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Background and Intention: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is an underappreciated clinical condition in men. This study aims to compare the dynamic changes in the distribution of ED among male kidney transplant recipients (mKTRs) in four epochs: end-stage renal disease period (ESRDp), early post-transplant period (EPTP), pre-COVID-19, and post-COVID-19., Methods: General information was gathered through interviews, follow-ups, and medical records. The International Index of Erectile Function Questionnaire-5 was used to assess erectile function. The Mann-Whitney U test and chi-square test were used to analyze differences in ED strength. Univariate and logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify risk factors for ED., Results: The database contains 230 mKTRs. In the ESRDp, 17.0% had normal erectile function, 53.5% had mild ED, 18.3% had moderate ED, and 11.3% had severe ED. In the EPTP, the distribution was 38.2% normal, 42.6% mild, 10.8% moderate, and 8.2% severe. In the pre-COVID-19 period, it was 34.3%, 47.3%, 10.4%, and 7.8%, and in the post-COVID-19 period, it was 23.0%, 45.6%, 21.3%, and 10.0%. Overall, erectile function improved after kidney transplant (KT). However, post-COVID-19, the proportion of erectile function significantly decreased compared to EPTP and pre-COVID-19 periods. Risk factors for post-pandemic ED included degree, Generalized Anxiexy Disorder-7, kidney donor type, postoperative time, hypertension and hemoglobin concentration., Conclusion: KT improves erectile function in mKTRs within 5 years, but post-SARS-CoV-2 viral infection, ED worsens due to altered risk factors. These findings inform future research for comprehensive ED prevention and management strategies in this population., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Currently, several SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron, are still circulating globally. This underscores the necessity for a comprehensive understanding of their impact on obstetric and neonatal outcomes in pregnant women, even in cases of mild infection., Methods: We conducted a retrospective, single-center observational study to investigate the association between gestational SARS-CoV-2 infection and maternal-fetal outcomes in the Chinese population. The study enrolled 311 pregnant patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection (exposure group) and 205 uninfected pregnant patients (control group). We scrutinized the hospital records to collect data on demographics, clinical characteristics, and maternal and neonatal outcomes for subsequently comparison., Results: Similar characteristics were observed in both groups, including maternal age, height, BMI, gravidity, parity, and comorbidities ( p > 0.05). A majority (97.4%) of pregnant women in the exposure group with COVID-19 experienced mild clinical symptoms, with fever (86.5%) and cough (74.3%) as the primary symptoms. The exposure group exhibited significantly higher incidences of cesarean section and fetal distress compared to the control group ( p < 0.05). Furthermore, pregnant women in the exposure group showed reduced levels of hemoglobin and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, while experiencing significantly increased levels of lymphocytes, prothrombin time, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase ( p < 0.05). Notably, recent SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to delivery appeared to have an adverse impact on liver function, blood and coagulation levels in pregnant women. When comparing the two groups, there were no significant differences in the postpartum hemorrhage rate, premature birth rate, birth weight, neonatal asphyxia rate, neonatal department transfer rate, and neonatal pneumonia incidence., Conclusions: Our study suggests that mild COVID-19 infection during pregnancy does not have detrimental effects on maternal and neonatal outcomes. However, the increased risks of events such as fetal distress and cesarean section, coupled with potential alterations in physical function, reveal the consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy, even in mild cases. These findings emphasize the importance of proactive management and monitoring of pregnant individuals with COVID-19., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2023 Li et al.)

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant caused a large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 in Shanghai, China. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at high risk of infection due to immunosuppressive interventions. We aimed to investigate the vaccination information of patients with IBD and update a vaccination guide based on a comparison of vaccination in asymptomatic carriers and healthy individuals., Methods: This retrospective study was conducted during an Omicron variant wave. We assessed the vaccination status in patients with IBD, asymptomatic carriers and healthy individuals. Factors with unvaccinated status and adverse events following vaccination were also determined in patients with IBD., Results: The vaccination rate was 51.2% in patients with IBD, 73.2% in asymptomatic carriers, and 96.1% in healthy individuals. Female sex ( p = 0.012), Crohn's disease ( p = 0.026), and disease behavior of B3 ( p = 0.029) were factors that indicated a lower vaccination rate. A significantly higher proportion of healthy individuals had received one booster dose (76.8%) than asymptomatic carriers (43.4%) and patients with IBD (26.2%). Patients with IBD received vaccination without an increased risk of adverse events ( p = 0.768)., Conclusion: The vaccination rate of patients with IBD remains much lower than that of asymptomatic carriers and healthy individuals. The COVID-19 vaccine has been found to be safe among all three groups and patients with IBD are not more susceptible to adverse events., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Feng, Yang, Yao, Feng, Hao, Qiao, Tong and Shen.)

