scholarly journals The unavoidable costs of frailty: a geriatric perspective in the time of COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Polidori ◽  
Stefania Maggi ◽  
Francesco Mattace-Raso ◽  
Alberto Pilotto

The world is facing speechless one of the most feared, greatest catastrophes for human beings. Despite better healthcare systems, despite warnings through similar situations and even documented threats, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it found us largely unprepared. It offered to us on a silver tray the fragility of mankind. And once again, but this time in a particularly overwhelming way, the most vulnerable part of the world population is mowed down: older persons. Indeed, recent data from the Italian Istituto Superiore di Sanità showed that COVID-19 is more lethal in older subjects: in Italy, at the date of March 17, 2020, the overall case-fatality rate was 7.2% and 96.4% of died patients had more than 60 years. When data were stratified by age groups, individuals aged 70 years or older represent 35.5% of cases, while subjects aged ≥80 years were 52.3%. These data confirm once again that the older generation payed the highest price in time of crisis...

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Youssef Kada

BACKGROUND Covid-19 is an emerging infectious disease like viral zoonosis caused by new coronavirus SARS CoV 2. On December 31, 2019, Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in Hubei province (China) reported cases of pneumonia, the origin of which is a new coronavirus. Rapidly extendable around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) declares it pandemic on March 11, 2020. This pandemic reaches Algeria on February 25, 2020, date on which the Algerian minister of health, announced the first case of Covid-19, a foreign citizen. From March 1, a cluster is formed in Blida and becomes the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic in Algeria, its total quarantine is established on March 24, 2020, it will be smoothly alleviated on April 24. A therapeutic protocol based on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin was put in place on March 23, for complicated cases, it was extended to all the cases confirmed on April 06. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquin/azithromycin protocol in Algeria, in particular after its extension to all patients diagnosed COVID-19 positive on RT-PCR test. We were able to illustrate this fact graphically, but not to prove it statistically because the design of our study, indeed in the 7 days which followed generalization of therapeutic protocol, case fatality rate decrease and doubling time increase, thus confirming the impact of wide and early prescription of hydroxychloroquin/azithromycin protocol. METHODS We have analyzed the data collected from press releases and follow-ups published daily by the Ministry of Health, we have studied the possible correlations of these data with certain events or decisions having a possible impact on their development, such as confinement at home and its reduction, the prescription of hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination for serious patients and its extension to all positive COVID subjects. Results are presented in graphics, the data collection was closed on 31/05/2020. RESULTS Covid-19 pandemic spreads from February 25, 2020, when a foreign citizen is tested positive, on March 1 a cluster is formed in the city of Blida where sixteen members of the same family are infected during a wedding party. Wilaya of Blida becomes the epicentre of coronavirus epidemic in Algeria and lockdown measures taken, while the number of national cases diagnosed begins to increases In any event, the association of early containment measures combined with a generalized initial treatment for all positive cases, whatever their degree of severity, will have contributed to a reduction in the fatality rate of COVID 19 and a slowing down of its doubling time. CONCLUSIONS In Algeria, the rapid combination of rigorous containment measure at home and early generalized treatment with hydroxychloroquin have demonstrated their effectiveness in terms of morbidity and mortality, the classic measures of social distancing and hygiene will make it possible to perpetuate these results by reducing viral transmission, the only unknown, the reopening procedure which can only be started after being surrounded by precautions aimed at ensuring the understanding of the population. CLINICALTRIAL Algeria, Covid-19, pandemic, hydroxychloroquin, azithromycin, case fatality rate


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Be Nazir Ahmmad ◽  
Fazlur Rahman ◽  
Naznin Parvin ◽  
Md Shamsul Alam ◽  
Shitangshu Banerjee ◽  
...  

Background: Rajshahi medical college hospital is a tertiary care teaching and referral center in the North-West part of Bangladesh. To assess the epidemiological trend in hospital admission, including morbidity and mortality pattern of illness in the pediatric population, it needs to develop effective health care planning, appropriate resource allocation, and integration of existing health care service facilities. Objective: To evaluate the diseases and deaths of children admitted in the department of pediatrics, Rajshahi medical college hospital, Rajshahi. Materials and methods: This is a retrospective study. The collected case records of all patients admitted in the department of pediatrics from 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2019 (3 years) were analyzed.  Result: A total of 62000 children were admitted during the mentioned study period. All the patients were distributed into three age groups infant, under five, and more than five, contributing 22%, 27.5%, and 19%, respectively. Acute watery diarrhea (21%), hereditary hemolytic anemia (18%), bronchopneumonia (10.4%), acute gastritis (9.4%), and acute bronchiolitis and wheezy child (7.17%) were the top five diseases in each of the three years of admission. Among the total admitted patients, 1003 (1.61%) patients died. Infant, under five, and more than five age groups constitute 61.3%, 28.1%, and 15.1%, respectively. Encephalitis and fulminant hepatic failure found the top two diseases causing death with a case fatality rate was 61% and 43%, respectively. The next highest case fatality rate was found in acute leukemia (15%). Other common causes of death include meningitis, cerebral palsy with complications (7.5%), bronchopneumonia with complications (3.8%). Conclusion: An admission-related comprehensive evaluation of this study will help to understand the diseases and death patterns of a hospital, leading to the development of more effective planning and case management strategies. TAJ 2021; 34: No-1: 55-62


