Journal of infection and public health
-
J Infect Public Health · Sep 2020
ReviewClinical efficacy of antivirals against novel coronavirus (COVID-19): A review.
The unprecedented challenge faced by mankind due to emergence of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has obligated researchers across the globe to develop effective medicine for prevention and treatment of this deadly infection. The aim of this review is to compile recently published research articles on anti-COVID 19 management with their benefits and risk to facilitate decision making of the practitioners and policy makers. Unfortunately, clinical outcomes reported for antivirals are not consistent. ⋯ Overall, until now, U. S. Food and Drug administration issued only emergency use authorization to remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease.
-
J Infect Public Health · Sep 2020
What if the worst consequences of COVID-19 concerned non-COVID patients?
We highlight in this short article the side-effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the management of non-COVID patients, with potential detrimental and irreversible complications. We thus propose adjusted strategies to deal with both COVID and non-COVID patients.
-
J Infect Public Health · Sep 2020
Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 1663 hospitalized patients infected with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a single-center experience.
The COVID-19 outbreak in late December 2019 has quickly emerged into pandemic in 2020. We aimed to describe the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and to investigate the potential risk factors for COVID-19 severity. ⋯ Timely medical treatment and clear diagnosis after the onset might be beneficial to control the condition of COVID-19. Severe patients were more likely to be to be elder, and tended to have higher proportion of comorbidities and more prominent laboratory abnormalities. Older age, leukocytosis, and increased creatine kinase might help clinicians to identify severe patients with COVID-19.
-
J Infect Public Health · Sep 2020
Demographic, clinical, and outcomes of confirmed cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in Najran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA); A retrospective record based study.
MERS is caused by a viral infection, which was first identified in KSA, 2012. MERS-CoV infection consequences with either hospitalization or death. ⋯ The case fatality rate of MERS-CoV infection was high. Further studies with large sample sizes are needed to explore the reasons behind the decrease in the mortality rate over the time period.
-
J Infect Public Health · Sep 2020
In silico prediction of potential inhibitors for the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 using molecular docking and dynamics simulation based drug-repurposing.
The rapidly enlarging COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel SARS-corona virus-2 is a global public health emergency of an unprecedented level. Unfortunately no treatment therapy or vaccine is yet available to counter the SARS-CoV-2 infection, which substantiates the need to expand research efforts in this direction. The indispensable function of the main protease in virus replication makes this enzyme a promising target for inhibitors screening and drug discovery to treat novel coronavirus infection. The recently concluded α-ketoamide ligand-bound X-ray crystal structure of SARS-CoV-2 Mpro (PDB ID: 6Y2F) from Zhang et al. has revealed the potential inhibitor binding mechanism and the molecular determinants responsible for substrate binding. ⋯ In the present study among the library of FDA approved antiviral drugs, the top three inhibitors Lopinavir-Ritonavir, Tipranavir, and Raltegravir show the best molecular interaction with the main protease of SARS-CoV-2. However, the in-vitro efficacy of the drug molecules screened in this study further needs to be corroborated by carrying out a biochemical and structural investigation.