SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions: Concerns, challenges, management and mitigation strategies-a narrative review.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Kumar R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8062420 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus- 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has posed a great public health threat to the global community as a pandemic. The origin of the virus has been linked to animals, through a yet-to-be-identified intermediate host. The disease is transmitted to humans mainly through inhalation or contact with infected droplets. The variable clinical presentation of COVID-19 includes fever, cough, sore throat, breathlessness, fatigue and malaise; however, cutaneous, ocular, neurological, and gastrointestinal manifestations have also been reported. There is an urgent need to strengthen One Health surveillance, intervention, and management strategies to understand the ecology of coronaviruses and to prevent epidemics in the future. Global attention toward the development of treatments, immunotherapies, vaccines, and control options to combat the COVID-19 pandemic has been on an increasing trend. Here, we review the current epidemiological status, public health concerns, and mitigation strategies for COVID-19.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Crowdsourcing contests (also called innovation challenges, innovation contests, and inducement prize contests) can be used to solicit multisectoral feedback on health programs and design public health campaigns. They consist of organizing a steering committee, soliciting contributions, engaging the community, judging contributions, recognizing a subset of contributors, and sharing with the community. OBJECTIVE:This scoping review describes crowdsourcing contests by stage, examines ethical problems at each stage, and proposes potential ways of mitigating risk. METHODS:Our analysis was anchored in the specific example of a crowdsourcing contest that our team organized to solicit videos promoting condom use in China. The purpose of this contest was to create compelling 1-min videos to promote condom use. We used a scoping review to examine the existing ethical literature on crowdsourcing to help identify and frame ethical concerns at each stage. RESULTS:Crowdsourcing has a group of individuals solve a problem and then share the solution with the public. Crowdsourcing contests provide an opportunity for community engagement at each stage: organizing, soliciting, promoting, judging, recognizing, and sharing. Crowdsourcing poses several ethical concerns: organizing-potential for excluding community voices; soliciting-potential for overly narrow participation; promoting-potential for divulging confidential information; judging-potential for biased evaluation; recognizing-potential for insufficient recognition of the finalist; and sharing-potential for the solution to not be implemented or widely disseminated. CONCLUSIONS:Crowdsourcing contests can be effective and engaging public health tools but also introduce potential ethical problems. We present methods for the responsible conduct of crowdsourcing contests.
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Project description:Limiting infection transmission is central to the safety of all in dentistry, particularly during the current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Aerosol-generating procedures (AGPs) are crucial to the practice of dentistry; it is imperative to understand the inherent risks of viral dispersion associated with AGPs and the efficacy of available mitigation strategies. In a dental surgery setting, crown preparation and root canal access procedures were performed with an air turbine or high-speed contra-angle handpiece (HSCAH), with mitigation via rubber dam or high-volume aspiration and a no-mitigation control. A phantom head was used with a 1.5-mL min-1 flow of artificial saliva infected with Φ6-bacteriophage (a surrogate virus for SARS-CoV-2) at ~108 plaque-forming units mL-1, reflecting the upper limits of reported salivary SARS-CoV-2 levels. Bioaerosol dispersal was measured using agar settle plates lawned with the Φ6-bacteriophage host, Pseudomonas syringae. Viral air concentrations were assessed using MicroBio MB2 air sampling and particle quantities using Kanomax 3889 GEOα counters. Compared to an air turbine, the HSCAH reduced settled bioaerosols by 99.72%, 100.00%, and 100.00% for no mitigation, aspiration, and rubber dam, respectively. Bacteriophage concentrations in the air were reduced by 99.98%, 100.00%, and 100.00% with the same mitigations. Use of the HSCAH with high-volume aspiration resulted in no detectable bacteriophage, both on nonsplatter settle plates and in air samples taken 6 to 10 min postprocedure. To our knowledge, this study is the first to report the aerosolization in a dental clinic of active virus as a marker for risk determination. While this model represents a worst-case scenario for possible SARS-CoV-2 dispersal, these data showed that the use of HSCAHs can vastly reduce the risk of viral aerosolization and therefore remove the need for clinic fallow time. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the use of particle analysis alone cannot provide sufficient insight to understand bioaerosol infection risk.
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Project description:Although COVID-19 vaccines are globally available, waning immunity and emerging vaccine-evasive variants of concern have hindered the international response and transition to a post-pandemic era. Testing to identify and isolate infectious individuals remains the most proactive strategy for containing an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. We developed a stochastic, compartmentalized model to simulate the impact of using Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) assays, rapid antigen tests, and vaccinations on SARS-CoV-2 spread. We compare testing strategies across an example high-income country (the United States) and low- and middle-income country (India). We detail the optimal testing frequency and coverage in the US and India to mitigate an emerging outbreak even in a vaccinated population: overall, maximizing testing frequency is most important, but having high testing coverage remains necessary when there is sustained transmission. A resource-limited vaccination strategy still requires high-frequency testing to minimize subsequent outbreaks and is 16.50% more effective in reducing cases in India than the United States. Tailoring testing strategies to transmission settings can help effectively reduce disease burden more than if a uniform approach were employed without regard to epidemiological variability across locations.
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Project description:In the years since the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic began and spread across the globe, lessons have been learned about the challenges and opportunities that a pandemic brings to humankind. Researchers have produced many vaccines at unprecedented speed to protect people, but they have also been cognizant of the challenges presented by a new and unexpected infectious disease. The scope of this review is to examine the path of vaccine discovery so far and identify potential targets. Here, we provide insight into the leading vaccines and their advantages and challenges. We discuss the emerging mutations within the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and other issues that need to be addressed to overcome coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) completely. Future research is needed to develop a cheap, temperature-stable vaccine providing long-term immunity that protects the upper respiratory tract.
