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DARCVAA: A Deep Neural Networks Based Framework for Detecting Adverse Reactions of COVID-19 Vaccines and Association Analysis
(Springer, 2024) Ngamwal Sinruwng; Yogita; Vipin Pal; Anshul Verma
In response to the global COronaVIrus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, widespread vaccination campaigns were initiated worldwide. To minimise Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) linked to the vaccines, extensive pre-clinical trials and post-marketing surveillance activities were undertaken in a traditional setting. However, there has been a limited exploration of social media data for this purpose. As social media data is composed of real-time user experiences on vaccines, its analysis is pivotal for understanding vaccine safety. This work proposes a framework named Detecting Adverse Reactions of COVID-19 Vaccines and Association Analysis (DARCVAA). It employs four Deep Neural Networks (DNN) based classification models to detect ADRs of COVID-19 vaccines from Reddit’s posts. Further, it uses the Apriori algorithm to extract associations between vaccines and ADRs to comprehensively understand their relationships. The statistical significance of the extracted associations has been evaluated in terms of support and confidence. The proposed framework has been applied to a dataset collected from Reddit’s platform from September 2020 to July 2021 and annotated with the help of a medical expert. The experimental results showed that the proposed framework has outperformed six state-of-the-art detection models, which include Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers for Biomedical Text Mining (BioBERT), Vaccine Adverse Events-Mine (VAEM-Mine), Vaccine Adverse Events (VAE), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Naıve Bayes (NB) in respect to precision, recall, F1-score and accuracy. The identified ADRs have been validated from the official surveillance reports, and the validation results have proven the efficacy of the proposed framework toward ADR detection and capturing possibly emerging ADRs. The analysis of detected ADRs in terms of frequent ADRs, ADRs unique to vaccines and genders and associations of vaccines and ADRs has led to promising insights into the safety profile of COVID-19 vaccines. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024.
Increased tracheostomy rates in head and neck cancer surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic
(Churchill Livingstone, 2021) T.K. Batra; M.R. Tilak; E. Pai; N. Verma; B.K. Gupta; G. Yadav; R.K. Dubey; N.J. Francis; M. Pandey
Surgical practice during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed significantly, without supporting data. With increasing experience, a dichotomy of practice is emerging, challenging existing consensus guidelines. One such practice is elective tracheostomy. Here, we share our initial experience of head and neck cancer surgery in a COVID-19 tertiary care centre, emphasizing the evolved protocol of perioperative care when compared to pre-COVID-19 times. This was a prospective study of 21 patients with head and neck cancers undergoing surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 193 historical controls. Changes in anaesthesia, surgery, and operating room practices were evaluated. A strict protocol was followed. One patient tested positive for COVID-19 preoperatively. There was a significant increase in pre-induction tracheostomies (28.6% vs 6.7%, P = 0.005), median hospital stay (10 vs 7 days, P = 0.001), and postponements of surgery (57.1% vs 27.5%, P = 0.01), along with a significant decrease in flap reconstructions (33.3% vs 59.6%, P = 0.03). There was no mortality and no difference in postoperative morbidity. No healthcare personnel became symptomatic for COVID-19 during this period. Tracheostomy is safe during the COVID-19 pandemic and rates have increased. Despite increased rescheduling of surgeries and longer hospital stays, definitive cancer care surgery has not been deferred and maximum patient and healthcare worker safety has been ensured. © 2020 International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Cancer Screening in India: Current Situation, Challenges and Way Forwards
(West Asia Organization for Cancer Prevention, 2021) Md. Abu Bashar; Nazia Begam
Cancer screening is a highly effective preventive measure that can reduce cancer incidence and mortality. COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the ongoing screening activities for early diagnosis of cancers across the globe and the worst affected are low and middle income countries and India is no exception to it. This disruption to cancer screening services may have a significant impact on patients, health care practitioners, and health systems. Through this paper, we aim to offer a comprehensive view on the impact of COVID-19 on cancer screening in India and offer potential solutions to the problems arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic in cancer screening and prevention. © 2021, West Asia Organization for Cancer Prevention. All rights reserved.
