Comorbidities of COVID-19 Patients.

The novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) responsible for the coronavirus disease outbreak initiated in 2019 (COVID-19) has been shown to affect the health of infected patients in a manner at times dependent on pre-existing comorbidities. Reported here is an overview of the correlation between comorbidities and the exacerbation of the disease in patients with COVID-19, which may lead to poor clinical outcomes or mortality. General medical issues are also reviewed, such as the types of symptoms present in people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the long-term effects of COVID-19 disease, and the types of treatment that are currently used.

On the Stability of Glutaraldehyde in Biocide Compositions.

Glutaraldehyde (GA) is used as biocide in hospitals. Recent public investigations on the chemical composition of biocides used in Romania have in some cases found GA, as a key ingredient, to be apparently diluted. However, these data did not explicitly consider the complex chemical equilibria inherent to GA. An investigation of experimental and theoretical data is reported here, assessing the stability of GA solutions relevant for biocide compositions. GA solutions of various chemical composition and under varying circumstances were analyzed using spectroscopy (UV-VIS, Raman, NMR) coupled with density functional theory (DFT) calculations, as well as chemically, such as via the formation of imines in reaction/titration with glycine monitored at 270 nm; using LC-MS; or using SDS-PAGE analysis with GA as reagent in the polymerization of two test proteins- hemoglobin and myoglobin. The spectral properties of GA changed significantly over time, in a temperature-dependent manner; titration with glycine confirmed the spectral data. SDS-PAGE experiments demonstrated a non-linear and apparently unpredictable change in the reactivity of GA over time. The results may be relevant for the determination of GA concentration in various settings such as biocide analysis, hospital wastewaters, and others.