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Project description:The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic that continues to sweep across the world, posing an urgent need for effective therapies and prevention of the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome related to coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). A major hypothesis that is currently guiding research and clinical care posits that an excessive and uncontrolled surge of pro-inflammatory cytokines (the so-called "cytokine storm") drives morbidity and mortality in the most severe cases. In the overall efforts made to develop effective and safe therapies (including vaccines) for COVID-19, clinicians are thus repurposing ready-to-use drugs with direct or indirect anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities. Speculatively, there are many opportunities and challenges in targeting immune/inflammatory processes in the evolving settings of COVID-19 disease because of the need to safely balance the fight against virus and aggressive inflammation versus the suppression of host immune defenses and the risk of additional harms in already compromised patients. To this end, many studies are globally underway to weigh the pros and cons of tailoring drugs used for inflammatory-driven conditions to COVID-19 patient care, and the next step will be to summarize the growing clinical trial experience into clean clinical practice. Based on the current evidence, anti-inflammatory drugs should be considered as complementary approaches to anti-viral drugs that need to be timely introduced in the management of COVID-19 according to disease severity. While drugs that target SARS-CoV-2 entry or replication are expected to confer the greatest benefits at the early stage of the infection, anti-inflammatory drugs would be more effective in limiting the inflammatory processes that drive the worsening of the disease.
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Project description:Since the start of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has rapidly widespread worldwide becoming one of the major global public health issues of the last centuries. Currently, COVID-19 vaccine rollouts are finally upon us carrying the hope of herd immunity once a sufficient proportion of the population has been vaccinated or infected, as a new horizon. However, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants brought concerns since, as the virus is exposed to environmental selection pressures, it can mutate and evolve, generating variants that may possess enhanced virulence. Codon usage analysis is a strategy to elucidate the evolutionary pressure of the viral genome suffered by different hosts, as possible cause of the emergence of new variants. Therefore, to get a better picture of the SARS-CoV-2 codon bias, we first identified the relative codon usage rate of all Betacoronaviruses lineages. Subsequently, we correlated putative cognate transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNAs) to reveal how those viruses adapt to hosts in relation to their preferred codon usage. Our analysis revealed seven preferred codons located in three different open reading frame which appear preferentially used by SARS-CoV-2. In addition, the tRNA adaptation analysis indicates a wide strategy of competition between the virus and mammalian as principal hosts highlighting the importance to reinforce the genomic monitoring to prompt identify any potential adaptation of the virus into new potential hosts which appear to be crucial to prevent and mitigate the pandemic.
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Project description:The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) appeared in2019 in Wuhan, China, and rapidly developed into a global pandemic. The disease has affected not only health care systems and economies worldwide but has also changed the lifestyles and habits of the majority of the world's population. Among the potential targets for SARS-CoV-2 therapy, the viral spike glycoprotein has been studied most intensely, due to its key role in mediating viral entry into target cells and inducing a protective antibody response in infected individuals. In the present manuscript the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for SARS-CoV-2 infection are described and a progress report on the status of SARS-CoV-2 research is provided. A brief review of the clinical symptoms of the condition and current diagnostic methods and treatment plans for SARS-CoV-2 are also presented and the progress of preclinical research into medical intervention against SARS-CoV-2 infection are discussed.
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Project description:Public transport is a fundamental service for the resumption of work and production, but the enclosed environment and dense population create very favorable conditions for the spread of epidemic infections. Thus, effective public health interventions are urgently introduced. The objective of this paper is to quantitatively estimate the SARS-CoV-2 transmission probability and evaluate the influence of environmental parameters and individual intervention on the epidemic prevention. For this purpose, (1) we estimate the virus emission rate with Diamond Princess Cruise Ship infection data by Monte Carlo simulation and the improved Wells-Riley model, and (2) employ the reproductive number R to quantify diverse mitigation strategies. Different determinants are examined such as the duration of exposure, the number of passengers combined with individual interventions such as mask type and mask-wearing rate. The results show that the SARS-CoV-2 quantum generation rate is 185.63. The R shows a stronger positive correlation with the exposure time comparing to the number of passengers. In this light, reducing the frequency of long-distance journeys on crowded public transportation may be required to reduce the spread of the virus during the pandemic. N95 mask and surgical mask can reduce the transmission risk by 97 and 84%, respectively, and even homemade mask can reduce the risk by 67%, which indicates that it is necessary to advocate wearing masks on public transportation.
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Project description:A new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) highlighted at the end of 2019 in China is spreading across all continents. Most often at the origin of a mild infectious syndrome, associating mild symptoms (fever, cough, myalgia, headache and possible digestive disorders) to different degrees, SARS-Covid-2 can cause serious pulmonary pathologies and sometimes death. Data on the consequences during pregnancy are limited. The first Chinese data published seem to show that the symptoms in pregnant women are the same as those of the general population. There are no cases of intrauterine maternal-fetal transmission, but cases of newborns infected early suggest that there could be vertical perpartum or neonatal transmission. Induced prematurity and cases of respiratory distress in newborns of infected mothers have been described. Pregnancy is known as a period at higher risk for the consequences of respiratory infections, as for influenza, so it seems important to screen for Covid-19 in the presence of symptoms and to monitor closely pregnant women. In this context of the SARS-Covid-2 epidemic, the societies of gynecology-obstetrics, infectious diseases and neonatalogy have proposed a French protocol for the management of possible and proven cases of SARS-Covid-2 in pregnant women. These proposals may evolve on a daily basis with the advancement of the epidemic and knowledge in pregnant women. Subsequently, an in-depth analysis of cases in pregnant women will be necessary in order to improve knowledge on the subject.
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