Omicron-COVID-19-Related Knowledge in Parkinson’s Disease Patients and Their Caregivers: A Cross-sectional Study
(SAGE Publications Inc., 2025) Neetu Rani Dhiman; Vyom Gyanpuri; Anand Kumar; Deepika Srivastava Joshi
IntroductionThe Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) became the global community’s third major cause of worry. In the current study, we deployed a self-reported survey questionnaire to investigate the degree of comprehension, awareness and perception of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their respective caregivers (CGs).Materials and MethodsUsing a standardised questionnaire, we conducted a prospective study on PD patients attending the neurology outpatient department prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study period was between February and August of 2022.ResultsA total of 114 CGs and 134 disease-affected patients were evaluated. Approximately 1.8% of the CGs and 4.5% of the patients contracted the Omicron-COVID-19. Over half of the patients (77.6%) were aware of the Omicron variant, and approximately 40.3% of them were aware of its symptoms. After receiving the Covid immunisation, patients (94.02%) reported no change in symptoms. The percentage of patients and CGs who had no symptoms of the viral infection and were not even got tested ever was 95.5% and 98.2%, respectively. Further, patients (95.5%) opted for the ‘offline’ as a preferred mode of consultation, citing the precision of treatment being the main reason.ConclusionNo definite correlation between the Omicron variant infection and symptoms of PD could be established. The awareness regarding Omicron variant was largely unknown. More patient-centred research on larger population groups, incorporating literate and urban groups would unravel the knowledge gaps. © The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Psychosomatic Problems Among Adolescents During/Post the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review
(Bentham Science Publishers, 2024) Meenakshi Shukla; Niti Upadhyay
Introduction: This systematic review aimed at exploring the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on adolescents’ psychosomatic problems and whether the pandemic differentially impacted different genders. It also explored whether particular clusters of psychosomatic problems, viz., psychological, somatic, and musculoskeletal, manifested more post-pandemic than before. Method: An extensive search of eight electronic databases for studies published/conducted between 2014-2018 for pre-pandemic prevalence of psychosomatic problems among adolescents (11-17 years) and for studies published and conducted between 2019-2023 during/post-pandemic prevalence resulted in the final selection of 38 studies. This included 25 pre-pandemic studies, six studies published and conducted during/after the pandemic, and seven studies that reported pre-post-pandemic comparison. The review was reported following PRISMA guidelines. ROBINS-E tool was used for assessing the risk of bias while the JBI Critical Appraisal Tools were used to assess study quality. Results: Findings showed that sleep problems and headaches dominated adolescent psychosomatic problems pre-pandemic. Sleep problems continued to be the most common problem post-pandemic, followed by stomach ache and feeling low, dizziness, irritability, appetite loss, tension, and difficulty concentrating. In general, females reported more psychosomatic symptoms, though limited research explored gender differences. Only one study found improved psychosomatic health post-pandemic, more so for boys than girls. Psychological complaints increased post-pandemic; however, results were mixed about somatic and musculoskeletal complaints after the pandemic. Some studies found no change in post-pandemic psychosomatic symptoms. Conclusion: Gender-specific, tailored training programs are crucial for enhancing resilience and coping to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on adolescents’ psychosomatic health. © 2024 Bentham Science Publishers.
Deep-AVPpred: Artificial Intelligence Driven Discovery of Peptide Drugs for Viral Infections
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2022) Ritesh Sharma; Sameer Shrivastava; Sanjay Kumar Singh; Abhinav Kumar; Amit Kumar Singh; Sonal Saxena
Rapid increase in viral outbreaks has resulted in the spread of viral diseases in diverse species and across geographical boundaries. The zoonotic viral diseases have greatly affected the well-being of humans, and the COVID-19 pandemic is a burning example. The existing antivirals have low efficacy, severe side effects, high toxicity, and limited market availability. As a result, natural substances have been tested for antiviral activity. The host defense molecules like antiviral peptides (AVPs) are present in plants and animals and protect them from invading viruses. However, obtaining AVPs from natural sources for preparing synthetic peptide drugs is expensive and time-consuming. As a result, an in-silico model is required for identifying new AVPs. We proposed Deep-AVPpred, a deep learning classifier for discovering AVPs in protein sequences, which utilises the concept of transfer learning with a deep learning algorithm. The proposed classifier outperformed state-of-The-Art classifiers and achieved approximately 94% and 93% precision on validation and test sets, respectively. The high precision indicates that Deep-AVPpred can be used to propose new AVPs for synthesis and experimentation. By utilising Deep-AVPpred, we identified novel AVPs in human interferons-family proteins. These AVPs can be chemically synthesised and experimentally verified for their antiviral activity against different viruses. The Deep-AVPpred is deployed as a web server and is made freely available at https://deep-Avppred.anvil.app, which can be utilised to predict novel AVPs for developing antiviral compounds for use in human and veterinary medicine. © 2013 IEEE.
