The Libyan journal of medicine
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The main clinical manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) onset are respiratory symptoms, including cough, sputum, and dyspnea. However, a significant proportion of patients initially manifested non-respiratory symptoms, such as fever, myalgia, and diarrhea. Here, we compared the different characteristics and outcomes between the patients with respiratory symptoms and non-respiratory symptoms at illness onset. ⋯ We identify COVID-19 subjects with dyspnea at disease onset who have a worse prognosis. We also demonstrate age and secondary bacterial infections to be independently associated with ARDS development in subjects with COVID-19. ABBREVIATIONS: COVID-19: Coronavirus disease 2019; ARDS: acute respiratory distress syndrome; IQR: interquartile range; ICU: intensive care unit; CDC: Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Many COVID-19 infected people remain asymptomatic, and hence the diagnosis at first presentation remains a challenge. Assessment at a presentation in primary care settings is usually done by visual triaging and basic clinical examination. This retrospective study involved investigating the medical e-records of COVID-19 positive patients who presented to a COVID-19 centre in Qatar for July 2020. ⋯ Compared to the asymptomatic group, the symptomatic group had lower Ct values (age groups [21-30], [31-40], [41-50] and [51-60]), higher temperature (age groups [21-30] and [31-40], Ct ranges [20.01-25.00] and [25.01-30.00]), higher HR (age groups [21-30] and [31-40], Ct range [15.01-20.00]); and lower SpO2 (age groups [41-50] and [51-60], Ct ranges [15.01-20.00] and [35.01-40.00]). Compared with asymptomatic patients, symptomatic patients with COVID-19 are most likely to be febrile, tachycardic, hypoxic and having higher viral load. Higher viral load was associated with higher HR, higher temperature, lower SpO2, but there was no relation between viral load and age.
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Down syndrome (DS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of known genetic cause, with a wide array of oral and systemic manifestations. The aim of the present study is to determine the level of oral hygiene status and practice of a group of individuals with DS in Benghazi/Libya. In this cross-sectional study 124 individuals were recruited from The Rehabilitation Centre of Special Needs in the city of Benghazi, Libya. ⋯ The zero CPITN score was seen in 54.5%. Our results have shown a weaker tendency of DS towards oral hygiene. This should strengthen our goal of guiding and encouraging parents of individuals with DS to be more cautious in providing help and supervision of their individuals' practice of oral health care.
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The objective of this work was to establish the bibliometric profile of Tunisian theses in 'general surgery' and to describe their themes, their study designs, and their writing quality. This is a retrospective descriptive bibliometric study, covering all the theses in medicine in the specialty of 'general surgery', defended in the four medical faculties of Tunisia, during the forty last years from 1980 to 2019. During the study period, 739 theses in 'general surgery' were discussed in Tunisia, with an average of 19 theses per year. ⋯ Only 20.7% of these theses had a scientific writing quality deemed satisfactory. The least respected elements in writing their summaries were statistical (confidence intervals and standard deviations) and documentary (keywords). Despite the plethora of themes of Tunisian theses in 'general surgery', their basic methodology and their editorial non conformity require the educational reform of the dissertations, both doctoral students and supervisors, by strengthening their skills in research methodology and scientific communication written.
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The continuous emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants required rapid and reliable diagnostic methods for early detection and monitoring of the spread of the virus, especially in low-resource countries where whole genome sequencing is not available. We aimed to evaluate and compare the performance of two different RT-qPCR screening assays for the detection of B.1.617 lineage mutations. A total of 85 SARS-CoV-2 positive samples were collected between 9th August and 10 September 2021 and screened by two mutation-specific RT-qPCR assays for simultaneous detection of B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2 lineage mutations. ⋯ This is the first report to show the Delta variant as the cause of the third wave in Libya. The use of multiplex RT-qPCR assays has allowed the identification of new variants for rapid screening. However, RT-qPCR results should be confirmed by whole genome sequencing of SARS-COV-2.