Recent COVID-19 Scientific updates reported on 05th May, 2020 by African Union (AU).
Summary of Some important issues that may alert benefits or raise an area of further research in Diagnosis, treatment and preventive measures against COVID-19.
- Children may be as infectious as adults (This means any one can infect you, so be cautious in taking preventive measures against SARS-CoV-2)
- Household secondary attack with SARS-CoV-2 should not be neglected as a study done to trace contacts of COVID-19 patients, it was found to be 11.2% secondary attack rate with a sample size of 391 SARS-COV-2 confirmed cases.
- A study has also found that the median duration of viral RNA shedding is about 53.5 days and longest duration could be 83 days.
Point for discussion: If this is the duration for an infected individual to continue shedding Viral RNA so as for possible causation of transmission to other people after hospital or quarantine symptomatic recovery: How strict is the continued isolation strategy after these patients get discharged home? There should be appropriate measures to deal with this possible cause of continued SARS-CoV-2 viscious cycle of ill- health to the general population. The recovered patients should not be considered safe for possible transmission of COVID-19 at home just like the asymptomatic patients.
4. A study of 408 COVID-19 patients done in Boston revealed 36% of patients tested positive for COVID-19 from which 87% were asymptomatic. This implies that symptom screening may not adequately capture the exact situation of SARS-COV-2 infection in the general population especially in high risk settings.
Point for discussion: If this is the case, some thing should be done to screen SARS-COV-2 so as to accurately identify the symptomatic and asymptomatic people. Because Transmission is independent of symptom presence, even asymptomatic people can spread the disease to the non infected ones. This should be done while also observing the use of highly sensitive testing methods like it has been found that the highly sensitive ones are the CDC-based Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) and Cepheid SARS - COV-2 assays with 100% agreement across specimens. In settings with limited resources the high risk population like the elderlies and those with comorbidities should beprioritized.
5. SARS-CoV-2 is shed in urine.
Things to consider:Appropriate measures should be made to avoid infection by urine contamination especially in toilet settings and appropriate preventive precautions should be made like emphasize of using toilets and toilets cleaning workers especially in hospital settings where COVID-19 patients are admitted or quarantined
6 . Serology testing for SARS-COV-2 has been found to be more sensitive than RT-PCR test, thus very useful for identification of asymptomatic patients.
7. A study has also found that treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma help to fight SARS-COV-2 in the body but it does not prevent mortality to patients at their end stage of disease. Thus, early infusion of convalsescent plasma is beneficial compared to late infusion.
Point for discussion: Convalescent plasma is the blood plasma of patients recovered from COVID-19. This is highly suggestive that body immunity is important in fighting SARS- COV-2 in the body hence, the emphasize of vaccine development against SARS-COV-2. However, precaution should be made about time elapsed since the recovery from COVID-19 bearing in mind that SARS-COV-2 RNA continue to be shed until about 83 days.
8. Also a study has been done which reveal that early -low-dose and short-term application of Methylprednisolone was associated with better clinical outcomes in severe patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and should be considered before the occurrence of ARDS. However long term use is not avised due to its immunosuppression effect, also indications and contraindications of this medication should be observed for each individual patient.
Comments
Post a Comment