Article Summary
April 22, 2020
Multicenter initial guidance on use of antivirals for children with COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2
This paper presents a guidance based on best available evidence and expert opinion from a panel of pediatric infectious diseases physicians and pharmacists from 18 geographically diverse North American institutions. It discourages the use of antivirals in most COVID-19 pediatric patients. For children who develop severe or critical disease, this guidance offers approaches for decision-making…
Long-term clinical outcomes in survivors of coronavirus outbreak after hospitalization or ICU admission: a systematic review and Meta-analysis of follow-up studies
Meta-analysis was conducted by Ahmed et al, to determine the long-term clinical problems in adult survivors of COVID-19, SARS and MERS after hospitalization or ICU, using pooled estimates of prevalence and severity for different outcomes and at different time points after follow-up admission. They report that the long term clinical problems in survivors of CoV…
Imaging characteristics of initial chest computed tomography and clinical manifestations of patients with COVID‑19 pneumonia
This paper presents imaging characteristics of initial chest CT and clinical manifestations of patients with COVID‑19 pneumonia. It provides description of the nature of lesions, locations, and severity in different age groups. Single site lesions were observed in patients <35 yrs of age, and multiple sites and extensive area were observed in patients > 60…
Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 26 asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers
Pan et al retrospectively analyzed 26 persistently asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 carriers. They reported that 22 cases (84.6%) correlated with clustering occurrence. The median period from contact to diagnosis and the last positive nucleic acid test was 19 and 21.5 days, respectively. This period was found different between patients with atypical chest CT findings and those with…
Depriving iron supply to the virus represents a promising adjuvant therapeutic against viral survival
Iron-containing enzymes are required for viruses, most likely including coronaviruses, to complete their replication process. Liu et al suggest that; even though little is known about iron regulation in COVID-19 patients thus far, it could be deduced from other viral infections that using either iron chelators or key iron regulators might be an alternative beneficial…
Saliva as a non-invasive specimen for detection of SARS-CoV-2
Williams et al investigated the feasibility and utility of saliva as a non-invasive diagnostic specimen for COVID-19 screening in a clinic in Melbourne, Australia. Overall 84.6% of the positive RT PCR patients had SARS-CoV-2 detected in their saliva, while 2% of PCR-negative patients were positive. They argue that use of saliva reduces risk to healthcare…
Glucocorticoids for COVID-19 effectiveness and safety of glucocorticoids to treat COVID-19: A rapid review and meta-analysis
This meta-analyses of 22 studies evaluated the effectiveness and safety of glucocorticoids in children and adults with COVID-19, SARS and MERS. Lu et al report that, in adults with COVID-19 or SARS, systemic glucocorticoid use did not reduce mortality, duration of lung inflammation but had a significant reduction in the duration of fever. They warn…
Connecting clusters of COVID-19: an epidemiological and serological investigation. Lancet Infectious disease (2020)
Yong et al describe how active case finding and contact tracing were used to identify cases and establish links between three clusters of COVID -19 in Singapore. The investigations used both SARS-CoV-2 serological assays and traditional epidemiological methods to confirm transmission between cases. This study is important to those establishing links among locally transmitted COVID-19…
A Controlled avalanche – A regulated voluntary exposure approach for addressing Covid-19
Klement et al used a compartmental model to examine the implications of the controlled avalanche (CA) strategy over the population in Israel. Its main goal is to approach herd immunity faster than the current alternatives, with lower mortality rates and lower demand for critical health-care resources. It involves voluntarily exposing low risk groups (20-49 year…
April 21, 2020
SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection of hospital isolation wards hygiene monitoring during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 outbreak in a Chinese hospital
This study monitored the presence of detectable SARS-Cov-2 among hospital environment surfaces, sewage, and PPE of staff in isolation wards. All 36 environmental and 9 PPE samples were negative. All 3 sewage samples from the inlet preprocessing pool were positive, however samples from the outlet of the last disinfection pool were negative. Findings suggest that…
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