Scientific reports
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Randomized Controlled Trial Retracted Publication
Safety and efficacy of favipiravir versus hydroxychloroquine in management of COVID-19: A randomised controlled trial.
Favipiravir is considered a potential treatment for COVID-19 due its efficacy against different viral infections. We aimed to explore the safety and efficacy of favipiravir in treatment of COVID-19 mild and moderate cases. It was randomized-controlled open-label interventional phase 3 clinical trial [NCT04349241]. 100 patients were recruited from 18th April till 18th May. 50 patients received favipiravir 3200 mg at day 1 followed by 600 mg twice (day 2-day 10). 50 patients received hydroxychloroquine 800 mg at day 1 followed by 200 mg twice (day 2-10) and oral oseltamivir 75 mg/12 h/day for 10 days. ⋯ The average onset of SARS-CoV-2 PCR negativity was 8.1 and 8.3 days in HCQ-arm and favipiravir-arm respectively. 55.1% of those on HCQ-arm turned PCR negative at/or before 7th day from diagnosis compared to 48% in favipiravir-arm (p = 0.7). 4 patients in FVP arm developed transient transaminitis on the other hand heartburn and nausea were reported in about 20 patients in HCQ-arm. Only one patient in HCQ-arm died after developing acute myocarditis resulted in acute heart failure. Favipiravir is a safe effective alternative for hydroxychloroquine in mild or moderate COVID-19 infected patients.
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a newly-discovered coronavirus and responsible for the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). SARS-CoV-2 infected millions of people in the world and immediately became a pandemic in March 2020. SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the beta-coronavirus genus of the large family of Coronaviridae. ⋯ These mutations occurred at the receptor-binding domain of the spike glycoprotein that play an essential role in the increasing the affinity of coronavirus to ACE2. For instance, mutations Pro462Ala and Leu472Phe resulted in the altered binding energy from - 2 kcal mol-1 in SARS-COV to - 6 kcal mol-1 in SARS-COV-2. The results demonstrated that some mutations in the receptor-binding motif could be considered as a hot-point for designing potential drugs to inhibit the interaction between the spike glycoprotein and ACE2.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged in December 2019 when the first case was reported in Wuhan, China and turned into a pandemic with 27 million (September 9th) cases. Currently, there are over 95,000 complete genome sequences of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus causing COVID-19, in public databases, accompanying a growing number of studies. Nevertheless, there is still much to learn about the viral population variation when the virus is evolving as it continues to spread. ⋯ We explored SARS-CoV-2 variants in the Netherlands until June 2020 within a global context; our results provide insight into the viral population diversity for localized efforts in tracking the transmission of COVID-19, as well as sequenced-based approaches in diagnostics and therapeutics. We emphasize that little diversity is observed globally in recent samples despite the increased number of mutations relative to the established reference sequence. We suggest sequence-based analyses should opt for a consensus representation to adequately cover the genomic variation observed to speed up diagnostics and vaccine design.
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Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) have a chronic-remittent course. Optimal management of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) relies on early intervention, treat-to-target strategies and a tight disease control. However, it is challenging to assess the risk of relapses in individual patients. ⋯ The concentrations of 9 cytokines/chemokines and S100A8/A9 significantly differed in IBD patients with unstable remission (before flares) when compared to IBD patients with stable remission. Although the number of patients was small, ROC curve analyses revealed a number of biomarkers (IL-1β, IL-1RA, IL-8, IL13, IL-15, IL-21, IL-25, IFN-β, CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL11, Galectin-1, G-CSF and S100A8/A9) that were elevated in patients with later occurring relapses. While earlier studies on peripheral biomarkers in IBD are limited to only few analytes, our study using a broad screening approach identified serum biomarkers with the potential to indicate unstable disease control in IBD, which may help to steer individual therapies to maintain remission.
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This study compared the differences in the clinical manifestations, treatment courses and clinical turnover between mild and moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Clinical data of the patients with imported COVID-19 admitted to Beijing Xiaotangshan Designated Hospital between March 15 and April 30, 2020, were retrospectively analysed. A total of 53 COVID-19 patients were included, with 21 mild and 32 moderate cases. ⋯ The proportion of patients who received antiviral or antibiotic treatment in the moderate group was higher than that in the mild group, and the number of cases that progressed to severe disease in the moderate group was also significantly higher (18.7% vs. 0%, p = 0.035). Compared with patients with mild COVID-19, those with moderate COVID-19 exhibited more noticeable inflammatory reactions, more severe pulmonary imaging manifestations and earlier expression of protective antibodies. The overall turnover of the moderate cases was poorer than that of the mild cases.