Indian J Med Res
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To handle the current COVID-19 pandemic in India, multiple strategies have been applied and implemented to slow down the virus transmission. These included clinical management of active cases, rapid development of treatment strategies, vaccines computational modelling and statistical tools to name a few. This article presents a mathematical model for a time series prediction and analyzes the impact of the lockdown. ⋯ The SAIR model has helped understand the disease better. If the model is correct, we may have reached herd immunity with about 380 million people already infected. However, personal protective measures remain crucial. If there was no lockdown, the number of active infections would have peaked at close to 14.7 million, resulted in more than 2.6 million deaths, and the peak would have arrived by June 2020. The number of deaths with the current trends may be less than 0.2 million.
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Healthcare workers (HCWs) are considered to be at a high risk of contracting COVID-19 infection. Besides, control of nosocomial infections transmitted from HCWs to the patients is also a cause of concern. This study was undertaken to investigate the seroprevalence of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus among the hospital staff of a tertiary care health facility in north India. ⋯ The presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in a significant number of asymptomatic HCWs, association with the use of public transport, relatively lower seroprevalence compared with the non-HCWs and rising trend during the period of the study highlight the need for serosurveillance, creating awareness for infection control practices including social distancing and study of infection dynamics in the community for effective control of an infectious pandemic.
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Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), reported to inhibit severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) replication in in vitro studies, has been recommended for prophylaxis of COVID-19 in healthcare workers (HCWs). The objective of this study was to assess short-term adverse events (AEs) of HCQ in HCWs. ⋯ HCQ prophylaxis first dose was well tolerated among HCWs as evidenced by a low discontinuation. For adverse effects, a small number required treatment, and none required hospitalization. The study had limitations of convenience sampling and lack of laboratory and electrocardiography confirmation of AEs.
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Several phylogenetic classification systems have been devised to trace the viral lineages of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, inconsistency in the nomenclature limits uniformity in its epidemiological understanding. This study provides an integration of existing classifications and describes evolutionary trends of the SARS-CoV-2 strains circulating in India. ⋯ This study interpreted the geographical and temporal dominance of SARS-CoV-2 strains in India over a period of nine months based on the GISAID classification. An integration of the GISAID, Nextstrain and Pangolin classifications is also provided. The emergence of new lineages B.1.1.8 and B.1.113 was indicative of host-specific evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 strains in India. The hotspot mutations such as those driven by positive selection need to be further characterized.