The protein activator of protein kinase R (PKR) (PACT) has been shown to play a crucial role in stimulating the host antiviral response through the activation of PKR, retinoic acid-inducible gene I, and melanoma differentiation-associated protein 5. Whether PACT can inhibit viral replication independent of known mechanisms is still unrevealed. In this study, we show that, like many viruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) hijacks GSK-3β to facilitate its replication. GSK-3β-induced phosphorylation on N protein increased the interaction between N protein and nsp3. Thus, GSK-3β-N-nsp3 cascade promotes viral replication. Although SARS-CoV-2 can sabotage the activation of AKT, the upstream proteins suppressing the activation of GSK-3β, we found that the host can use PACT, another protein kinase, instead of AKT to decrease the activity of GSK-3β and the interaction between PACT and GSK-3β is enhanced upon viral infection. Moreover, PACT inhibited the activity of GSK-3β independent of its well-studied double-stranded RNA binding and PKR activating ability. In summary, this study identified an unknown function of PACT in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 replication through the blockage of GSK-3β-N-nsp3 cascade., (© 2023 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus has been on a rampage for more than two years. Vaccines in combination with neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 carry great hope in the treatment and final elimination of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the relentless emergence of variants of concern (VOC), including the most recent Omicron variants, presses for novel measures to counter these variants that often show immune evasion. Hereby we developed a targeted photodynamic approach to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 by engineering a genetically encoded photosensitizer (SOPP3) to a diverse list of antibodies targeting the wild-type (WT) spike protein, including human antibodies isolated from a 2003 Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patient, potent monomeric and multimeric nanobodies targeting receptor-binding domain (RBD), and non-neutralizing antibodies (non-NAbs) targeting the more conserved N-terminal domain (NTD). As confirmed by pseudovirus neutralization assay, this targeted photodynamic approach significantly increased the efficacy of these antibodies, especially that of non-NAbs, against not only the WT but also the Delta strain and the heavily immune escape Omicron strain (BA.1). Subsequent measurement of infrared phosphorescence at 1270 nm confirmed the generation of singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ) in the photodynamic process. Mass spectroscopy assay uncovered amino acids in the spike protein targeted by 1 O 2 . Impressively, Y145 and H146 form an oxidization "hotspot", which overlaps with the antigenic "supersite" in NTD. Taken together, our study established a targeted photodynamic approach against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and provided mechanistic insights into the photodynamic modification of protein molecules mediated by 1 O 2 ., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to European Photochemistry Association, European Society for Photobiology.)

Many primary schools in the UK are situated in close proximity to heavily-trafficked roads, yet long-term air pollution monitoring around such schools to establish factors affecting the variability of exposure is limited. We co-designed a study to monitor particulate matter in different size fractions (PM 1 , PM 2.5 , PM 10 ), gaseous pollutants (NO 2 , O 3 and CO) and meteorological parameters (ambient temperature, relative humidity) over a period of one year. The period included phases of national COVID-19 lockdown and its subsequent easing and removal. Statistical analysis was used to assess the diurnal patterns, pollution hotspots and underlying factors driving changes. A pollution episode was observed early in January 2021, owing to new year celebration fireworks, when the daily average PM 2.5 was around three-times the World Health Organisation limit. PM 2.5 and NO 2 exceeded the threshold limits on 15 and 10 days, respectively, as the lockdown eased and the school reopened, despite the predominant wind direction often being away from the school towards the roads. The peak concentration levels for all pollutants occurred during morning drop-off hours; however, some weekends showed higher or comparable concentrations to those during weekdays. The strong disproportional Pearson correlation between CO and temperature demonstrated the possible contribution of local sources through biomass burning. The impact of lifting restrictions after removing the weather impact showed that the average pollution levels were low in the beginning and increased by up to 22.7 % and 4.2 % for PM 2.5 and NO 2 , respectively, with complete easing of lockdown. The Prophet algorithm was implemented to develop a prediction model using an NO 2 dataset that performed moderately (R 2 , 0.48) for a new monthly dataset. This study was able to build a local air pollution database at a school gate, which enabled an understanding of the air pollution variability across the year and allowed evidence-based mitigation strategies to be devised., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Mitochondrial translation is of high significance for cellular energy homeostasis. Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) are crucial translational components. Mitochondrial aaRS variants cause various human diseases. However, the pathogenesis of the vast majority of these diseases remains unknown. Here, we identified two novel SARS2 (encoding mitochondrial seryl-tRNA synthetase) variants that cause a multisystem disorder. c.654-14T > A mutation induced mRNA mis-splicing, generating a peptide insertion in the active site; c.1519dupC swapped a critical tRNA-binding motif in the C-terminus due to stop codon readthrough. Both mutants exhibited severely diminished tRNA binding and aminoacylation capacities. A marked reduction in mitochondrial tRNASer(AGY) was observed due to RNA degradation in patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), causing impaired translation and comprehensive mitochondrial function deficiencies. These impairments were efficiently rescued by wild-type SARS2 overexpression. Either mutation caused early embryonic fatality in mice. Heterozygous mice displayed reduced muscle tissue-specific levels of tRNASers. Our findings elucidated the biochemical and cellular consequences of impaired translation mediated by SARS2, suggesting that reduced abundance of tRNASer(AGY) is a key determinant for development of SARS2-related diseases., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.)

Background: Emerging evidence shows that cardiovascular injuries and events in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) should be considered. The current study was conducted to develop an early prediction model for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) during hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients., Methods: This was a retrospective, multicenter, observational study. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients from Wuhan city, Hubei Province and Sichuan Province, China, between January 14 and March 9, 2020, were randomly divided into a training set (70% of patients) and a testing set (30%). All baseline data were recorded at admission or within 24 h after admission to hospitals. The primary outcome was MACE during hospitalization, including nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke and cardiovascular death. The risk factors were selected by LASSO regression and multivariate logistic regression analysis. The nomogram was assessed by calibration curve and decision curve analysis (DCA)., Results: Ultimately, 1206 adult COVID-19 patients were included. In the training set, 48 (5.7%) patients eventually developed MACE. Six factors associated with MACE were included in the nomogram: age, PaO 2 /FiO 2 under 300, unconsciousness, lymphocyte counts, neutrophil counts and blood urea nitrogen. The C indices were 0.93 (95% CI 0.90, 0.97) in the training set and 0.81 (95% CI 0.70, 0.93) in the testing set. The calibration curve and DCA demonstrated the good performance of the nomogram., Conclusions: We developed and validated a nomogram to predict the development of MACE in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. More prospective multicenter studies are needed to confirm our results., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Aim: To explore the factors affecting mortality in patients with COVID-19 and to verify the predictive value of the three rapid scoring scales MEWS, RAPS and REMS., Design: Cross-sectional observational study., Methods: Kaplan-Meier and Cox survival analyses were performed to identify the risk factors associated with COVID-19-related death. A ROC curve analysis was used to evaluate the abilities of the three scoring scales to predict the prognosis of COVID-19 patients., Results: Age, low blood oxygen saturation level and decreased lymphocyte count were the high risk factors for COVID-19-related mortality. The analysis of the abilities of the three scales to predict the prognosis of COVID-19 patients: The AUC of 0.641 for the RAPS (p = .065). The MEWS (AUC = 0.705, p = .007), compared with RAPS, the NRI was 0.371(p = .03), and the IDI = 0.092 (p = .046); The REMS (AUC = 0.841, p < .001), compared with MEWS, the NRI was 0.227(p = .12), and the IDI=0.09(p = .047); The Combining Predictor (AUC = 0.878, p < .001), compared with REMS, the NRI was 0.25(p = .113), and the IDI=0.02(p = .598)., Conclusion: Patients with an old age, low blood oxygen saturation level and decreased lymphocyte count were at a high risk of COVID-19-related mortality. Moreover, our analysis revealed that the REMS had a better prognostic ability than the MEWS and RAPS when applied to COVID-19 patients. Our findings suggest that the REMS can be used as a rapid scoring tool for the early assessment of COVID-19 severity., (© 2021 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, is a major challenge facing scientists worldwide. Alongside the lungs, the system of organs comprising the GI tract is commonly targeted by COVID-19. The dysbiotic modulations in the intestine influence the disease severity, potentially due to the ability of the intestinal microbiota to modulate T lymphocyte functions, i.e., to suppress or activate T cell subpopulations. The interplay between the lungs and intestinal microbiota is named the gut-lung axis. One of the most usual comorbidities in COVID-19 patients is type 2 diabetes, which induces changes in intestinal microbiota, resulting in a pro-inflammatory immune response, and consequently, a more severe course of COVID-19. However, changes in the microbiota in this comorbid pathology remain unclear. Metformin is used as a medication to treat type 2 diabetes. The use of the type 2 diabetes drug metformin is a promising treatment for this comorbidity because, in addition to its hypoglycemic action, it can increase amount of intestinal bacteria that induce regulatory T cell response. This dual activity of metformin can reduce lung damage and improve the course of the COVID-19 disease.

