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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Chronic Long-Covid Syndrome: A Protracted Covid-19 Illness With Neurological Dysfunctions, Abdul Mannan Baig Oct 2021

Chronic Long-Covid Syndrome: A Protracted Covid-19 Illness With Neurological Dysfunctions, Abdul Mannan Baig

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

After almost a year of COVID-19, the chronic long-COVID syndrome has been recognized as an entity in 2021. The patients with the long-COVID are presenting with ominous neurological deficits that with time are becoming persistent and are causing disabilities in the affected individuals. The mechanisms underlying the neurological syndrome in long-COVID have remained obscure and need to be actively researched to find a resolution for the patients with long-COVID. Here, the factors like site of viral load, the differential immune response, neurodegenerative changes, and inflammation as possible causative factors are debated to understand and investigate the pathogenesis of neuro-COVID in …


High-Throughput Next-Generation Sequencing Respiratory Viral Panel: A Diagnostic And Epidemiologic Tool For Sars-Cov-2 And Other Viruses, Nikhil S. Sahajpal, Ashis K. Mondal, Allan Njau, Zachary Petty, Jiani Chen, Sudha Ananth, Pankaj Ahluwalia, Colin Williams, Ted M. Ross, Alka Chaubey Oct 2021

High-Throughput Next-Generation Sequencing Respiratory Viral Panel: A Diagnostic And Epidemiologic Tool For Sars-Cov-2 And Other Viruses, Nikhil S. Sahajpal, Ashis K. Mondal, Allan Njau, Zachary Petty, Jiani Chen, Sudha Ananth, Pankaj Ahluwalia, Colin Williams, Ted M. Ross, Alka Chaubey

Pathology, East Africa

Two serious public health challenges have emerged in the current COVID-19 pandemic namely, deficits in SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring and neglect of other co-circulating respiratory viruses. Additionally, accurate assessment of the evolution, extent, and dynamics of the outbreak is required to understand the transmission of the virus. To address these challenges, we evaluated 533 samples using a high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) respiratory viral panel (RVP) that includes 40 viral pathogens. The performance metrics revealed a PPA, NPA, and accuracy of 95.98%, 85.96%, and 94.4%, respectively. The clade for pangolin lineage B that contains certain distant variants, including P4715L in ORF1ab, Q57H …


Persistence Of Post-Covid Lung Parenchymal Abnormalities During The Three-Month Follow-Up, Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi, Anjiya Shaikh, Syed Muhammad Zubair, Akbar Shoukat Ali, Safia Awan, Muhammad Irfan Sep 2021

Persistence Of Post-Covid Lung Parenchymal Abnormalities During The Three-Month Follow-Up, Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi, Anjiya Shaikh, Syed Muhammad Zubair, Akbar Shoukat Ali, Safia Awan, Muhammad Irfan

Section of Pulmonary & Critical Care

Introduction: COVID-19-associated pulmonary sequalae have been increasingly reported after recovery from acute infection. Therefore, we aim to explore the charactersitics of persistent lung parenchymal abnormalities in patients with COVID-19.
Material and methods: An observational study was conducted in patients with post-COVID lung parenchymal abnormalities from April till September 2020. Patients ≥18 years of age with COVID-19 who were diagnosed as post-COVID lung parenchymal abnormality based on respiratory symptoms and HRCT chest imaging after the recovery of acute infection. Data was recorded on a structured pro forma, and descriptive analysis was performed using Stata version 12.1.
Results: A total of 30 …


Water, Sanitation And Hygiene: A Leading Cause Of Viral Transmission In Pakistan?, Zouina Sarfraz, Azza Sarfraz, Aman Siddiqui, Ali Totonchian, Muzna Sarfraz, Ivan Cherrez-Ojeda Sep 2021

Water, Sanitation And Hygiene: A Leading Cause Of Viral Transmission In Pakistan?, Zouina Sarfraz, Azza Sarfraz, Aman Siddiqui, Ali Totonchian, Muzna Sarfraz, Ivan Cherrez-Ojeda

Department of Paediatrics and Child Health

No abstract provided.


