A Bibliometric Analysis of Moderna mRNA-1273 Vaccine for COVID-19

We performed the 1st bibliometric analysis of the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine (for COVID-19). On May 28, 2021, the data was retrieved from the Scopus database. In total, two hundred and three (n=203) documents are published about Moderna, majorly comprising of reviews (n=84) and articles (n=66). In all documents (reviews and articles only), 1110 authors have significantly contributed. The documents per author were 0.135, while authors per document were 7.4. The collaborative Index (CI) was 8.34. By Lotka's Law, we provided information about the frequency of authors. For example, 1021 authors were involved in one (n=1) publication. The total number of publications, h-index, m-index, g-index, and total citations for all authors are provided. The highest documents are published by the National Institutes of Health NIH (n-8) & Moderna Therapeutics (n=8 and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases NIAID (n=7). Fifty-five (n=55) countries have significantly contributed to all publications. The highest documents are published by the United States (n=74), India (n=30), and the United Kingdom (n=16). By Biblioshiny, the co-authorship network is also presented. All documents are published in 118 different sources, majorly in Vaccines (n=6), Frontiers in Immunology (n=5), and New England Journal Of Medicine (n=4). We also provided the H-index, g-index, and m-index of all sources. The top ten (n-10) most cited documents are briefly discussed, while we provided a general overview of the publications by co-words analysis. On December 18, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Moderna COVID-19 (mRNA-1273) vaccine. © 2022 by the authors.

Association of blood groups with the clinical presentation of COVID-19 infection

Background: Blood groups' antigens, represent polymorphic traits inherited among populations, their expression differences, can increase or decrease the host susceptibility to infections. We aimed here to correlate the relation between the different blood groups and hosts' susceptibility towards COVID-19 infection. Methods: 355 samples, were analyzed for SARS-CoV-2 and blood groups typing. The candidates were then divided according to their results into;210 positive-PCR (viral persistent, clearance and ICU admitted), and 145 negative-PCR contacts and then results were compared. Results: The highest frequency in control and viral clearance group was O-phenotype, followed by A-phenotype and the least was AB-phenotype. The highest frequency in the viral persistent group, was A-group, showed followed by B-group and the least was O-group. Lastly in ICU group, A-group was the highest frequency, followed by O-group and the least was B-group. Using Chi-square method, a statistically significant result was observed (p-value= 0.034). Conclusions: The blood group-O was the protective phenotype, controversy to the O-group, A-group was the risky phenotype, also AB-group was risky, as it showed the lowest frequency in both control and viral clearance group. Interestingly, the B-group was the least group susceptible to have bad prognosis and be admitted to the ICU. This can be a safety guideline for classifying healthcare workers, according to their ABO, to work with suspected cases with COVID-19 and also may help in developing specific anti-histo-blood group antibodies as an effective co-therapy for COVID-19. © 2020 The author (s).

Value of Verbal Autopsy in a Fragile Setting: Reported versus Estimated Community Deaths Associated with COVID-19, Banadir, Somalia.

BACKGROUND: Accurate mortality data associated with infectious diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are often unavailable in countries with fragile health systems such as Somalia. We compared officially reported COVID-19 deaths in Somalia with COVID-19 deaths estimated using verbal autopsy. METHODS: We interviewed relatives of deceased persons to collect information on symptoms, cause, and place of death. We compared these data with officially reported data and estimated the positive and negative predictive values of verbal autopsy. RESULTS: We identified 530 deaths during March-October 2020. We classified 176 (33.2%) as probable COVID-19 deaths. Most deaths (78.5%; 416/530) occurred at home and 144 (34.6%) of these were attributed to COVID-19. The positive predictive value of verbal autopsy was lower for home deaths (22.3%; 95% CI: 15.7-30.1%) than for hospital deaths (32.3%; 95% CI: 16.7-51.4%). The negative predictive value was higher: 97.8% (95% CI: 95.0-99.3%) for home deaths and 98.4% (95% CI: 91.5-100%) for hospital deaths. Conclusions Verbal autopsy has acceptable predictive value to estimate COVID-19 deaths where disease prevalence is high and can provide data on the COVID-19 burden in countries with low testing and weak mortality surveillance where home deaths may be missed.

