COVID-19

Brief overview about the prevalence and outcome of COVID infection in dialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients.

This study aims to assess the efficacy of a daily single dose of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) (245 mg)/ Emtricitabine (FTC) (200 mg), a daily single dose of hydroxychloroquine (HC) (200 mg), a daily single dose of TDF (245 mg)/FTC (200 mg) plus HC (200 mg) versus placebo, during 12 weeks in: (1) reducing the incidence of symptomatic disease and (2) reducing clinical severity COVID-19 among hospital healthcare workers aged 18 to 65 years in public and private hospitals in Spain. The trial plans to enroll 4'000 participants.

Based on only few RCTs authors conclude that wearing facemasks can be very slightly protective against primary infection from casual community contact, and modestly protective against household infections when both infected and uninfected members wear facemasks. However, authors think that there is enough evidence to support the use of facemasks for short periods of time by particularly vulnerable individuals when in transient higher risk situations.

Cardiologists and infectiologists from the the Inselspital comment on the possible biphasic effect of Angiotensin‐Converting Enzyme Inhibitors/Angiotensin Receptor Blockers in Covid-19.

The authors describe the bifunctional role of ACE2 as a “double-edged sword”, which turns off the renin-angiotensin system and leads to beneficial effects but also mediates unique susceptibility to lung and cardiovascular disease in COVID-19 patients by serving as the SARS-CoV-2 receptor.

App based large scale UK study demonstrates that loss of smell accompanied 59% of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases, but only 18% of negative cases with similar other symptoms

Clinginess, inattention, irritability and fear of asking questions about the epidemic are reported as major psychological reactions among children > 3 years of age in China.

Ferguson and colleagues from the Imperial College London estimate with infection propagation models that, across 11 countries between 7 and 43 million individuals have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 28th March, representing between 1.9% and 11.4% of the population. With current government interventions remaining in place, they estimated that interventions across all 11 countries will have averted 59,000 deaths up to 31 March [95% uncertainty range 21,000-120,000].

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, laboratories are rushing to produce reliable antibody tests. Antibodies are markers of a previous infection and they can be found in a patient’s blood sample any time from about a week after the infection happened. The most highly anticipated expectation of antibody tests to COVID-19 is to understand how many cases of COVID-19 have actually occurred in a population.

Out of 416 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, 19.7% had cardiac injury, and were at a significant higher risk of death compared with patients without cardiac injury. Although the exact mechanism of cardiac injury needs to be further explored, the findings presented here highlight the need to consider this complication in COVID-19 management.