The recovery of the tourism industry is an important issue that has attracted much attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sustainable and safe festival tourism is considered an effective way of aiding in the recovery of the industry. A face-to-face survey of participants in the Guangzhou Hanfu Festival was conducted to examine the relationship between fears of COVID-19, perceived risks, perceptual evaluations, festival attitudes, behavioral intentions, and crowding during this difficult time. Results clarified how fear affects behavioral intentions in festival research, and the mediation role of perceived risk and the moderation role of crowding was confirmed. A timely set of recommendations was provided to festival operators and local governments.

Background: With outbreaks of COVID-19 around the world, lockdown restrictions are routinely imposed to limit the spread of the virus. During periods of lockdown, social media has become the main channel for citizens to exchange information with others. Public emotions are being generated and shared rapidly online with citizens using internet platforms to reduce anxiety and stress, and stay connected while isolated., Objectives: This study aims to explore the regularity of emotional evolution by examining public emotions expressed in online discussions about the Wuhan lockdown event in January 2020., Methods: Data related to the Wuhan lockdown was collected from Sina Weibo by web crawler. In this study, the Ortony, Clore, and Collins (OCC) model, Word2Vec, and Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory model were employed to determine emotional types, train vectorization of words, and identify each text emotion for the training set. Latent Dirichlet Allocation models were also employed to mine the various topic categories, while topic emotional evolution was visualized., Results: Seven types of emotions and four phases were categorized to describe emotional evolution on the Wuhan lockdown event. The study found that negative emotions such as blame and fear dominated in the early days, and public attitudes towards the lockdown gradually alleviated and reached a balance as the situation improved. Emotional expression about Wuhan lockdown event were significantly related to users' gender, location, and whether or not their account was verified. There were statistically significant correlations between different emotions within the subtle emotional categories. In addition, the evolution of emotions presented a different path due to different topics., Conclusions: Multiple emotional categories were determined in our study, providing a detailed and explainable emotion analysis to explored emotional appeal of citizen. The public emotions were gradually easing related to the Wuhan lockdown event, there yet exists regional discrimination and post-traumatic stress disorder in this process, which would lead us to pay continuous attention to citizens lives and psychological status post-pandemic. In addition, this study provided an appropriate method and reference case for the government's public opinion control and emotional appeasement., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The severe epidemiologic situation of COVID-19 due to the limited capacity of healthcare systems makes it necessary to improve the hospital management and early identification and stratification of patients. The aim of the study was to explore hematological and biochemical parameters at admission to the hospital as novel early predictors for diagnosis with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among all suspected patients., Methods: This was a retrospective, multicenter, observational study. The clinical data of all suspected patients were analyzed. The suspected patients with negative RT-PCR results were included as the control group, and compared with confirmed patients. Receiver- operating characteristic (ROC) curves and logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the hematological indexes., Results: In total, 326 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 116 control patients were included. The predictive ability of combinations of the hematological and biochemical parameters was significantly superior to that of a single parameter. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the aspartate aminotransferase (AST) to neutrophil ratio index (ANRI) and the AST to monocyte ratio index (AMRI) were 0.791 and 0.812, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, an ANRI ≥ 6.03(OR: 3.26, 95% CI: 1.02-10.40, P=0.046) and an AMRI ≥ 36.32(OR: 3.64. 95% CI: 1.24-10.68, P=0.02) at admission were independent risk factors related to the occurrence of COVID-19., Conclusions: We found two novel predictors with promising predictive capacities for COVID-19 among all suspected patients: ANRI and AMRI. Our findings need to be confirmed in further studies., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (Copyright © 2021 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

SARS-CoV-2 and its vaccine/immune-escaping variants continue to pose a serious threat to public health due to a paucity of effective, rapidly deployable, and widely available treatments. Here, we address these challenges by combining Pegasys (IFNα) and nafamostat to effectively suppress SARS-CoV-2 infection in cell culture and hamsters. Our results indicate that Serpin E1 is an important mediator of the antiviral activity of IFNα and that both Serpin E1 and nafamostat can target the same cellular factor TMPRSS2, which plays a critical role in viral replication. The low doses of the drugs in combination may have several clinical advantages, including fewer adverse events and improved patient outcome. Thus, our study may provide a proactive solution for the ongoing pandemic and potential future coronavirus outbreaks, which is still urgently required in many parts of the world.

Purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which began in December 2019, has not been completely controlled; therefore, COVID-19 has received much attention from countries around the world. Many related clinical studies, such as clinical trials, have been published, but to the knowledge of the authors, there has been no bibliometric analysis of these publications focusing on clinical research studies on COVID-19. Methods: Global publications on COVID-19 from January 2020 to December 2020 were extracted from the Web of Science (WOS) collection database. The VOSviewer software and CiteSpace were employed to perform a bibliometric study. In addition, we obtained information on relevant clinical trials from the website http://clinicaltrials.gov. Results: China published most of the articles in this field and had the highest number of citations and H-index. The Journal of Medical Virology published most of the articles related to COVID-19. In terms of institutions, Huazhong University of Science and Technology had the most publications, and Wang, JW received the highest number of citations. Conclusion: The diagnosis, prevention, and prognosis of COVID-19 are still the focus of attention at present. The overall analysis of the disease were identified as the emerging topics from the perspectives of epidemiology and statistics. However, finding an effective treatment remains the focus of clinical trials., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Xia, Yao, Wang, Chen and Wang.)

Background: There is still little knowledge about the association of liver fibrosis with the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The aim of the study was to determine the association of NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS)-determined liver fibrosis with clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients with NAFLD., Methods: The NAFLD was diagnosed by the Hepatic Steatosis Index (HSI) in the absence of other causes of chronic liver diseases. NFS was used to evaluate the severity of liver fibrosis., Results: A total of 86 COVID-19 patients with NAFLD were included. The median age was 43.5 years, and 58.1% of patients were male. Thirty-eight (44.2%) patients had advanced liver fibrosis according to the NFS. Multivariate analysis indicated that concurrent diabetes (odds ratio [OR] 8.264, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.202-56.830, p = 0.032) and advanced liver fibrosis (OR 11.057, 95% CI 1.193-102.439, p = 0.034) were independent risk factors of severe illness in COVID-19 patients with NAFLD., Conclusion: NAFLD patients with NFS-determined advanced liver fibrosis are at higher risk of severe COVID-19., (© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Laboratory Analysis published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: Available data suggest that the obstetric population is particularly vulnerable to severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection, with a variable clinical course leading to severe respiratory failure. However, established early warning scores designed to identify patients at risk of clinical deterioration were never validated in the obstetric population., Objective: This retrospective cohort study sought to evaluate the initial clinical characteristics of pregnant patients diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection and to develop a pregnancy-specific early warning score to identify patients at risk for clinical deterioration and requiring advanced respiratory support., Study Design: This was a single center, retrospective cohort study of pregnant patients diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection between April 2020 and December 2020. A total of 50 patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection between April 2020 and November 2020 were used to create the prediction model. Initial clinical characteristics identified at the time of diagnosis were compared between patients who required advanced respiratory support and those who were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms for those diagnosed during the period of April 2020 to November 2020. Risk factors associated with a requirement for advanced respiratory support were used to create the Obstetric Warning Score system. The Obstetric Warning Score system was then validated using 30 patients diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection in December 2020. A receiver operating characteristic curve was generated to evaluate the test characteristics of the Obstetric Warning Score system compared with other scoring systems including the Early Warning Score, the National Early Warning Score 2, and the Maternal Early Warning Criteria., Results: Women who required advanced respiratory support were more likely to present with dyspnea (100% vs 33.3%; P<.001), have a higher heart rate (113.4 beats per minute vs 93 beats per minute; P<.001), respiratory rate (23.5 breaths per minute vs 17.7 breaths per minute; P<.001), temperature (99.1°F vs 98.3°F; P=.004), and C-reactive