Dataset on Young People's Intention Towards Covid-19 Booster Vaccines in Malaysia

This study assessed the level of acceptance and predictor factors influencing the intention of Malaysian youths towards three COVID-19 vaccines: the Sinovac inactivated virus vaccine, the AstraZeneca viral vector vaccine and the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. The study data are related to the intention of young Malaysians towards booster vaccines for controlling coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus transmission. This study was conducted through an online survey from 1 January 2022 to 31 January 2022 involving semester 1 (2021/2022) students pursuing Philosophy and Current Issues course in the National University of Malaysia. Overall, the respondents demonstrated positive intentions towards the booster vaccines as they considered them beneficial and religiously acceptable but also acknowledged that the booster vaccines presented moderate risks. The detailed findings provide insights into the acceptance of young people towards booster vaccines. Accordingly, the development of policies and action plans by the Malaysian government and further studies by other researchers interested in the data are highly recommended.

Pattern of admission and outcome of patients admitted to dedicated trauma intensive care unit (ticu), emergency department, teaching hospital, north-eastern malaysia

Background: The role of dedicated Trauma ICU (TICU) in Emergency Department is vital in the chain of trauma care to ensure rehabilitation and sustainable critical care for a better survival outcome. This study is conducted to find out demographic patterns and predictors that can affect the outcomes of trauma patients.Methods: A retrospective review of all patients admitted to TICU, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM) was carried out from January 1st, 2016 till December 31st, 2018. Data were collected from TICU admission and discharge registers and were analyse using SPSS version 23.0. Results: A total of 108 trauma patients were included in this study. All cases were exclusively blunt trauma (99.1%) and mainly attributed by road traffic injuries (92.6%). In terms of trauma clinical scoring, 25%(p= 0.001) presented with GCS score < 4, 46.9% (p=0.001) with RTS score <5.5 and 15.6% (p=0.012) with APACHE II score > 28had demonstrated prolonged ICU stay (> 7 days). Meanwhile 62.5% (p= 0.000) with GCS < 4, 75% (p= 0.000) with RTS < 5.5 and 75% (p= 0.000) with APACHE II > 28 were died in TICU. Besides that, those who had prolonged ICU stay (> 7 days) were 8.5 times higher odds to get sepsis (adj OR= 8.532;95% CI: 2.710, 26.863;p= 0.000) and 7 times higher odds to get acute kidney injury (AKI) (adj OR= 7.131;95% CI: 1.464, 34.733;p= 0.015). Meanwhile, patient who received blood transfusion led to 5 folds higher odds ofassociation with rhabdomyolysis (adj OR= 4.968;95% CI: 1.821, 13.549;p= 0.002).Conclusion: In the midst of pandemic COVID-19 it is important for ED physician to early identify and prioritise high risk trauma patient based on predictors and allows for targeted monitoring and intervention that may improve their outcome and also optimise resources accordingly.

When learning was disrupted in Saudi Arabia: Full-scale distance e-learning as a solution to face COVID-19

This case study investigated the experiences of Saudi university students and faculty concerning a switch to e-learning from the traditional mode of lecturing in response to the national lockdown started in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By using purposive sampling of eight Twitter feeds (five Saudi universities, one faculty association and two from the Ministry of Education), this study thematically analyzed over 2,000 social media (Twitter) postings in Spring 2020 to investigate how Saudi students and faculty members met this crisis head on. Four major concerns over the use of emergency distance education to complete semester studies emerged: (1) information technology and technical issues, (2) understanding online learning materials, (3) student assessment issues, and (4) faculty compliance and student support. Findings showed there is a need to train faculty and students to engage with distance learning, embrace fair and balanced student assessment strategies, and implement course design intelligence. © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2022.

The Attitudes of MTUN Students towards m-Learning Usage during COVID-19 Pandemic

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is an online Teaching and Learning (T&L) method that has been implemented to all educational institutions in Malaysia to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study is to identify the attitude level of Malaysian Technical University Network (MTUN) students towards the Mobile Learning (M-learning) usage in ODL methods during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The total number of respondents involved was 481 engineering students from four MTUN institutions. The study design used is quantitative which uses a questionnaire as a research instrument. The questionnaire used measures three elements of students' attitudes in the aspect of affective, behavior and cognitive towards M-learning implementation. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics involving the use of mean and standard deviation while inferential statistics involved One-way ANOVA analysis. Result shows that attitudes level of MTUN students towards M-learning was at moderate level for two (2) aspects of affective and cognitive while the behavior aspect was rated at high level. Meanwhile, the result of one-way ANOVA showed no significant difference between the attitudes of student towards ODL across year of studies. Therefore, it can be concluded that the students of MTUN institutions had positive attitudes towards the implementation of M-learning with year of study in the university does not have influence on student’s attitude towards M-learning environment. It is advisable that the use of M-learning in the future needs to be enriched with the features of 21st century learning as to enhance students learning experiences. © 2022 by the authors.

