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  • An orally bioavailable broad-spectrum antiviral inhibits SARS-CoV-2 in human airway epithelial cell cultures and multiple coronaviruses in mice

    8 Apr, 2020
    Coronaviruses (CoVs) traffic frequently between species resulting in novel disease outbreaks, most recently exemplified by the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. Herein, it is shown that the ribonucleoside analog β-D-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC, EIDD-1931) has broad spectrum antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and related zoonotic group 2b or 2c Bat-CoVs, as well as increased potency against a coronavirus bearing resistance mutations to the nucleosid...
  • Cancer guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic

    7 Apr, 2020
    As of April 1, 2020, more than 800 000 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had been confirmed worldwide. The death toll in Italy is approaching 12 000 people, with Spain not far behind. The USA has reported more than 164 000 cases of the disease, including more than 38 000 cases in New York City alone. There are concerns that the COVID-19 could overwhelm health-care systems worldwide. Many nations have reported a shortage of ventilators.The UK is one of several countries to have susp...
  • Clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients undergoing surgeries during the incubation period of COVID-19 infection

    7 Apr, 2020
    ABSTRACT
    Background: The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, has spread rapidly worldwide. In the early stage, we encountered a small but meaningful number of patients who were unintentionally scheduled for elective surgeries during the incubation period of COVID-19. We intended to describe their clinical characteristics and outcomes. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 34 patients underwent elective surgeries during the incubatio...
  • COVID-19: On average only 6% of actual SARS-CoV-2 infections detected worldwide

    7 Apr, 2020

    Actual number of infections may already have reached several tens of millions.



    Summary:
    The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus disease officially issued by countries dramatically understates the true number of infections, a report suggests. Researchers used estimates of COVID-19 mortality and time until death from a recent study to test the quality of records. This shows that countries have only discovered on average about 6% of infections. The number of infections...
  • Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019: infectious virus is not isolated in blood and stool

    6 Apr, 2020
    There is an urgent need for information on body site-specific virus replication, immunity, and infectivity. Here you can find a detailed virological analysis of nine cases, providing proof of active virus replication in upper respiratory tract tissues. Pharyngeal virus shedding was very high during the first week of symptoms (peak at 7.11 × 108 RNA copies per throat swab, day 4). Infectious virus was readily isolated from throat- and lung-derived samples, but not from stool samples, in spite ...
  • Researchers at IBEC help identifying a drug in clinical phase that blocks the effects of SARS-Co-V2

    6 Apr, 2020
    IBEC researchers led by ICREA Research Professor Núria Montserrat, together with international collaborators, have identified a drug capable of blocking the effects of the SARS-Co-V2 virus, the origin of the Coronavirus 2019 diseaseThe treatment, which can be tested on two hundred Covid-19 patients as of today, has proven effective in mini-kidneys generated from human stem cells. Using hese organoids generated by bioengineering techniques, it has been deciphered how SARS-Co-V2 interacts and i...
  • Recommendations For Action In Esophagus-Gastric Oncological Surgery During The Covid-19 Pandemic

    6 Apr, 2020
    The Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC) has issued a publication on recommendations for action in esophagus-gastric oncological surgery during the Covid-19 pandemic, which includes: 
    Criteria to consider in decision making


    Action scenarios


    Multidisciplinary treatment strategy


    Recommendations for surgery

    Click here for reference


  • Renin–Angiotensin–Aldosterone System Inhibitors in Patients with Covid-19

    3 Apr, 2020

    The Renin-Angiotensin Aldosterone is an elegant cascade of vasoactive peptides that orchestrate key processes in human physiology. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 (SARS-CoV-1) and SARS-CoV-2, which have been responsible for the SARS epidemic in 2002 to 2004 and for the more recent coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, respectively, interface with the RAAS through angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), an enzyme that physiologically counters RAAS activation but als...
  • Covid-19 Outbreak: what the department of endoscopy should know

    3 Apr, 2020
    Gastrointestinal endoscopy (GIE) is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering gastroenterology, especially in relation to endoscopy. This journal from ASGE (American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy) published a full article with instructions about how to safely perform an endoscopy during the coronavirus pandemic: different measures implemented in the hospital to prevent further dissemination of COVID-19 infection. The article was written by different Italian doctors who have al...
  • Likelihood of survival of coronavirus disease 2019

    2 Apr, 2020
    A case fatality ratio of an infectious disease measures the proportion of all individuals diagnosed with a disease who will die from that disease. For an emerging infectious disease, this ratio is thus a very important indicator not only of disease severity but also of its significance as a public health problem. For instance, WHO estimated a case fatality ratio of approximately 14–15% for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003,1 and approximately 35% for Middle East resp...
  • Essential care of critical illness must not be forgotten in the COVID-19 pandemic

    2 Apr, 2020

    The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will have a large impact in low-resource settings (LRS). 20% of COVID-19 patients become critically ill with hypoxia or respiratory failure. Critical illness, describing any acute life-threatening condition, is receiving increased attention in global health because of its large disease burden and population impact. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, growing evidence suggested that the care of critical illness was overlooked in LRS—hospitals cann...
  • COVID-19 pandemic in west Africa

    2 Apr, 2020



    The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which started in the Hubei province of China in 2019, has now spread to all continents, affecting 177 countries by March 27, 2020. Successful efforts in containing the COVID-19 virus in Asia resulted in WHO declaring Europe as the epicentre of the disease on March 13. Whether warmer temperatures will slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has been a point of muc...