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc SOURIS ◽  
Jean-Paul Gonzalez

When the population risk factors and reporting systems are similar, the assessment of the case-fatality (or lethality) rate (ratio of cases to deaths) represents a perfect tool for analyzing, understanding and improving the overall efficiency of the health system. The objective of this article is to estimate the influence of the hospital care system on lethality in metropolitan France during the inception of the COVID-19 epidemic, by analyzing the spatial variability of the hospital case-fatality rate between French districts (i.e. French departements). The results show that the higher case-fatality rates observed by districts are mostly related to the level of morbidity, therefore to the overwhelming of the healthcare systems during the acute phases of the epidemic. However, the magnitude of this increase of case-fatality rate represents less than 10 per cent of the average case-fatality rate and cannot explain the magnitude of the variations in case-fatality rate reported per country by international organizations or information sites. These differences can only be explained by the systems for reporting cases and deaths, which, indeed, vary greatly from country to country, and not attributed to the care or treatment of patients, even during hospital stress due to epidemic peaks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Letizia Consoli ◽  
Vittorio Bendotti ◽  
Sara Cicchinelli ◽  
Federico Gaioni ◽  
Paola Prandolini ◽  
...  

Abstract In December 2019, a novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) was first reported in Wuhan, China, and rapidly spread around the world, leading to an international emerging public health emergency. As reported from Chinese experiences, approximately 20% of patients had a severe course, requiring intensive care, with an overall case fatality rate of 2.3%. In diagnosis, chest computed tomography most commonly showed ground-glass opacity with or without consolidative patterns.Herein we report a case of a patient affected by COVID-19 pneumonia referred in the emergency department of our institution on 4 April 2020 with peculiar lung ultrasound findings.


Author(s):  
S. Kumar ◽  
R. Gupta ◽  
N. Jindal and Y.C. Bangar

The study was conducted on 106 E. coli isolates to determine the phylogenetic group, serotype and carriage of Class 1 integrons in isolates and ascertain their association along with other parameters with vital disease measures in broiler flocks affected with colibacillosis. Out of 32 isolates of which “O” antigen was characterized, serogroup O2 comprising of 12 (37.5%) isolates was most prevalent in the present study. Most of the isolates (85/106; 80.19%) belonged to phylogenetic group B2. Mean apparent morbidity, mortality and case fatality rate (CFR) were 3.77%, 2.32% and 61.49%, respectively. There was significant difference in number of outbreaks reported in different age groups (p less than 0.0001). Also, there was significant association between phylogenetic group and age of outbreak due to E. coli (p=0.024). Comparatively, no significant association was observed between age of outbreaks and serotypes (p=0.980). There was significant association between various disease measures and E. coli isolates affiliated to various phylogenetic groups and serotypes. All the measures (apparent morbidity, mortality and CFR) of disease were highest in outbreaks due to isolates of phylogenetic group B2 and serogroup O20. However, the measures were not significantly affected by the presence of integrons in the E. coli.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-331
Author(s):  
Yoshiyasu Takefuji

This is the world’s first tutorial article on Python Packaging for beginners and practitioners for translational medicine or medicine in general. This tutorial will allow researchers to demonstrate and showcase their tools on PyPI packages around the world. Nowadays, for translational medicine, researchers need to deal with big data. This paper describes how to build an executable Python Package Index (PyPI) code and package. PyPI is a repository of software for the Python programming language with 5,019,737 files and 544,359 users (programmers) as of 19 October 2021. First, programmers must understand how to scrape a dataset over the Internet; second, they must read the dataset file in csv format; third, build a program to compute the target values; fourth, convert the Python program to the PyPI package.; and fifth, upload the PyPI package. This paper depicts a covidlag executable package as an example for calculating the accurate case fatality rate (CFR) and the lag time from infection to death. You can install the covidlag by pip terminal command and test it. This paper also introduces deathdaily and scorecovid packages on PyPI Stats, which can inform how many users have downloaded the specified PyPI package. The usefulness and applicability of a developed tool can be verified by PyPI Stats with the number of downloaded users.


