Search results for "VIRUS DISEASE"
showing 10 items of 1907 documents
Obesity and Outcomes in COVID-19: When an Epidemic and Pandemic Collide.
2020
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States and in much of the westernized world, contributing to considerable morbidity. Several of these obesity-related morbidities are associated with greater risk for death with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 penetrates human cells through direct binding with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptors on the cell surface. Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 expression in adipose tissue is higher than that in lung tissue, which means that adipose tissue may be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Obese patients also have worse outcomes with COVID-19 infection, including respiratory failure, n…
Purification and analysis of polyhistidine-tagged human parvovirus B19 VP1 and VP2 expressed in insect cells
2008
Human parvovirus B19 is an autonomously replicating human pathogen with a specific tropism for human erythroid progenitor cells. There is an interest in producing empty nucleocapsids of B19 as they can be used as tools in molecular biology and diagnostics. Native B19 virus particles are formed from two structural viral proteins, VP1 and VP2. The VP2 protein alone is able to self assemble and consequently form virus-like particles (VLPs) in heterologous expression systems. Purification of recombinant VLPs has been conducted using various traditional methods. These include laborious and time-consuming, e.g. cesium chloride or sucrose gradient ultracentrifugation steps, allowing limited workin…
VentQsys: Low-cost open IoT system for CO2 monitoring in classrooms
2021
AbstractIn educational context, a source of nuisance for students is carbon dioxide ($$CO_2$$ C O 2 ) concentration due to closed rooms and lack of ventilation or circulatory air. Also, in the pandemic context, ventilation in indoor environments has been proven as a good tool to control the COVID-19 infections. In this work, it is presented a low cost IoT-based open-hardware and open-software monitoring system to control ventilation, by measuring carbon dioxide ($$CO_2$$ C O 2 ), temperature and relative humidity. This system provides also support for automatic updating, auto-self calibration and adds some Cloud and Edge offloading of computational features for mapping functionalities. From…
Identification of biomarkers in wastewater-based epidemiology: Main approaches and analytical methods
2021
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become popular to estimate the use of drugs of abuse and recently to establish the incidence of CoVID 19 in large cities. However, its possibilities have been expanded recently as a technique that allows to establish a fingerprint of the characteristics of a city, such as state of health/disease, healthy/unhealthy living habits, exposure to different types of contaminants, etc. with respect to other cities. This has been thanks to the identification of human biomarkers as well as to the fingerprinting and profiling of the characteristics of the wastewater catchment that determine these circumstances. The purpose of this review is to analyze the differ…
A Worldwide Perspective on COVID-19 and Diabetes Management in 22,820 Children from the SWEET Project: Diabetic Ketoacidosis Rates Increase and Glyce…
2021
Aims: To investigate the short-term effects of the first wave of COVID-19 on clinical parameters in children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) from 82 worldwide centers participating in the Better Control in Pediatric and Adolescent DiabeteS: Working to CrEate CEnTers of Reference (SWEET) registry. Materials and Methods: Aggregated data per person with T1D £21 years of age were compared between May/June 2020 (first wave), August/September 2020 (after wave), and the same periods in 2019. Hierarchic linear and logistic regression models were applied. Models were adjusted for gender, age-, and diabetes duration-groups. To distinguish the added burden of the COVID-19 pandemic, the centers were divided…
Hydroxychloroquine, COVID ‐19 and diabetes. Why it is a different story
2020
Hydroxychloroquine has been proposed for the cure of the COVID-19 due to its anti-inflammatory and anti-viral action. People with diabetes are more prone to severe outcome if affected by COVID-19 and the use of Hydroxychloroquine might have some benefit in this setting. However, the use of Hydroxychloroquine in diabetes deserves particular attention for its documented hypoglycemic action.
HCV genotype 5: an orphan virus
2013
HCV genotype 5 (HCV-5) is the least known HCV genotype. It is found mainly in South Africa and in restricted areas of Belgium, Spain, France, Syria and Greece. Sporadic cases are reported worldwide. The main modes of transmission are blood transfusion and iatrogenic causes. Little is known about its origin, but various studies have elucidated its spread worldwide. In endemic areas, patients infected with HCV-5 are on average older and have a higher viral load and more advanced fibrosis than those infected with non-HCV-5 genotypes. The current standard of care for HCV-5 chronic infection is 48 weeks of dual therapy with pegylated interferon plus ribavirin. ‘Favourable’ Il28B polymorphisms a…
Routine HCV PCR screening of blood donations to identify early HCV infection in blood donors lacking antibodies to HCV
2001
BACKGROUND: Detection of early hepatitis C infection of blood donors is still a major problem for blood transfusion. Common anti-HCV screening assays show differences in sensitivity and specificity. The often mild symptoms of acute hepatitis C also cause difficulties in the identification of early HCV infection. The feasibility and efficacy of routine screening of blood donations for HCV RNA were investigated. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Blood donations (n = 251,737) were screened for HCV RNA over 4 years. RNA extraction, amplification, and detection were done by two commercial HCV PCR kits (HCV Cobas Amplicor and HCV Cobas Amplicor 2.0, Roche Diagnostics). Screening was done by pool testing …
Educación formal e informal en confinamiento : una creciente desigualdad de oportunidades de aprendizaje
2021
El cierre de escuelas en Cataluña para contener los efectos de la COVID-19 obligó a las escuelas y las familias a reaccionar en poco tiempo y sin planificación previa ante un nuevo escenario de enseñanza. Este artículo evalúa el impacto del cierre escolar sobre la desigualdad de aprendizaje entre niños de diferentes contextos sociales en Cataluña. A partir de los datos de una encuesta en línea realizada entre el 26 y el 30 de marzo (n = 35.419) a familias con hijos entre 3 y 18 años, nuestro análisis muestra que las oportunidades de aprendizaje varían significativamente en función de las características del alumnado. Durante el confinamiento, algunas escuelas consiguieron adaptarse a las nu…
Coverage, efficacy or dosing interval: which factor predominantly influences the impact of routine childhood vaccination for the prevention of varice…
2016
Background Varicella is a highly infectious disease with a significant public health and economic burden, which can be prevented with childhood routine varicella vaccination. Vaccination strategies differ by country. Some factors are known to play an important role (number of doses, coverage, dosing interval, efficacy and catch-up programmes), however, their relative impact on the reduction of varicella in the population remains unclear. This paper aims to help policy makers prioritise the critical factors to achieve the most successful vaccination programme with the available budget. Methods Scenarios assessed the impact of different vaccination strategies on reduction of varicella disease…