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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions of individuals worldwide. Pain has emerged as a significant post-COVID-19 symptom. This study investigated the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors of post-COVID chronic pain (PCCP) in Thailand. A cross-sectional study was conducted in participants who had been infected, including those hospitalized and monitored at home by SARS-CoV-2 from August to September 2021. Data were collected for screening from medical records, and phone interviews were done between 3 to 6 months post-infection. Participants were classified into 1) no-pain, 2) PCCP, 3) chronic pain that has been aggravated by COVID-19, or 4) chronic pain that has not been aggravated by COVID-19. Pain interference and quality of life were evaluated with the Brief Pain Inventory and EuroQol Five Dimensions Five Levels Questionnaire. From 1,019 participants, 90% of the participants had mild infection, assessed by WHO progression scale. The overall incidence of PCCP was 3.2% (95% CI 2.3-4.5), with 2.8% (95% CI 2.0-4.1) in mild infection, 5.2% (95% CI 1.2-14.1) in moderate infection and 8.5% (95% CI 3.4-19.9) in severe infection. Most participants (83.3%) reported pain in the back and lower extremities and were classified as musculoskeletal pain and headache (8.3%). Risk factors associated with PCCP, included female sex (relative risk [RR] 2.2, 95% CI 1.0-4.9) and greater COVID-19 severity (RR 3.5, 95% CI 1.1-11.7). Participants with COVID-19-related exacerbated chronic pain displayed higher pain interferences and lower utility scores than other groups. In conclusion, this study highlights the incidence, features, and risk factors of post-COVID chronic pain (PCCP) in Thailand. It emphasizes the need to monitor and address PCCP, especially in severe cases, among females, and individuals with a history of chronic pain to improve their quality of life in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Wangnamthip et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The global antimicrobial resistance surveillance system (GLASS) was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015. GLASS is a surveillance system for clinical specimens that are sent to microbiology laboratory for clinical purposes. The unique feature of GLASS is that clinical data is combined with microbiological data, and deduplication of the microbiological results is performed. The objective of the study was to determine feasibility and benefit of GLASS for surveillance of blood culture specimens. GLASS was implemented at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand using a locally developed web application program (app) to transfer blood culture specimen data, and to enter clinical data of patients with positive blood culture by infection control nurses and physicians via the app installed in their smart phones. The rate of positive blood culture specimens with true infection was 15.2%. Escherichia coli was the most common cause of bacteremia. Secondary bacteremia, primary bacteremia, and central line-associated blood stream infection was observed in 61.8%, 30.6%, and 12.6% of cases, respectively. Sepsis was observed in 56.9% of patients. E.coli was significantly more common in community-acquired bacteremia, whereas Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and Acinetobacter baumannii were significantly more common in hospital-acquired bacteremia. Hospital-acquired isolates of E.coli, K.pneumoniae, A.baumannii, P.aeruginosa, S.aureus and Enterococcus faecium were more resistant to antibiotics than community-acquired isolates. In-hospital mortality was significantly higher in patients with antibiotic-resistant bacteremia than in patients with antibiotic non-resistant bacteremia (40.5% vs. 28.5%, p<0.001). The patients with antibiotic-resistant bacteremia consumed more resources than those with antibiotic non-resistant bacteremia. Blood culture results combined with patient clinical data were shown to have more benefit for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance, and to be more applicable for developing local antibiotic treatment guidelines for patients suspected of having bacteremia. However, GLASS consumed more time and more resources than the conventional laboratory-based surveillance system.