, vitamin D, and anxiety scores were significant predictors of OAB. Vitamin D supplements with increased calcium intake had significant improvement in urinary symptoms, psychological distress, and quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin D supplements and improved calcium intake may improve urinary and psychological symptoms and quality of life among patients with OAB syndrome. Assessment for vitamin D status in patients with OAB may be warranted.

Renal cell carcinoma in ectopic-pelvic kidney: A rare case with review of literature.

The incidence of renal cell carcinoma in a pelvic kidney is rare, and has only been reported in a small number of cases. We report a 50-year-old male patient presented with vague abdominal pain and without hematuria. CT scan showed large heterogeneous soft tissue mass arising from a left pelvic kidney with areas of necrosis measuring 8.4×8.4×7.5 cm. Histopathology after radical nephro-ureterectomy showed grade II clear-cell renal carcinoma. Renal cell carcinoma of ectopic kidney is a rare disease. Even though the presentation might be atypical and challenging, the treatment strategy is still the same as for tumors of orthotopic kidneys.

Xanthogranulomatous Orchitis: Rare Case with Brief Literature Review.

Xanthogranulomatous reaction is uncommon non neoplastic reaction involving multiple organs, commonly kidney and gallbladder. Its rarely involve testicle. We report 69-year old man present to clinic with right testicular swelling for six month duration. Testicular markers within normal range. Us scrotum revealed right large avascular heterogeneous mass inside testicle. Right inguinal orchiectomy done and revealed Xanthogranulomatous orchitis.

Polymorphisms of arylamine N-acetyltransferase2 and risk of lung and colorectal cancer.

The arylamine N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) enzymes detoxify a wide range of naturally occurring xenobiotics including carcinogens and drugs. Point mutations in the NAT2 gene result in the variant alleles M1 (NAT2 *5A), M2 (NAT2*6A), M3 (NAT2*7) and M4 (NAT2 *14A) from the wild-type WT (NAT2 *4) allele. The current study was aimed at screening genetic polymorphisms of NAT2 gene in 49 lung cancer patients, 54 colorectal cancer patients and 99 cancer-free controls, using PCR-RFLP. There were significant differences in allele frequencies between lung cancer patients and controls in the WT, M2 and M3 alleles (p < 0.05). However, only M2 and M3 allele frequencies were different between colorectal cancer patients and controls (p < 0.05). There was a marginal significant difference in the distribution of rapid and slow acetylator genotypes between lung cancer patients and controls (p = 0.06 and p = 0.05, respectively), but not between colorectal cancer patients and controls (p = 1.0 and p = 0.95, respectively). Risk of lung cancer development was found to be lower in slow acetylators [odds ratio (OR): 0.51, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.25, 1.02, p-value = 0.07]. No effect was observed in case of colorectal cancer. Our results showed that NAT2 genotypes and phenotypes might be involved in lung cancer but not colorectal cancer susceptibility in Jordan.