A Review of Cyber Security Awareness (CSA) Among Young Generation: Issue and Countermeasure

Cybersecurity has emerged as an essential concept in everyday life, requiring the involvement of individuals. Although cybersecurity is empowered by government to all level of user, as a critical demanding situation confronted, however, the visibility and public focus stays limited especially to young user. The engagement of Internet is regularly taken into necessity for sharing information, learning, transactions and controlling the physical world, mainly during pandemic Covid-19. Hence, Cybersecurity Awareness (CSA) is a key defense in the protection of user and cyberspace. This review paper elaborates the CSA issue and methodology that had been done by other researcher, consequently the encounter effort taken to enhance the CSA among user, focus on young generation. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

A bibliometric analysis of remdesivir: A covid-19 vaccine

In October 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved remdesivir (RDV) for the treatment of COVID-19. This motivated us (a) to perform its bibliometric analysis and (b) to acknowledge the significant contribution of all researchers throughout the world. On 7th May 2021, we extracted the data from the Scopus database. Total documents were 3277, but we only analyzed 1496 articles and 1066 reviews. In all publications (n=2562), 13215 authors, 9854 departments, and 127 countries have significantly contributed. Based on Vosviewer analysis we presented the co-authorship network. Total citations for 2562 documents were 55366. The citation breakup for all documents is provided. The number of publications sources or journals was 1156. We also performed a bibliometric analysis of the top one hundred (n=100) most cited documents. Based on bibliometrix (biblioshiny) analysis, the local and global citations of one hundred documents are provided. These (100) documents are published in 73 sources. The citation details (h and g-indexes) are provided for all sources. By Lotka’s law, we presented the frequency distribution of the productivity of authors. To describe the focus of these 100-documents, we performed the co-words analysis of titles. By biblioshiny, we presented the main focus as a thematic map and by Vosviewer, we highlighted the main co-words that appeared in the titles of the manuscripts. In this report, we bibliometrically covered 2562 publications from 2019 to May 2021. © Pakistan Academy of Sciences.

Resuming clinical teaching in the era of COVID-19: Experiences and protocols from a dental school in Malaysia

The rapid spread of the global pandemic COVID-19 had challenged the Malaysian Healthcare and Education Systems. Teaching and learning at dental schools across the country were drastically changed to online approach as the nation enforced Movement Control Order (MCO). However, translation of psychomotor skills still require hands-on approach to produce competent dentists upon graduation, but most dental schools were not prepared for the prevention of COVID-19 transmission that require more strict cross infection protocol. The aim of this paper was to describe the response by a dental school in Malaysia to COVID-19 in modifying the clinical teaching and learning, infrastructure, facilities, and clinical services, and enhancing the infection control protocol through risk assessment of COVID-19 transmission and prevention strategies. The paper also discusses the limitations of our approach, challenges in providing clinical services and supervision as well as implications of changes to our practice. In conclusion, COVID-19 has modified the delivery and implementation of clinical teaching and learning in Malaysia. However, within the limited fund and resources, dental teaching institutions need to adapt to the new normal clinical environment in order to ensure that dentals students graduate on time with sufficient clinical training. © 2021 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.

Heart transplant recipients with confirmed 2019 novel coronavirus infection: The Detroit experience.

A chronic immunosuppressed state as in solid organ transplant recipients is a reported risk factor for the novel 2019 coronavirus infection. Patients with a history of orthotopic heart transplant (OHT) at a tertiary care transplant center in Detroit, Michigan were retrospectively reviewed from March until May 2020. Clinical parameters and outcomes of 5 OHT recipients and one combined heart-lung recipient with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 were obtained. The cohort was predominately African American males with median age of 59 years (interquartile range, 48.25-73.25). All patients were classified as having mild-moderate disease; none required intubation or ICU admission with no deaths. The most common presenting symptoms were fever and shortness of breath 83% (n = 5), followed by cough and chills 67% (n = 4). All admitted patients (n = 5) received hydroxychloroquine and 3 received high-dose steroids. Antimetabolites were held for 2 patients (33.3%). The calcineurin inhibitor trough goal was decreased in only 1 patient; 3 other patients, without change in goal, required calcineurin inhibitor dosage reduction. Two patients requiring readmission presented 7 and 23 days after initial symptoms onset. In conclusion, our experience with OHT patients infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus did not have an elevated risk of severe infection. Impact of modifying immunosuppression remains unclear.