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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Universal protection against SARS-CoV-2 viruses by multivalent mRNA vaccine in mice</strong> -
<div>
The ongoing emergence of new strains of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants challenges available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for adequate control of outbreaks. Currently, there is a lack of universal vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 variants that do not necessitate strain matching between mRNA vaccines and the viruses. In this study, a nucleoside-modified twenty-valent lipid nanoparticle mRNA vaccine was designed and manufactured. The primary objective is to provide protection against various recent variants via the twenty-valent mRNA vaccine after efficacy assessment. Furthermore, the protection efficiency of bivalent and quadrivalent mRNA vaccines was compared with the universal vaccine. The neutralizing antibody activity against BA.4/5, XBB.1.5, BQ.1.1, and EG.5.1 was evaluated using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, pseudovirus neutralization test, and a rapid fiber-optic biolayer interferometry-based biosensor. Our universal multivalent vaccine provided robust protection against both prevailing and emerging, previously unidentified SARS-CoV-2 strains.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.05.565350v1" target="_blank">Universal protection against SARS-CoV-2 viruses by multivalent mRNA vaccine in mice</a>
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<li><strong>Predicting human and viral protein variants affecting COVID-19 susceptibility and repurposing therapeutics</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 disease is an ongoing global health concern. Although vaccination provides some protection, people are still susceptible to re-infection. Ostensibly, certain populations or clinical groups may be more vulnerable. Factors causing these differences are unclear and whilst socioeconomic and cultural differences are likely to be important, human genetic factors could influence susceptibility. Experimental studies indicate SARS-CoV-2 uses innate immune suppression as a strategy to speed-up entry and replication into the host cell. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the impact of variants in immunity-associated human proteins on susceptibility to COVID-19. In this work, we analysed missense coding variants in several SARS-CoV-2 proteins and its human protein interactors that could enhance binding affinity to SARS-CoV-2. We curated a dataset of 19 SARS-CoV-2: human protein 3D-complexes, from the experimentally determined structures in the Protein Data Bank and models built using AlphaFold2-multimer, and analysed impact of missense variants occurring in the protein-protein interface region. We analysed 468 missense variants from human proteins and 212 variants from SARS-CoV-2 proteins and computationally predicted their impacts on binding affinities to SARS-CoV-2 proteins, using 3D-complexes. We predicted a total of 26 affinity-enhancing variants from 14 human proteins implicated in increased binding affinity to SARS-CoV-2. These include key-immunity associated genes (TOMM70, ISG15, IFIH1, IFIT2, RPS3, PALS1, NUP98, RAE1, AXL, ARF6, TRIMM, TRIM25) as well as important spike receptors (KREMEN1, AXL and ACE2). We report both common (e.g., Y13N in IFIH1) and rare variants in these proteins and discuss their likely structural and functional impact, using information on known and predicted functional sites. Potential mechanisms associated with immune suppression implicated by these variants are discussed. Occurrence of certain predicted affinity-enhancing variants should be monitored as they could lead to increased susceptibility and reduced immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals/populations carrying them. Our analyses aid in understanding the potential impact of genetic variation in immunity-associated proteins on COVID-19 susceptibility and help guide drug-repurposing strategies.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.07.566012v1" target="_blank">Predicting human and viral protein variants affecting COVID-19 susceptibility and repurposing therapeutics</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Allosteric modulation by the fatty acid site in the glycosylated SARS-CoV-2 spike</strong> -
<div>
The trimeric spike protein plays an essential role in the SARS-CoV-2 virus lifecycle, facilitating virus entry through binding to the cellular receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and mediating viral and host membrane fusion. The SARS-CoV-2 spike contains an allosteric fatty acid (FA) binding site at the interface between two neighbouring receptor-binding domains. This site, also found in some other coronaviruses, binds free fatty acids such as linoleic and oleic acid, and other small molecules. Understanding allostery and how this site modulates the behaviour of different regions in this protein could potentiate the development of promising alternative strategies for new coronavirus therapies. Here, we apply dynamical nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (D-NEMD) simulations to investigate allosteric effects and identify the communication pathways in the fully glycosylated spike in the original SARS-CoV-2 ancestral variant. The results reveal the allosteric networks that connect the FA site to important functional regions of the protein, including some more than 40 Angstroms away. These regions include the receptor binding motif, an antigenic supersite in the N-terminal domain, the furin cleavage site, the regions surrounding the fusion peptide and a second allosteric site known to bind heme and biliverdin. The networks identified here highlight the complexity of the allosteric modulation in this protein and reveal a striking and unexpected connection between different allosteric sites. Notably, 65% of amino acid substitutions, deletions and insertions in the Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma and Omicron variants map onto or close to the identified allosteric pathways.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.565757v1" target="_blank">Allosteric modulation by the fatty acid site in the glycosylated SARS-CoV-2 spike</a>
