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چکیده:

Recent evidence reported that some dietary compounds like quercetin and apigenin as the most well-known flavonoids with anti-inflammatory effects may inhibit SARS-CoV-2 main protease. The hypothesis of the promising effects and possible mechanisms of action of quercetin against COVID-19 were assessed in this article.

Related papers on the inhibitory effects of quercetin against COVID-19 were collected using the following search strategy: “corona or coronavirus or COVID or COVID-19 or viral or virus” AND “nutrient or flavonoid or Quercetin”.

The findings indicated that quercetin can be considered an effective agent against COVID-19 because of its SARS-CoV-2 main protease and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitory effects. In addition, quercetin may attenuate angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE-2) receptors leading to a reduction of SARS-CoV-2 ability to enter host cells. Moreover, the antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory activities of quercetin have been frequently reported.

Quercetin may be an effective agent for managing the complications of COVID-19. Further longitudinal human studies are warranted.

چکیده:

Tranexamic acid (TXA) is an antifibrinolytic agent commonly used for the treatment or prevention of bleeding. Indications for TXA are diverse, including heavy menstrual bleeding, trauma, postpartum hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, and surgical site bleeding. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require medical attention. Older people and those with underlying medical conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. Anyone can get sick with COVID-19 and become seriously ill or die at any age. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2 or COVID-19) originated in Wuhan, China has spread at an alarming pace throughout the world and declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The air droplet spread of SARS-CoV2 which is potentially fatal is of great global health concern. Various drugs and treatment modalities have been tried to date but none has been found to be definitive. Tranexamic acid commonly used in pigmentary disorders in Dermatology due to its ability to reduce the melanocyte tyrosinase activity also possesses anti-fibrinolytic and anti-inflammatory properties which have been observed to suppress the cytokine storm and modulate coagulopathy in patients suffering from COVID19. Tranexamic acid when administered early has been effective in decreasing the severity of symptoms in patients of COVID-19 but on the contrary, has also been associated with life-threatening thrombosis if given as a single drug.

چکیده:

The quick and advancing prevalence of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 produced a global crisis surge with a profound impact on human health and worldwide economic constancy. The virus is known as one strain of coronavirus, which causes the respiratory infection responsible for the current pandemic of COVID-19. The virus spike protein has a high binding affinity to human ACE2, depending on crystallization analysis and biochemical interaction studies. Studies consistently reveal that rs2285666, a polymorphism found in ACE2, diverse significantly between Europeans and Asians, changing ACE2 expression. The alternating allele TT of rs2285666 SNP increased gene expression to 50%; thus, it may have a role in SARS-COV-2 infection vulnerability. This study aimed to investigate rs2285666 SNP association with SARS-CoV2 infection as a first report in the Iraqi population. Fifty (20 Male/30 Female) Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms with mean age (of 41.5±10.7) and 50 (20 Male/30 Female) healthy people as a control group with mean age (of 41.5±10.7) were included in this study. Sample of a patient tested as a mutant genotype (TT) by RFLP assay. The results reveal a MAF value of 0.3 for this gene in Iraqi samples, more than Europeans (0.2) and less than East Asians (0.55). The codominant model had significant OR of both alleles CT and TT (OR=4.26 & 6.7; P-value=0.012 & 0.023 respectively). In conclusion, there is an association between increased severity of SARS-Cov-2 infection and rs2285666 polymorphism of the codominant genotype model of the Iraqi population. However, several other factors may affect disease severity, such as ethnic group differences, sex, comorbidity, virus strain, and others.