Neuropathic Pain Associated with COVID-19: a Systematic Review of Case Reports
(Springer, 2022) Deepika Joshi; Vyom Gyanpuri; Abhishek Pathak; Rameshwar Nath Chaurasia; Vijay Nath Mishra; Anand Kumar; Varun Kumar Singh; Neetu Rani Dhiman
Purpose of Review: Researchers suggests that patients with COVID-19 develop neuropathic pain within weeks or months following infection and that patients with neuropathic pain and COVID-19 sometimes present with deterioration of neurologic complications and pain exacerbation. The objective of this systematic review is to discuss the case-reports having neuropathic pain during and after COVID-19 infection. Recent Findings: Case reports that has described about patients getting neuropathy or neuropathic pain around the disease either immediately or late post COVID were included. The data was extracted and qualitatively synthesised. Literature was searched and 939 articles were found. 12 articles were screened as per the eligibility criteria and finally, 6 case reports on neuropathic pain in Covid-19 were selected from the database and manual search and finalised for analysis. 2 cases of herpes zoster and post herpetic neuralgia, 2 cases of intense burning pain, 1 case of trigeminal neuralgia and 1 of brachial plexopathy included for the review. Summary: Covid 19 viral neurogenic invasion is something very newly discovered topic of discussion in the field of research. With the passage of time, more cases will emerge and more data will be available for research. The review is registered in Prospero with no. CRD42021257060. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Targeting host cell proteases to prevent sars-cov-2 invasion
(Bentham Science Publishers, 2021) Upinder Kaur; Sankha Shubhra Chakrabarti; Bisweswar Ojha; Bhairav Kumar Pathak; Amit Singh; Luciano Saso; Sasanka Chakrabarti
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread worldwide and caused widespread devastation. In the absence of definitive therapy, symptomatic management remains the standard of care. Repurposing of many existing drugs, including several anti-viral drugs, is being attempted to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. However, most of them have failed to show significant benefit in clinical trials. An attractive approach may be to target host proteases in-volved in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. The priming of the spike (S) protein of the virus by proteolytic cleavage by the transmembrane serine protease-2 (TMPRSS2) is necessary for the fusion of the virus to the host cell after it binds to its receptor angiotensin converting enzyme-2 (ACE2). There are other proteases with varying spatiotemporal locations that may be important for viral entry and subsequent replication inside the cells, and these include trypsin, furin and cathepsins. In this report, we have discussed the tentative therapeutic role of inhibitors of TMPRSS2, cathepsin, trypsin, furin, plasmin, factor X and elastase in infection caused by SARS-CoV-2. Both available evidence, as well as hypotheses, are discussed, with emphasis on drugs which are approved for other indications such as bromhexine, ammonium chloride, nafamostat, camostat, tranexamic acid, epsilon amino-caproic acid, chloroquine, ulinastatin, aprotinin and anticoagulant drugs. Simultane-ously, novel compounds being tested and problems with using these agents are also discussed. © 2021 Bentham Science Publishers.
Impact of social media advertisements on the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 pandemic in India
(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2022) Rajanish Kumar Rai; Subhas Khajanchi; Pankaj Kumar Tiwari; Ezio Venturino; Arvind Kumar Misra
In this paper, we propose a mathematical model to assess the impact of social media advertisements in combating the coronavirus pandemic in India. We assume that dissemination of awareness among susceptible individuals modifies public attitudes and behaviours towards this contagious disease which results in reducing the chance of contact with the coronavirus and hence decreasing the disease transmission. Moreover, the individual’s behavioral response in the presence of global information campaigns accelerate the rate of hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and also encourage the asymptomatic individuals for conducting health protocols, such as self-isolation, social distancing, etc. We calibrate the proposed model with the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases for the Republic of India. We estimate eight epidemiologically important parameters, and also the size of basic reproduction number for India. We find that the basic reproduction number for India is greater than unity, which represents the substantial outbreak of COVID-19 in the country. Sophisticated techniques of sensitivity analysis are employed to determine the impacts of model parameters on basic reproduction number and symptomatic infected population. Our results reveal that to reduce disease burden in India, non-pharmaceutical interventions strategies should be implemented effectively to decrease basic reproduction number below unity. Continuous propagation of awareness through the internet and social media platforms should be regularly circulated by the health authorities/government officials for hospitalization of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of asymptomatic individuals to control the prevalence of disease in India. © 2021, Korean Society for Informatics and Computational Applied Mathematics.
COVID-19 & culinary behaviours of Australian household food gatekeepers: A qualitative study
(Academic Press, 2021) Rimante Ronto; Janandani Nanayakkara; Anthony Worsley; Neha Rathi
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns had a significant impact on Australian food supply, with potential implications for food purchasing, preparation and consumption behaviours. Therefore, we explored Australian primary food gatekeepers' perceptions and responses towards their culinary behaviours during COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns. We conducted online semi-structured interviews with 25 Australian primary food gatekeepers. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. We found that the majority of food gatekeepers during the lockdown reported increased home cooking and experimentation in the kitchen, enhanced their food literacy such as cooking skills and confidence, meal planning and purchasing skills, and increased consumption of family meals. However, they also reported less positive outcomes such as increases in snacking and alcohol intake, baking less healthy foods and overall increases in food intake. There is a need to develop comprehensive nutritional programs for Australian primary food gatekeepers to increase their food literacy and confidence in food preparation and cooking. Future research could explore if these newly adopted behaviours positively impact primary food gatekeepers’ dietary behaviours and if these behaviours sustain over time. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd

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