[ORGANIZATION OF GENOMIC SURVEILLANCE FOR SARS-CoV-2 WITHIN THE MOSCOW CITY HEALTH DEPARTMENT].

An important goal of COVID-19 surveillance is to detect outbreaks using modern molecular epidemiology techniques based on methods to decode the full genome of the virus, since rapidly evolving RNA viruses, which include SARS-CoV-2, are constantly accumulating changes in their genomes. In addition to using these changes to identify the different virus lines spreading in the population, the availability of sequence information is very important. It will allow the identification of altered variants that may be more transmissible, cause more severe forms of disease, or be undetectable by existing diagnostic test systems. The global scientific community is particularly interested in changes in the spike protein (S-protein, Spike) because they are responsible for binding and penetration into the host cell, lead to false-negative results in diagnostic tests, and affect transmission rates, health outcomes, therapeutic interventions, and vaccine efficacy.Genomic surveillance uses next-generation sequencing (NGS) applications and makes data on the full genome of the virus available. These methods offer new means to detect variants that differ phenotypically or antigenically. This approach promotes earlier prediction as well as effective strategies to mitigate and contain outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 and other new viruses long before they spread worldwide.Today, molecular typing of strains is playing an increasingly important role in this process, as it makes it possible to identify samples that share a common molecular «fingerprint¼.

[Cardiac damage in liver cirrhosis in alcohol abusers]. / Porazhenie serdtsa pri tsirroze pecheni u bol'nykh, zloupotreblyayushchikh alkogolem.

AIM: to estimate the contribution of liver cirrhosis (LC) to the development of heart diseases in alcohol abusers. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The investigation included 80 patients with alcoholic LC without a history of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and, as a control group, 32 alcohol abusers without a history of chronic diseases of the liver and cardiovascular and respiratory systems; 45 patients with alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM) and congestive heart failure without a history of coronary heart disease and valvular diseases, among whom 11 patients were found to have LC. In addition to standard clinical examination, all the patients underwent electrocardiography, by estimating the corrected QT interval (QTc), standard echocardiography; and those without ACM underwent estimation of left ventricular (LV) kinetics using speckle-tracking echocardiography. RESULTS: The patients with alcoholic LC were found to have a higher LV ejection fraction and a more obvious impairment of LV global longitudinal deformity, and more commonly LV diastolic dysfunction. 16 of the 80 patients with LC were observed to have moderate pulmonary hypertension while the mean pulmonary artery pressure (MPAP) was within the normal range in all the patients without LC. A prolonged QTc interval was revealed in the patients with LC. The duration of QTc was directly correlated with the MELD severity of LC. The patients with chronic heart failure in the presence of ACM and CL showed a more obvious LV diastolic dysfunction, as estimated by E/E', a greater LV mass index, and a higher MPAP than those with ACM without LC. CONCLUSION: The LC patients both with ACM and without a history of diseases of the heart were noted to have its more evident disorders as diastolic dysfunction and elevated MPAP. Those without ACM were observed to have impaired LV global deformity and a prolonged QTc interval.

Drug release from polyureaurethane coating modified by plasma immersion ion implantation.

A crosslinked polyurethanurea (PUU) coating was synthesised from a solution on metal vascular stents. In the model system the glucocorticoid prednisolone was inserted into the film by the equilibrium swelling method; after this plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) was applied to modify the coating for improved release kinetics. This treatment causes the formation of oxygen-containing and unsaturated carbon-carbon groups in the PUU and a destruction of the drug in the surface layer. As a consequence, the release rate of prednisolone to water becomes more stable with time than it is at the untreated coating. In this drug release system PIII treatment prevents an initial toxically high release of the drug. By this it allows the incorporation of a higher amount of the drug and an extended action.