Coronavirus In America

New York: People hospitalised during the pandemic both for Covid and other conditions have a higher rate of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections compared to patients hospitalised before the pandemic, according to a study. An estimated 1.2 million people worldwide died in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant infections, and this number is predicted to increase ten-fold by 2050. There have been studies reporting that the pandemic was associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) secondary infections, possibly due to the increase in the use of antibiotics to treat Covid-19 patients and disruptions to infection prevention and control practices in overwhelmed health systems. The study, presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) being held in Portugal, evaluated the pandemic's impact on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in 271 hospitals across the US. The researchers assessed AMR rates per 100 hospital admissions before and during the Covid pandemic, and examined whether drug-resistant infections were acquired in the community-onset setting (defined as a culture collected less than two days after admission) or in the hospital-onset setting (more than two days after admission). In total, 1,789,458 patients were admitted to the hospital in the pre-pandemic period and 3,729,208 during the pandemic. The number of patients admitted to the hospital with at least one AMR infection was 63,263 in the pre-pandemic period and 129,410 during the pandemic. Patients who tested positive or negative for Covid had higher levels of AMR than patients before the pandemic, 4.92 per 100 admissions and 4.11 per 100 admissions, respectively. For hospital-associated infections, the AMR rate was 0.77 per 100 admissions before the pandemic and 0.86 per 100 admissions during the pandemic, and highest at 2.19 per 100 admissions in patients with Covid-19. When looking at community-onset infections, the AMR rate was 2.76 per 100 admissions in the pre-pandemic period, and 2.61 per 100 admissions during the pandemic. "These new data highlight the importance of closely monitoring the impact of Covid-19 on antimicrobial resistance rates, said Dr Karri Bauer from the US pharmaceutical company Merck. "It is particularly worrying that antibiotic resistance has been rising during the pandemic in both SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative patients. Hospital-acquired infections are a major concern, with antimicrobial resistance rates significantly higher during the pandemic than before," he added. (Agency) Read More► Omicron Ups Risk of Upper Airway Infections, Cardiac Arrest in Small Kids

Six in 10 people with SARS-CoV-2 still have at least one symptom of long Covid a year later, with fatigue, shortness of breath and irritability being the most common, a new study has shown. The study, being presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Portugal, found that Covid-19 symptoms that don't clear up after 15 weeks are likely to last at least a year. An estimated 25-40 per cent of people with Covid-19 develop long Covid, persisting symptoms that can affect multiple organs and include mental health problems. Most of the data to date, however, is based on patients who were hospitalised with Covid-19 and it isn't clear how it applies to Covid-19 cases more generally. To find out more, Aurelie Fischer and colleagues at the Luxembourg Institute of Health in Luxembourg, surveyed almost 300 people a year after they were diagnosed with Covid. The 289 participants (50.2 per cent women) had an average age of 40.2 years and were divided in three groups, based on the severity of their initial infection: asymptomatic, mild and moderate/severe Covid-19. They were asked to fill in a detailed questionnaire about whether they were experiencing 64 common long Covid-related symptoms. A third (34.3 per cent) were experiencing fatigue a year on, 12.9 per cent said respiratory symptoms were affecting their quality of life and more than half (54.2 per cent) had ongoing sleep problems. Participants who had moderate/severe Covid-19 were twice as likely to still have at least one symptom a year on than those whose initial infection was asymptomatic. Having had moderate/severe Covid-19 was also associated with more sleep problems after a year than being asymptomatic (63.8 per cent vs. 38.6 per cent). "Participants with a mild form of the acute illness were more likely than those who'd been asymptomatic to have at least one symptom at one year, and to have sleep problems, but to a lesser extent than those with a moderate or severe acute illness," Fischer said. One in seven participants (14.2 per cent) said they could not envisage coping with their symptoms long-term. Further, the analysis also revealed that some groups of symptoms tend to occur together, suggesting that there are multiple different types of long Covid. Read More► Covid Not Only Infects Human Retina, But Can Also Replicate in It