Covid-19 And Family Planning In The Eastern Mediterranean Region, Azza Sarfraz, Zouina Sarfraz, Sameer Saleem Tebha, Namrata Hange, Kuchalambal Agadi, Alanna Barrios, Manish Kc, Gaurav Patel Sep 2021

Covid-19 And Family Planning In The Eastern Mediterranean Region, Azza Sarfraz, Zouina Sarfraz, Sameer Saleem Tebha, Namrata Hange, Kuchalambal Agadi, Alanna Barrios, Manish Kc, Gaurav Patel

Department of Paediatrics and Child Health

No abstract provided.


Discrepancy Between Pcr Based Sars-Cov-2 Tests Suggests The Need To Re-Evaluate Diagnostic Assays, Zain Mushtaq, Sadia Shakoor, Akber Kanji, Najma Shaheen, Asghar Nasir, Zeeshan Ansar Ahmed, Imran Ahmed, Syed Faisal Mahmood, Rumina Hasan, Zahra Hasan Aug 2021

Discrepancy Between Pcr Based Sars-Cov-2 Tests Suggests The Need To Re-Evaluate Diagnostic Assays, Zain Mushtaq, Sadia Shakoor, Akber Kanji, Najma Shaheen, Asghar Nasir, Zeeshan Ansar Ahmed, Imran Ahmed, Syed Faisal Mahmood, Rumina Hasan, Zahra Hasan

Section of Internal Medicine

Objective: We investigated the discrepancy between clinical and PCR-based diagnosis of COVID-19. We compared results of ten patients with mild to severe COVID-19. Respiratory samples from all cases were tested on the Roche SARS-CoV-2 (Cobas) assay, Filmarray RP2.1 (bioMereiux) and TaqPath™ COVID19 (Thermofisher) PCR assays.
Results: Laboratory records of ten patients with mild to severe COVID-19 were examined. Initially, respiratory samples from the patients were tested as negative on the SARS-CoV-2 Roche® assay. Further investigation using the BIOFIRE® Filmarray RP2.1 assay identified SARS-CoV-2 as the pathogen in all ten cases. To investigate possible discrepancies between PCR assays, additional testing was …


Risk Of Infection And Transmission Of Sars-Cov-2 Among Children And Adolescents In Households, Communities And Educational Settings: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Omar Irfan, Jiang Li, Kun Tang, Zhicheng Wang, Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta Jul 2021

Risk Of Infection And Transmission Of Sars-Cov-2 Among Children And Adolescents In Households, Communities And Educational Settings: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Omar Irfan, Jiang Li, Kun Tang, Zhicheng Wang, Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta

Woman and Child Health

Background: There is uncertainty with respect to SARS-CoV-2 transmission in children (0-19 years) with controversy on effectiveness of school-closures in controlling the pandemic. It is of equal importance to evaluate the risk of transmission in children who are often asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic carriers that may incidentally transmit SARS-CoV-2 in different settings. We conducted this review to assess transmission and risks for SARS-CoV-2 in children (by age-groups or grades) in community and educational-settings compared to adults.
Methods: Data for the review were retrieved from PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, WHO COVID-19 Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) Database, WanFang Database, Latin …


A Cross Sectional Evaluation Of The Corona-Score For Swift Identification Of Sars-Cov-2 Infection At A Tertiary Care Hospital In Pakistan, Sibtain Ahmed, Muhammad Umer Naeem Effendi, Zeeshan Ansar Ahmed, Imran Siddiqui, Lena Jafri Jul 2021

A Cross Sectional Evaluation Of The Corona-Score For Swift Identification Of Sars-Cov-2 Infection At A Tertiary Care Hospital In Pakistan, Sibtain Ahmed, Muhammad Umer Naeem Effendi, Zeeshan Ansar Ahmed, Imran Siddiqui, Lena Jafri