Author(s):  
Farid Rahimi ◽  
Amin Talebi Bezmin Abadi

Herd immunity happens when a relatively large proportion of a population becomes infected by an agent, subsequently recovers, and attains immunity against the same agent. That proportion thus indirectly protects the naïve population by preventing the spread of the infection. Herd immunity has been suggested to interrupt and control the COVID-19 pandemic. However, relying on establishing herd immunity can be catastrophic considering the virulence and lethality of SARS-CoV-2. Meanwhile our understanding of the pathogenesis, case-fatality rate, transmission routes, and antiviral therapy for COVID-19 remains limited now. Interrupting or slowing the COVID-19 transmission seems more opportune than vaccination, antiviral therapy, or herd immunity, all of which will take some time to yield. Thus, social distancing, face-masking, and hygiene are the most appropriate immediate countermeasures. Because the social fabrics, economic implications, and local demands of various nations are unique, early relaxation of restrictions may seem hasty particularly when fatality rates are high, or when the healthcare systems could be inadequate or become inundated. Conclusively, avoiding any overwhelmingly risky approach in fighting the pandemic is prudent.


Author(s):  
Daniel Martin Simadibrata ◽  
Cleopas Martin Rumende ◽  
Rahmad Mulyadi ◽  
Marcellus Simadibrata

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging infectious disease officially declared as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). Indonesia’s COVID-19 case fatality rate remain consistently high, approximately twice the global case fatality rate available. Patients typically present with fever, dry cough and dyspnea. However, there were reports of atypical COVID-19 symptoms such as myalgia, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. These atypical presentations were suggested to indicate a more severe COVID-19. Here, we present a case of COVID-19 patient presenting with gastrointestinal-specific symptoms in Indonesia.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. 1035-1040
Author(s):  
Linda Quan ◽  
Edmond J. Gore ◽  
Kim Wentz ◽  
Jill Allen ◽  
Alvin H. Novack

The factors associated with submersion events among <20-year-old persons that occurred in King County from 1974 to 1983 were studied to focus prevention efforts. Near-drowning (n = 103) and drowning (n = 96) victims were identified from medical examiners' reports, paramedics' reports, and hospital discharge registers. Annual incidence was 5.5; the mortality rate was 2.6 per 100,000 children. Although preschool-aged children had the largest incidence (12.8), followed by older adolescents (4.9), adolescents had the largest case fatality rate, 77%. Lake and river victims had the largest incidence, mortality, and case fatality rate; swimming pools, the smallest case fatality rate (25%). A total of 89% of all victims had absent or no supervision; victims supervised by lifeguards had a 42% case fatality rate. Prior seizures were part of the history of 7.5% of all victims; 25% of fatal submersions by adolescents were associated with alcohol. Bathtub submersions were associated with child abuse in three of 16 preschool-aged children and epilepsy in four of five older children. Certain age groups and sites combined had the greatest incidence: preschool-aged children in swimming pools, infants in bathtubs, teenagers in lakes and rivers. Incidence decreased in public and semipublic pools coincident with fencing regulations. These findings suggest prevention strategies: extending fencing requirements to private pools, discouraging alcohol consumption during water sports, changing bathing practices of epileptics, and improving lifeguard efficacy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
AbdulRahman A. Saied ◽  
Asmaa A. Metwally ◽  
Norah Abdullah Bazekh Madkhali ◽  
Shafiul Haque ◽  
Kuldeep Dhama

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has affected countries across the world. While the zoonotic aspects of SARS-CoV-2 are still under investigation, bats and pangolins are currently cited as the animal origin of the virus. Several types of vaccines against COVID-19 have been developed and are being used in vaccination drives across the world. A number of countries are experiencing second and third waves of the pandemic, which have claimed nearly four million lives out of the 180 million people infected globally as of June 2021. The emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and mutants are posing high public health concerns owing to their rapid transmissibility, higher severity, and in some cases, ability to infect vaccinated people (vaccine breakthrough). Here in this mini-review, we specifically looked at the efforts and actions of the Egyptian government to slow down and control the spread of COVID-19. We also review the COVID-19 statistics in Egypt and the possible reasons behind the low prevalence and high case fatality rate (CFR%), comparing Egypt COVID-19 statistics with China (the epicenter of COVID-19 pandemic) and the USA, Brazil, India, Italy, and France (the first countries in which the numbers of patients infected with COVID-19). Additionally, we have summarized the SARS-CoV-2 variants, vaccines used in Egypt, and the use of medicinal plants as preventive and curative options.


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