Clinico-epidemiological profile of COVID-19 patients admitted during third wave of pandemic in a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi, India.

Even nearly two years after the first reported case, the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) continues to ebb and flow around the world. A retrospective cohort study was carried out to determine the clinico-epidemiological profile and outcome of the cases. The study analyzed secondary data from 827 patients who presented to our center with COVID-19-related illnesses between December 15, 2021, and February 15, 2022 (third wave in India). There was a significant difference in the vaccination status of patients treated at home and those admitted, with 87.9% having received two doses compared to 74% in the second group being unvaccinated. Patients who were isolated at home recovered at a rate of 99.4%, while hospitalized patients died at a rate of 26.5%. Vaccination reduces the severity of COVID-19; however, constant vigilance for new variants, precautionary measures, and increased vaccination drives are critical moving forward.   *Other members of the Safdarjung Hospital COVID-19 working group: B. Lal (Medicine), Harish Sachdeva (Anaesthesiology), Santvana Kohli (Anaesthesiology), Amandeep Jaswal (Anaesthesiology), Sumitra Bachani (Obstetrics and Gynecology), Ajay Kumar (Pediatrics), Rohit Kumar (Pulmonary Medicine), Vidya Sagar Chaturvedi (Surgery), Vinod Chaitanya (Medicine).

Mortality among adult hospitalized patients during the first wave and second wave of COVID-19 pandemic at a tertiary care center in India.

The similarities and differences between the mortality patterns of the two waves in India remain largely unknown. This was a retrospective study of medical records conducted in the COVID data center of our hospital This study analyzed data of patients who died in the month of August, 2020 to October 2020 (one month before and after the peak of first wave i.e., 16th September, 2020) and April 2021 to June 2021 (one month before and after the peak of second wave i.e., 6th May, 2021), corresponding to an equal part of the pandemic during first (2020) and second (2021) wave. Out of 1893 patients in the study, 764 patients were admitted during the first wave and 1129 patients during the second wave of pandemic. In total, 420 patients died during the entire study period. Of those, 147 (35%) deaths occurred during the first wave and 273 (65%) during the second wave, reflecting a case fatality rate (CFR) of 19.2% during the first wave and a CFR of 24.18%. There were no significant differences in the age group, gender, presenting complaints, duration of stay and comorbidities. However, the deceased COVID-19 patients had an increase in case fatality rate, average duration of symptoms from onset to hospital admission (DOSHA) and a major shift from MODS to ARDS being the cause of death during the second wave of pandemic. This study demonstrates increased CFR, average DOSHA and a paradigm shift to ARDS as cause of mortality during the second peak of the pandemic. It is necessary to remain vigilant of newer COVID-19 variants of concern, follow COVID-19 appropriate behaviors and keep emphasizing on care of high-risk groups including patients with comorbidities and elderly population to prevent mortality.

Effect of radiofrequency radiation on reproductive health.

The development of cellular phone system has greatly increased the extent and magnitude of radiofrequency radiation (RFR) exposure. The RFR emitted from mobile phone and mobile phone base stations exerts thermal and non-thermal effects. The short-term and long-term exposure to RFR may have adverse effect on humans as well as animals. Most laboratory studies have indicated a direct link between exposure to RFR and adverse biological effects. Several in vitro studies have reported that RFR induces various types of cancer and DNA or chromosomal damage. On the other hand, some animal studies have not reported adverse effects of this radiation. The present review summarizes information available on the possible effects of RFR on the reproductive health.

Public Health in Antarctica.

Public health in Antarctica is a pertinent issue that often gets overlooked. While the term 'public health' generally refers to the health of a larger community or the public, this concept is equally applicable to small, isolated populations, such as those residing in Antarctica. The principles of public health, including disease prevention, health promotion, and safety, are crucial for the well-being of those living and working in Antarctica. With the dramatic increase in tourist visits to Antarctica over the past decade, public health issues have become increasingly relevant and critical for the operation of base stations. In this article, we will discuss the need and relevance of public health for this growing community, the health issues they face due to extreme environmental conditions, and the measures to mitigate them.

Splice-site identification for exon prediction using bidirectional LSTM-RNN approach.

Machine learning methods played a major role in improving the accuracy of predictions and classification of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) and protein sequences. In eukaryotes, Splice-site identification and prediction is though not a straightforward job because of numerous false positives. To solve this problem, here, in this paper, we represent a bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) based deep learning model that has been developed to identify and predict the splice-sites for the prediction of exons from eukaryotic DNA sequences. During the splicing mechanism of the primary mRNA transcript, the introns, the non-coding region of the gene are spliced out and the exons, the coding region of the gene are joined. This bidirectional LSTM-RNN model uses the intron features that start with splice site donor (GT) and end with splice site acceptor (AG) in order of its length constraints. The model has been improved by increasing the number of epochs while training. This designed model achieved a maximum accuracy of 95.5%. This model is compatible with huge sequential data such as the complete genome.

Comparative Genome-Wide Characterization of Microsatellites in Candida albicans and Candida dubliniensis Leading to the Development of Species-Specific Marker.

BACKGROUND: Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSR) are related to genomic structure, function, and certain diseases of taxonomically different organisms. OBJECTIVE: To characterize microsatellites in two closely related Candida species by searching and comparing 1-6 bp nucleotide motifs and utilizing them to develop species-specific markers. METHODS: Whole-genome sequence was downloaded from the public domain, microsatellites were mined and analyzed, and primers were synthesized. RESULTS: A total of 15,821 and 7,868 microsatellites, with mono-nucleotides (8,679) and trinucleotides (3,156) as most frequent microsatellites, were mined in Candida dubliniensis and Candida albicans, respectively. Chromosome size was found positively correlated with microsatellite number in both the species, whereas it was negatively correlated with the relative abundance and density of microsatellites. A number of unique motifs were also found in both the species. Overall, microsatellite frequencies of each chromosome in C. dubliniensis were higher than in C. albicans. CONCLUSION: The features of microsatellite distribution in the two species' genomes revealed that it is probably not conserved in the genus Candida. Data generated in this article could be used for comparative genome mapping and understanding the distribution of microsatellites and genome structure between these closely related and phenotypically misidentified species and may provide a foundation for the development of a new set of species-specific microsatellite markers. Here, we also report a novel microsatellite-based marker for C. dubliniensis-specific identification.