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<li><strong>Mucosal Adenoviral-vectored Vaccine Boosting Durably Prevents XBB.1.16 Infection in Nonhuman Primates</strong> -
<div>
Waning immunity and continued virus evolution have limited the durability of protection from symptomatic infection mediated by intramuscularly (IM)-delivered mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 although protection from severe disease remains high. Mucosal vaccination has been proposed as a strategy to increase protection at the site of SARS-CoV-2 infection by enhancing airway immunity, potentially reducing rates of infection and transmission. Here, we compared protection against XBB.1.16 virus challenge 5 months following IM or mucosal boosting in non-human primates (NHP) that had previously received a two-dose mRNA-1273 primary vaccine regimen. The mucosal boost was composed of a bivalent chimpanzee adenoviral-vectored vaccine encoding for both SARS-CoV-2 WA1 and BA.5 spike proteins (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) and delivered either by an intranasal mist or an inhaled aerosol. An additional group of animals was boosted by the IM route with bivalent WA1/BA.5 spike-matched mRNA (mRNA-1273.222) as a benchmark control. NHP were challenged in the upper and lower airways 18 weeks after boosting with XBB.1.16, a heterologous Omicron lineage strain. Cohorts boosted with ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S by an aerosolized or intranasal route had low to undetectable virus replication as assessed by levels of subgenomic SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the lungs and nose, respectively. In contrast, animals that received the mRNA-1273.222 boost by the IM route showed minimal protection against virus replication in the upper airway but substantial reduction of virus RNA levels in the lower airway. Immune analysis showed that the mucosal vaccines elicited more durable antibody and T cell responses than the IM vaccine. Protection elicited by the aerosolized vaccine was associated with mucosal IgG and IgA responses, whereas protection elicited by intranasal delivery was mediated primarily by mucosal IgA. Thus, durable immunity and effective protection against a highly transmissible heterologous variant in both the upper and lower airways can be achieved by mucosal delivery of a virus-vectored vaccine. Our study provides a template for the development of mucosal vaccines that limit infection and transmission against respiratory pathogens.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.565765v1" target="_blank">Mucosal Adenoviral-vectored Vaccine Boosting Durably Prevents XBB.1.16 Infection in Nonhuman Primates</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The α-dystroglycan N-terminus is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent against SARS-CoV-2 and enveloped viruses</strong> -
<div>
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need to develop effective therapeutics in preparedness for further epidemics of virus infections that pose a significant threat to human health. As a natural compound antiviral candidate, we focused on -dystroglycan, a highly glycosylated basement membrane protein that links the extracellular matrix to the intracellular cytoskeleton. Here we show that the N-terminal fragment of -dystroglycan (-DGN), as produced in E. coli in the absence of post-translational modifications, blocks infection of SARS-CoV-2 in cell culture, human primary gut organoids and the lungs of transgenic mice expressing the human receptor angiotensin I-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2). Prophylactic and therapeutic administration of -DGN reduced SARS-CoV-2 lung titres and protected the mice from respiratory symptoms and death. Recombinant -DGN also blocked infection of a wide range of enveloped viruses including the four Dengue virus serotypes, influenza A virus, respiratory syncytial virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, but not human adenovirus, a non-enveloped virus in vitro. This study establishes soluble recombinant -DGN as a broad-band, natural compound candidate therapeutic against enveloped viruses.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.565781v1" target="_blank">The α-dystroglycan N-terminus is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent against SARS-CoV-2 and enveloped viruses</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Combining models to generate a consensus effective reproduction number R for the COVID-19 epidemic status in England</strong> -
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The effective reproduction number R was widely accepted as a key indicator during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, the R value published on the UK Government Dashboard has been generated as a combined value from an ensemble of fourteen epidemiological models via a collaborative initiative between academia and government. In this paper we outline this collaborative modelling approach and illustrate how, by using an established combination method, a combined R estimate can be generated from an ensemble of epidemiological models. We show that this R is robust to different model weighting methods and ensemble size and that using heterogeneous data sources for validation increases its robustness and reduces the biases and limitations associated with a single source of data. We discuss how R can be generated from different data sources and is therefore a good summary indicator of the current dynamics in an epidemic.