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Background: The Corona-Score is one of the first and most widely used predictive model for coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The purpose of this study was to validate the performance of Corona-Score in a cohort of Pakistani patients pursuing care for suspected infection.
Methods: After seeking institution's ethical committee exemption, results of serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), C-reactive protein (CRP), ferritin, absolute lymphocyte and neutrophil counts, chest x-ray findings and demographics of suspected COVID-19 cases with respiratory symptoms were recouped from electronic medical record. The pre-validated score as proposed by Kurstjens S et al., was calculated. The subjects were divided into SARS-CoV-2 …


Multi-Subunit Sars-Cov-2 Vaccine Design Using Evolutionarily Conserved T- And B- Cell Epitopes, Burkitkan Akbay, Syed Hani Abidi, Mahmoud A A. Ibrahim, Zhussipbek Mukhatayev, Syed Ali Jun 2021

Multi-Subunit Sars-Cov-2 Vaccine Design Using Evolutionarily Conserved T- And B- Cell Epitopes, Burkitkan Akbay, Syed Hani Abidi, Mahmoud A A. Ibrahim, Zhussipbek Mukhatayev, Syed Ali

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has created a public health crisis worldwide. Although vaccines against the virus are efficiently being rolled out, they are proving to be ineffective against certain emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. The high degree of sequence similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and other human coronaviruses (HCoV) presents the opportunity for designing vaccines that may offer protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its emerging variants, with cross-protection against other HCoVs. In this study, we performed bioinformatics analyses to identify T and B cell epitopes originating from spike, membrane, nucleocapsid, and envelope protein sequences found to be evolutionarily conserved among seven major HCoVs. Evolutionary conservation of …


Role Of Awake Prone Positioning In Patients With Moderate-To-Severe Covid-19: An Experience From A Developing Country, Iffat Khanum, Fatima Samar, Fatimah Yousuf, Safia Awan, Adil Aziz, Kiren Habib, Nosheen Nasir, Syed Faisal Mahmood, Bushra Jamil Mar 2021

Role Of Awake Prone Positioning In Patients With Moderate-To-Severe Covid-19: An Experience From A Developing Country, Iffat Khanum, Fatima Samar, Fatimah Yousuf, Safia Awan, Adil Aziz, Kiren Habib, Nosheen Nasir, Syed Faisal Mahmood, Bushra Jamil

Department of Medicine

There is limited evidence on the efficacy of awake prone positioning (PP) in non-ventilated patients with COVID-19 who have hypoxemia. We, therefore, aim to describe our experience with the use of early proning in awake, non-intubated patients with confirmed COVID-19. In our retrospective observational study, 23 patients with confirmed positive PCR test results for Severe Acute respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and hypoxemia that required oxygen therapy with or without non-invasive ventilation were treated with PP. Patients were classified into mild, moderate and severe COVID-19 disease. There were no targeted number of hours for proning per day and patients were kept …


The Influence Of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (Covid-19) On Parkinson’S Disease: An Updated Systematic Review, Vikash Jaiswal, Danah Alquraish, Zouina Sarfraz, Azza Sarfraz, Shavy Nagpal, Prakriti Singh Shrestha, Dattatreya Mukherjee, Prathima Guntipalli, Diana F. Sánchez Velazco, Arushee Bhatnagar Jan 2021

The Influence Of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (Covid-19) On Parkinson’S Disease: An Updated Systematic Review, Vikash Jaiswal, Danah Alquraish, Zouina Sarfraz, Azza Sarfraz, Shavy Nagpal, Prakriti Singh Shrestha, Dattatreya Mukherjee, Prathima Guntipalli, Diana F. Sánchez Velazco, Arushee Bhatnagar

Department of Paediatrics and Child Health

Background: COVID-19 has affected global communities with multiple neurological complications in addition to other critical medical issues. COVID-19 binds to the host's angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors, which are expressed in the neurons and glial cells, acting as an entry port to the central nervous system (CNS). ACE2 receptors are abundantly expressed on dopamine neurons, which may worsen the prognosis of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). SARS-CoV-2 may lead to an indirect response via immune-mediated cytokine storms and propagate through the CNS leading to damage. In this systematic review, we aim to provide thorough analyses of associations between COVID-19 …