Safeguarding from COVID-19: educating healthcare workers about the available protective equipment.

Aim: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a viral illness which is transmitted through droplet spread and possibily the aerosol method. Older individuals are at higher risk compared with younger adults and children due to the presence of weaker immune functions. Healthcare workers are also at higher risk due to close proximity with the infected cases. Proper precautions and hand hygiene techniques can prevent the transmission of the disease. There is a dearth of evidence on how to manage the disease; therefore, protective measures might help to reduce the spread of infection. This article aimed to evaluate the preventive measure and use of protective equipment among healthcare workers and community settings. Subjects and methods: Various recent literature searched in the following databases-Medline/PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus-recommendations from centre for disease control and prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) reports on preventive measures of COVID-19 were included. Results: After reviewing the previous literature, we summarized proper precautions and hygiene techniques, use of PPE and applicability of surgical and N95 (can block 95% small particles but not resistant to oil) masks to prevent the transmission of disease. Conclusion: This viewpoint can be considered as a unique example of information on infection control and protective measures. However, due to the lack of evidence, further research is required to compare the effectiveness of medical masks and N95 masks.

Mechanical methods for dry particle coating processes and their applications in drug delivery and development.

Modification of the surface properties of particles, which is usually achieved by coating, is desirable to maintain and enhance the utility of these particles. Saving of time, energy, number of additives, process steps and consequently, the cost of the coating process leads to development of dry coating processes using mechanical methods which exclude any liquid solvent or binder solution and are environmentally safe, and cost-effective. Mechanofusion, hybridization, magnetic assisted impaction coating, theta-composer, rotating fluidized bed coating, pressure swing granulation and high shear mixing have been extensively patented and reported in the scientific literature. These mechanical methods have found multidisciplinary applications in drug development and drug delivery. Various devices available for the dry coating process, their principle, method of working, benefits and limitations along with various applications relevant to the pharmaceutical field are discussed in the current article.

The latest trends in the taste assessment of pharmaceuticals.

To date, the most widely used method for measuring the taste characteristics of pharmaceutical preparations is psychophysical evaluation by a taste panel. However, conventional chemical analyses, on the basis of release studies, have been shown to be useful subsidiary methods. More recently, novel in vitro taste assessment apparatus and methodologies have been developed for high-throughput taste screening and quality control. Biomimetic taste sensing systems (BMTSSs), such as multichannel taste sensors or electronic tongues with global selectivity, have been welcomed by both pharmaceutical scientists and the industry as a whole. As we discuss here, the emerging in vitro approaches for assessing taste characteristics of taste masked drug and drug products will result in a decreased reliance on human panel tests.