چکیده: The main aim of the study was to find the most common CT feature in the lungs of patients associated with Delta variant and characterize thoracic computed tomography and report mortality.
A total of 156 patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection were randomized in this study which their chest CTs performed at the initial positive and negative RT-PCR. There were two groups of patients involved.
The patients had typical imaging features such as; coagulation (33 [21.2%]), ground glass opacities (GGO) (140 [89.7%]), vascular enlargement of the lesion (41 [26.3%]). Lesions that appear on CT images are more likely to have peripheral distribution (79 [50.6%]), peripheral and central distribution (61 [39.1%]) and architectural distortion (14 [9%]. Other CT features include pleural effusion (15 [9.6 %]) and crazy-paving pattern (25 [16 %]). Only two patients had tree-in-bud and traction bronchiectasis (2 [1,3%]). In contrast, the overall mortality rate was (19 [12.2%]).
The most common CT feature was peripheral GGO (140 [89.7%]) in the lungs of patients with COVID-19. The initial positive RT-PCR group had a higher peripheral distribution, GGO, and frenzy pattern during their CT scan than patients in the group with a negative initial RT-PCR result. Mortality rates were nearly identical between groups with a positive and negative RT-PCR baseline at 10.7% and 13%, respectively. It has been shown that most patients with negative RT-PCR should be considered suspected of having COVID-19.

چکیده:

The establishment of an approach for detecting the anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)-receptor-binding domain (RBD) neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) by a safe, easy, and rapid technique without requiring the use of live viruses is essential for facing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Depending on competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methodology, the current study assay was designed to simulate the virus-host interaction using purified SARS-COV-2-RBD from the spike protein and the host cell receptor human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 protein. The performance of this in-house neutralizing ELISA assay was validated using freshly prepared standards with different known concentrations of the assay. In this regard, a cohort of 50 serum samples from convalescent COVID-19 individuals with different disease severity at different time points post-recovery and a cohort of 50 serum samples from healthy individuals were processed by the in-house developed assay for detecting SARS-CoV-2 nAbs, in comparison with a commercial total anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody assay as a gold standard. The assay obtained a sensitivity of 88% (95% CI: 75.69-95.47) and a specificity of 92% (95% CI: 80.77- 97.78%). A negative strong correlation was demonstrated in the standard curve between the optical density absorbance and log concentration of the nAbs with a statistical measure of r2 (coefficient of determination) = 0.9539. The SARS-COV-2-RBD neutralizing ELISA assay serves as a high throughput qualitative and quantitative tool that can be applied in most laboratory settings without special biosafety requirements to detect anti-RBD nAbs for seroprevalence, pre-clinical, and clinical evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines efficiency and the rapid selection of convalescent plasma donors for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

چکیده:

Although almost three years have passed since the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19), this unprecedented situation is still not under control. Since COVID-19 has the potential to harm the human body, this systematic review aimed to evaluate the outbreak of post-traumatic stress disturbance (PTSD) during the COVID-19 epidemic. We used the search strategy of “novel coronavirus” OR “2019 novel coronavirus” OR “novel coronavirus pneumonia” OR “new coronavirus” OR “coronavirus disease 2019” OR “SARS2” OR “2019-n CoV” OR “SARS-CoV-2” OR “COVID-19” AND “PTSD” OR “PTS” OR “post-traumatic stress” OR “mental disorders”. The exclusion criteria included: a) articles that were not in English or Persian language; b) articles whose full text was not available, c) articles that did not report the prevalence of PTSD, d) articles that were not specific to COVID-19 or included other diseases, e) duplicate publications; f) reviews, abstracts, case reports, case series, and g) studies with target groups other than healthcare workers (HCWs), patients with COVID-19 and general population. After reviewing the articles and checking the exclusion criteria, the full text of 27 articles was reviewed. The studies showed the prevalence of PTSD in the HCW, general population and COVID-19 patients varied from the lowest to the highest as 3.8% to 56.6%, 4.6% to 67.09% and 5.61% to 96.2%, respectively. Given the prevalence of PTSD associated to COVID-19 in the investigated groups, it is recommended to design and implement educational and interventional programs to manage stress and deal with stressful situations such as epidemics.