protein level (7.4 mg/dL vs 2.4 mg/dL; P<.001). Furthermore, 88.2% of patients requiring advanced respiratory support showed chest x-ray findings consistent with pneumonia, compared with 20.0% of the patients not requiring advanced respiratory support (P<.001). All patients requiring advanced respiratory support presented with at least 1 coronavirus disease 2019 symptom, whereas only 51.5% of patients not requiring advanced respiratory support were symptomatic (P<.001). The Obstetrical Warning Score model allocated 1 point each for a hazard ratio of >100 beats per minute, temperature of >99.0°F, C-reactive protein level of >2.0 mg/dL, respiratory rate between 20 and 24 breaths per minute, complaints of dyspnea, and a positive chest x-ray. A respiratory rate of >24 breaths per minute was assigned 2 points. The area under the curve for the Obstetric Warning Score system was 0.97 compared with 0.72 for the Early Warning Score system, 0.92 for the National Early Warning Score 2 system, and 0.85 for the Maternal Early Warning Criteria system. An Obstetric Warning Score of ≥3 was predictive of a requirement for advanced respiratory support with a sensitivity of 100%, specificity 64%, and a positive predictive value of 36%., Conclusion: The Obstetric Warning Score system presents a validated method for providers to identify pregnant patients who are at risk for respiratory failure and a requirement for advanced respiratory support., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The recent outbreak of COVID-19 in the world is currently a big threat to global health and economy. Convalescent plasma has been confirmed effective against the novel corona virus in preliminary studies. In this paper, we first described the therapeutic schedule, antibody detection method, indications, contraindications of the convalescent plasmas and reported the effectiveness of convalescent plasma therapy by a retrospective cohort study.

The aim of the study was to explore a novel risk score to predict diagnosis with COVID-19 among all suspected patients at admission. This was a retrospective, multicenter, and observational study. The clinical data of all suspected patients were analyzed. Independent risk factors were identified via multivariate logistic regression analysis. Finally, 336 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 139 control patients were included. We found nine independent risk factors for diagnosis with COVID-19 at admission to hospital: epidemiological exposure histories (OR:13.32; 95%CI, 6.39-27.75), weakness/fatigue (OR:4.51, 95%CI, 1.70-11.96), heart rate less than  100 beat/minutes (OR:3.80, 95%CI, 2.00-7.22), bilateral pneumonia (OR:3.60, 95%CI, 1.83-7.10), neutrophil count less than equal to  6.3 × 10 9 /L (OR: 6.77, 95%CI, 2.52-18.19), eosinophil count less than equal to 0.02  ×  10 9 /L (OR:3.14, 95%CI, 1.58-6.22), glucose more than equal to 6  mmol/L (OR:2.43, 95%CI, 1.04-5.66), D-dimer ≥ 0.5 mg/L (OR:3.49, 95%CI, 1.22-9.96), and C-reactive protein less than 5  mg/L (OR:3.83, 95%CI, 1.86-7.92). As for the performance of this risk score, a cut-off value of 20 (specificity: 0.866; sensitivity: 0.813) was identified to predict COVID-19 according to reciever operator characteristic curve and the area under the curve was 0.921 (95%CI: 0.896-0.945; P  <  .01). We designed a novel risk score which might have a promising predictive capacity for diagnosis with COVID-19 among suspected patients., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic management leads to new health policies including the requirement of a vaccination pass or a negative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test for cross-border flights. The objective of this study was to estimate COVID-19 vaccination coverage among travellers, as well as factors associated with a full vaccination. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in July 2022 at the Gnassingbé Eyadema International Airport (LFW) in Lomé. Travellers met at LFW, aged 12 years or above, and who agreed to participate in the study have been submitted a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with full vaccination defined as having received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine according to a validated vaccine schedule. Results: A total of 847 travellers were included. 67% were men The median age was 40 years, Interquartile Range [31-48]. The main health document presented by travellers was the vaccination pass (69.1%). The majority (84.4%) of travellers had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 63.9% had received at least two doses. Being 40 years of age or above (aOR=1.42; p=0.046), and travelling from a country outside Africa (aOR=2.18, p=0.003), were positively associated with full vaccination. Conclusion: Vaccination coverage among travellers at the LFW was relatively high. Travellers from a region outside Africa and aged 40 years or above were more likely to be full vaccinated. Better communication and strengthening of the vaccination strategies in Africa could help reduce these gaps.