Articles: covid-19.
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Eur J Case Rep Intern Med · Jan 2020
Effectiveness of Tocilizumab in a COVID-19 Patient with Cytokine Release Syndrome.
Cytokine release syndrome (CRS) is a systemic inflammatory response that can be triggered by many factors such as infections. CRS in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is life-threatening and can occur very rapidly after COVID-19 diagnosis. Tocilizumab (TCZ), an interleukin-6 (IL-6) inhibitor, may ameliorate the CRS associated with severe COVID-19 and thus improve clinical outcomes. We present a case of life-threatening CRS caused by COVID-19 infection successfully treated with TCZ.
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Inform Med Unlocked · Jan 2020
AI4COVID-19: AI enabled preliminary diagnosis for COVID-19 from cough samples via an app.
The inability to test at scale has become humanity's Achille's heel in the ongoing war against the COVID-19 pandemic. A scalable screening tool would be a game changer. Building on the prior work on cough-based diagnosis of respiratory diseases, we propose, develop and test an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered screening solution for COVID-19 infection that is deployable via a smartphone app. The app, named AI4COVID-19 records and sends three 3-s cough sounds to an AI engine running in the cloud, and returns a result within 2 min. ⋯ Results show AI4COVID-19 can distinguish among COVID-19 coughs and several types of non-COVID-19 coughs. The accuracy is promising enough to encourage a large-scale collection of labeled cough data to gauge the generalization capability of AI4COVID-19. AI4COVID-19 is not a clinical grade testing tool. Instead, it offers a screening tool deployable anytime, anywhere, by anyone. It can also be a clinical decision assistance tool used to channel clinical-testing and treatment to those who need it the most, thereby saving more lives.
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Frontiers in psychiatry · Jan 2020
The Mental Well-Being of Frontline Physicians Working in Civil Wars Under Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic Conditions.
Background and Objective: Emergency medical physicians are regarded as essential frontline staff in combating the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. These health-care workers are faced with significant stressors in addition to the usual stress felt in their regular work. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and burnout among emergency physicians on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic. ⋯ A total of 21.4% of respondents perceived a sense of personal underachievement, defined as a score of <10 via aMBI. Conclusion: Physicians' psychological status is crucial and plays a major role in their well-being, affecting their work satisfaction. Therefore, implementing strategies aimed at decreasing the impact of stressful events is crucial to alleviate the distress experienced by physicians on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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JMIR Bioinform Biotech · Jan 2020
Structural Basis for Designing Multiepitope Vaccines Against COVID-19 Infection: In Silico Vaccine Design and Validation.
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has led to the ongoing 2019-2020 pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA coronavirus. Effective countermeasures against SARS-CoV-2 infection require the design and development of specific and effective vaccine candidates. ⋯ The present study is highly significant in terms of the molecular design of prospective CTL and HTL vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection with potential to elicit cellular and humoral immune responses. The epitopes of the designed MEVs are predicted to cover the large human population worldwide (96.10%). Hence, both designed MEVs could be tried in vivo as potential vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2.