چکیده:

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) belongs to the Coronaviridae family which led to a global pandemic. However, available knowledge on adaptive immunity in convalescent individuals is limited. The present study was conducted on 191 convalescent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health care workers (HCW); moreover, it evaluated the cell-mediated immunity of 122 recovered HCW and the level of anti-receptor binding domain (RBD) IgG antibodies of 181 recovered HCW. Cellular and humoral immune responses were identified over time from one to eight months post recovery with varying disease severity using MTT proliferation assay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Analysis of lymphocyte proliferation with S1 protein in mild-moderate and severe HCW revealed an insignificant difference with an increase in the maximum and third quartile (Q3) from one to eight months after COVID-19 recovery. Antibody levels in mild-moderate and severe recovered HCW were insignificantly different from post-COVID 19 recovery (P>0.05); in addition, the median, maximum, and Q3 values of anti-RBD IgG were close to each other over the time intervals from one to eight months post recovery. These data suggest that many convalescent HCW enrolled in this study were re-exposed to the virus without the development of symptoms indicating the role of cell-mediated and humoral immunity in preventing symptomatic reinfection. This study reveals that a robust immunity developed after mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19 that could last for several months post recovery.

چکیده:

In this study, drug discovery of SARS-CoV-2 nsp-16 effective in Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been accomplished by pharmacophore-based virtual screening among some analogs (FDA approved drugs) and marine natural plants (MNP). The comparison of the binding energies and the inhibition constants was determined using molecular docking method. Between selected drugs, three compound were selected for further investigation using the molecular dynamics simulations. The results indicated that Ibrutinib and Idelalisib are oral medications while Kumusine, with proper hydrophilic and solubility properties, is an appropriate candidate for nsp-16 inhibitor and can be effective to control COVID-19 disease. It seems that Kumusine due to its better drug properties including the highest binding, the ability of destroying the secondary structure of the protein can be proposed as the best drug candidate among screened drugs in this research, for further investigations.

چکیده:

The present study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) compared to the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) in the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Iranian children. 

Materials and Methods:

In this cross-sectional study, 90 children under 15 years of age were randomly selected from suspects of COVID-19 referred to the Tabriz Children Hospital, the main pediatric COVID-19 diagnostic center of Tabriz, from May 21, 2020 to June 21, 2020. Blood and nasopharyngeal samples were taken simultaneously at the referring time. The diagnostic accuracy of ELISA-based IgM and IgG antibody tests for COVID-19 were compared with the rRT-PCR.

The calculated sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, overall diagnostic accuracy, and diagnostic odds ratio were 0.5745, 0.9767, 0.9643, 0.6774, 24.66, 0.4357, 0.7667, and 56.60 for IgM; and 0.6170, 0.9302, 0.9355, 0.6897, 8.84, 0.4117, 0.7667, and 21.47 for IgG, respectively.

Due to the lower sensitivity of antibody detection-based serological tests compared to rRT-PCR, they cannot be considered as initial and reliable tests for the diagnosis of COVID-19. It can be suggested that the serological tests be only used as complementary tests to rRT-PCR or for monitoring the immune response of children with COVID-19.

چکیده:

Interleukin-6 is pro-inflammatory cytokine which plays a role in cytokine storm and brought into notice with corona virus disease of 2019. Lymphopenia and dysregulated immune response were seen in the critically ill patients of corona virus disease of 2019. IL-6 inhibitors were proposed as a treatment option in this pandemic with a concept that it will reduce inflammation, infection and organ failure. Tocilizumab, a monoclonal antibody against soluble and membrane IL‐6 receptors was considered as forefront treatment option as it was used previously in rheumatologic disorder as a licensed agent. Tocilizumab is an immunosuppressive agent and serious or fatal infections could occur. Presence of superimposed bacterial infections in critically ill patients with corona virus disease of 2019 should be aggressively treated. However clinical experiences showed higher rates of superimposed bacterial infections which renders for extreme caution while prescribing such therapies. Perspective is needed when using the rheumatologic literature of IL-6 into corona virus disease of 2019 and their range observed in these conditions.