Articles: coronavirus.
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At the onset of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in the United States, testing was limited to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-developed reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assay. The urgent and massive demand for testing prompted swift development of assays to detect SARS-CoV-2. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of these newly developed tests. ⋯ Overall performance in this SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection challenge was excellent, providing confidence in the results of these new molecular tests and assurance for the clinical and public health decisions based on these test results.
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Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), originally, from Wuhan, China, has now spread to most countries across the globe and devastated global healthcare systems. The impact of this disease has, however, shown baffling variations in prevalence in different regions of the world. The aim of this short review is to identify differential national COVID-19 prevalence of COVID-19, as well as to suggest these epidemiological differences. Methods A review of studies was conducted using PubMed and Google Scholar search engines. Search tactics were centered on COVID-19 ("COVID-19" AND "coronavirus") and BCG vaccination ("BCG vaccination" OR "Bacillus Calmette-Guérin" OR "vaccine") Results It is found that national prevalence differences may be linked with BCG childhood immunization history. ⋯ Conclusions National differences in COVID-19 cases can be attributable to immunologic regulations, such as BCG vaccination protocols. Caution should be taken in establishing a correlation between COVID-19 prevalence and BCG vaccination, partly due to the weak quality of statistical data on COVID-19 related to poor testing rates in countries with BCG vaccination policy. Nonetheless, the analysis of the epidemiological aspects of COVID-19 will shed light on future efforts towards effective control and prevention.
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To generate recommendations on the management of radiotherapeutic treatments during the pandemic, adapted to a country with limited health resources. ⋯ We propose strategies for the management of radiotherapy services to guarantee the continuity of high-quality treatments despite the health crisis caused by COVID-19.
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J. Korean Med. Sci. · Sep 2020
Characteristics of Ocular Manifestations of Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Daegu Province, Korea.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has reportedly affected almost 23 million people, with more than 800 thousand deaths globally. There have been a few reports on the ocular manifestations of COVID-19 patients in China but no reports in Korea. The present study aimed to examine ocular manifestations of COVID-19 patients in Korea. ⋯ Positive upper respiratory infection symptoms and lower creatine phosphokinase were determined to be related to ocular symptoms in COVID-19 patients. Among these patients, positive upper respiratory infection symptoms were associated with conjunctival congestion.
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The novel coronavirus, later identified as SARS-CoV-2, originating from Wuhan in China in November 2019, quickly spread around the world becoming a pandemic. Despite the knowledge of previous coronaviruses, such as those responsible for the SARS and MERS-CoV epidemic, there is no drug or prophylaxis treatment to this day. The rapid succession of scientific findings on SARS-CoV-2 provides a significant number of potential drug targets. ⋯ However, few data from ongoing clinical trials are identifying low molecular weight heparins, innate immune system stimulating agents, and inflammatory modulating agents as potential effective agents. The authors assume that the current pandemic will determine the need for a systematic approach based on big data analysis for identifying effective drugs to defeat SARS-Cov-2. This work is aimed to be a general reference point and to provide an overview as comprehensive as possible regarding the main clinical trials in progress at the moment.