लंदन: जिन वयस्कों को कोविड-19 और फ्लू के कारण एक ही समय में अस्पताल में भर्ती कराया गया है, उनमें गंभीर बीमारी और मृत्यु का खतरा उन रोगियों की तुलना में बहुत अधिक है, जिन्होंने अभी-अभी कोविड या किसी अन्य वायरस का अनुबंध किया है। नए शोध में इसकी जानकारी दी गई है। द लैंसेट जर्नल में प्रकाशित अध्ययन ने संकेत दिया कि सार्स-सीओवी-2 के सह-संक्रमण वाले रोगियों, जो कोविड-19 का कारण बनते हैं और इन्फ्लूएंजा वायरस को वेंटिलेशन समर्थन की आवश्यकता होने की संभावना चार गुना अधिक होती है और मरने की संभावना 2.4 गुना अधिक होती है। अगर उन्हें केवल कोविड था। एडिनबर्ग विश्वविद्यालय के शोधकर्ता केनेथ बेली ने कहा, "हमने पाया कि कोविड और फ्लू वायरस का संयोजन विशेष रूप से खतरनाक है। यह महत्वपूर्ण होगा क्योंकि कई देश सामाजिक दूरी और रोकथाम के उपायों के उपयोग को कम कर रहे हैं।" बेली ने कहा, "हम उम्मीद करते हैं कि कोविड फ्लू के साथ प्रसारित होगा, जिससे सह-संक्रमण की संभावना बढ़ जाएगी। इसलिए हमें अस्पताल में कोविड रोगियों के लिए अपनी परीक्षण रणनीति को बदलना चाहिए और फ्लू के लिए अधिक व्यापक रूप से परीक्षण करना चाहिए।" शोधकर्ताओं का कहना है कि निष्कर्ष अस्पताल में कोविड रोगियों के अधिक फ्लू परीक्षण की आवश्यकता को दर्शाते हैं और कोविड और फ्लू दोनों के खिलाफ पूर्ण टीकाकरण के महत्व को उजागर करते हैं। अध्ययन के लिए, टीम ने 6 फरवरी, 2020 और 8 दिसंबर, 2021 के बीच यूके में कोविड के साथ अस्पताल में भर्ती 305,000 से अधिक रोगियों को शामिल किया। रेस्पिरेट्री वायरल सह-संक्रमण के परीक्षण के परिणाम कोविड के 6,965 रोगियों के लिए दर्ज किए गए थे। इनमें से कम से कम 227 में इन्फ्लूएंजा वायरस भी था और उन्होंने काफी अधिक गंभीर परिणामों का अनुभव किया। (एजेंसी) यह भी पढ़े► कोरोना का नया वैरिएंट फिर मचा सकता है तबाही: फौसी

London: Though SARS-CoV-2, virus causing Covid-19, majorly causes infections of the respiratory tract, it also affects other organs of the human body such as the eyes and brain. While there is growing evidence to show that coronaviruses can enter the retina of the eye, German researchers have now shown that the virus can also replicate in human eyes. According to the study, published in the Stem Cell Reports, SARS-CoV-2 actually infects retinal cells, especially retinal ganglion cells, but also light-sensitive cells. Furthermore, the researchers show that coronaviruses can also replicate in these cell types. This finding is new and underlines the need to monitor retinal pathologies as a possible consequence of 'Long Covid'. A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine and the Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster utilised organoids, an organ-like model system, of the retina from human reprogrammed stem cells to study SARS-CoV-2 infection of the retina. The retinal organoids were incubated with SARS-CoV-2 viruses and then using quantitative PCR analysis, the researchers succeeded in detecting Covid mRNA in the organoids, indicating that cells in the organoids were indeed infected by the virus. To measure the active virus concentrations produced by the infected organoids after different incubation times, the researchers used an assay called a "viral plaque assay". Indeed, the assay showed that new viral progeny has been formed in the retinal organoids. "This is the first demonstration that SARS-CoV-2 replicates in human retinal cells," said Thomas Rauen from Max Planck. To find out which cells in the retinal organoids are affected, the researchers analysed the organoids under a fluorescence microscope. With the help of different immune markers for the different cell types of the retina and with a fluorescent antibody against the nucleoprotein (N-protein) of SARS-CoV-2, they found that mainly two cell layers - inner and outer - of the retinal organoids were infected. The outer nuclear layer of the organoids contains the cell bodies of the photoreceptors -- the cones and rods that convert incoming light into nerve impulses. "However, the cell type in which we most frequently detected the N-protein of Sars-CoV-2 is retinal ganglion cells," Yotam Menuchin-Lasowski from the Institute. These cells are located in the innermost cell layer of the retina and transmit all signals from the retina to the brain via the optic nerve. Interestingly, many of the retinal symptoms associated with Covid-19 are related to retinal ganglion cells, but these have previously been associated predominantly with secondary effects of other Covid-induced disease symptoms, such as damage to blood vessels or an increase in eye pressure. "However, our current retina-organoid study shows that infection with SARS-CoV-2 can have direct pathological consequences for retinal ganglion cells, even though visual impairment is not common in patients with Covid-19," Rauen said. "But our data give us reason to believe that so-called long-Covid symptoms may include degenerative retinal disease." (agency) Read More► Natural Covid Antibodies Last 7 Months in Children: Study