Journal of infection and public health
-
J Infect Public Health · Jun 2020
ReviewPreparedness and response to COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia: Building on MERS experience.
Nearly four months have passed since the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused the rapidly spreading Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. To date, there have been more than 2.3 million confirmed cases and more than 160,000 deaths globally caused by COVID-19. ⋯ Here, we review the response of Saudi Arabia to COVID-19 pandemic and how did the experience learned from the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) epidemic since 2012 has helped the country to be better prepared for the current COVID-19 pandemic. We also discuss the country readiness, improvement in research and development, and the unprecedented rapid precautionary measures that have been taken by the Saudi government thus far.
-
J Infect Public Health · Jun 2020
Case ReportsSpontaneous pneumothorax and subcutaneous emphysema in COVID-19 patient: Case report.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome virus coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As known, COVID-19 has become a global pandemic and serious health problem. Disease mainly affects lungs and common findings are fever cough and shortness of breath. ⋯ Main (CT) finding of the disease is bilateral extensive ground-glass opacification (GGO) with a peripheral or posterior distribution, mainly involving the lower lobes. In this case report, we present a pneumothorax and subcutaneous emphysema case in a patient with COVID-19. To the best of authors' knowledge, it is the first illustrated case of pneumothorax accompanying COVID-19 pneumonia.
-
J Infect Public Health · Jun 2020
ReviewSARS, MERS and COVID-19 among healthcare workers: A narrative review.
In the recent two decades, three global viral infectious diseases, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS), and coronavirus disease (COVID-19), have occurred worldwide. SARS occurred in November 2002, causing 8096 infected cases, as well as 774 deaths. ⋯ Healthcare workers (HCWs) need to be in close contact with these virus-infected patients and their contaminated environments at work, thus leading to be infected in some of them, even a few of them are died in line of duty. In this review, we summarized the infection status of HCWs during the outbreak of SARS, MERS and COVID-19, with in-depth discussion, hoping to provoke sufficient attention to the HCWs infection status by more people.
-
J Infect Public Health · Jun 2020
ReviewCoronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: Current status and management practices.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is currently a global threat to human population. The numbers of cases and deaths due to COVID-19 are escalating daily, putting health care systems worldwide under tremendous pressure. ⋯ The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have managed to limit the massive spread of the infection among their populations by implementing proactive plans and timely decisions in response to COVID-19 outbreak; measures taken included suspension of flights, closure of educational institutes, curfew and lockdown of major cities, and provision of free-of-charge healthcare to patients. This review summarizes the COVID-19 status as of 18 May 2020 and highlights prevention and control measures applied in the GCC countries.
-
J Infect Public Health · Jun 2020
Importance of timely management of patients in reducing fatality rate of coronavirus disease 2019.
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) characterized with pneumonia, firstly occurred in Wuhan city, China, in December 2019 has so far spread in over 200 countries and territories in the world. One of the important goals in facing outbreaks of COVID-19 is to reduce the case fatality rate. We reported here that the fatality rate of COVID-19 in other provinces of mainland China was 0.82% (121/14,708), significantly lower than 6.62% (4512/68,128) in Hubei province (p<0.0001). The main reason for the lower fatality rate was likely due to the timely management of the patients in other provinces, highlighting the importance of timely management of patients in reducing the fatality rate of COVID-19.