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.27.23286501v2" target="_blank">Combining models to generate a consensus effective reproduction number R for the COVID-19 epidemic status in England</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Combining models to generate consensus medium-term projections of hospital admissions, occupancy and deaths relating to COVID-19 in England</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Mathematical modelling has played an important role in offering informed advice during the COVID-19 pandemic. In England, a cross government and academia collaboration generated Medium-Term Projections (MTPs) of possible epidemic trajectories over the future 4-6 weeks from a collection of epidemiological models. In this paper we outline this collaborative modelling approach and evaluate the accuracy of the combined and individual model projections against the data over the period November 2021-December 2022 when various Omicron subvariants were spreading across England. Using a number of statistical methods, we quantify the predictive performance of the model projections for both the combined and individual MTPs, by evaluating the point and probabilistic accuracy. Our results illustrate that the combined MTPs, produced from an ensemble of heterogeneous epidemiological models, were a closer fit to the data than the individual models during the periods of epidemic growth or decline, with the 90% confidence intervals widest around the epidemic peaks. We also show that the combined MTPs increase the robustness and reduce the biases associated with a single model projection. Learning from our experience of ensemble modelling during the COVID-19 epidemic, our findings highlight the importance of developing cross-institutional multi-model infectious disease hubs for future outbreak control.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.23298026v1" target="_blank">Combining models to generate consensus medium-term projections of hospital admissions, occupancy and deaths relating to COVID-19 in England</a>
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<li><strong>ASSESSMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF COVID-19 RELATED COGNITIVE DECLINE: RESULTS FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT</strong> -
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Background: Cognitive impairment is the most common and disabling manifestation of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2. There is an urgent need for the application of more stringent methods for evaluating cognitive outcomes in research studies. Objective: To determine whether cognitive decline emerges with the onset of COVID-19 and whether it is more pronounced in patients with Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 or severe COVID-19. Methods: This longitudinal cohort study compared the cognitive performance of 276 patients with COVID-19 to that of 217 controls across four neuroinflammation or vascular disease-sensitive domains of cognition using data collected both before and after the pandemic starting in 2015. Results: The mean age of the COVID-19 group was 56.04 (SD=6.6) years, while that of the control group was 58.1 (SD=7.3) years. Longitudinal models indicated a significant decline in cognitive throughput ((B=-0.168, P=.001) following COVID-19, after adjustment for pre-COVID-19 functioning, demographics, and medical factors. The effect sizes were large; the observed changes in throughput were equivalent to 10.6 years of normal aging and a 59.8% increase in the burden of mild cognitive impairment. Cognitive decline worsened with coronavirus disease 2019 severity and was concentrated in participants reporting post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2. Conclusion: COVID-19 was most likely associated with the observed cognitive decline, which was worse among patients with PASC or severe COVID-19. Monitoring patients with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 for declines in the domains of processing speed and visual working memory and determining the long-term prognosis of this decline are therefore warranted.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.23298101v1" target="_blank">ASSESSMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF COVID-19 RELATED COGNITIVE DECLINE: RESULTS FROM A NATURAL EXPERIMENT</a>
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<li><strong>Text Augmentations with R-drop for Classification of Tweets Self-Reporting Covid-19</strong> -
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This paper presents models created for the Social Media Mining for Health 2023 shared task. Our team addressed the first task, which involves automatically distinguishing tweets that self-report a Covid-19 diagnosis, for example, a positive test, clinical diagnosis, or hospitalization from tweets that merely state that the user has experienced Covid-19 without presenting any evidence and thus would not be considered a diagnosis. Our approach involves a classification model that incorporates diverse textual augmentations and utilizes R-drop to augment data and mitigate overfitting, boosting model efficacy. Our leading model, enhanced with R-drop and augmentations like synonym substitution, reserved words, and back translations, outperforms the task mean and median scores. Our system achieves an impressive F1 score of 0.877 on the test set.
</p>
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.06.23298151v1" target="_blank">Text Augmentations with R-drop for Classification of Tweets Self-Reporting Covid-19</a>
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<li><strong>Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Online News Consumption during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
Using an original survey covering 17 countries, this paper documents the prevalence of beliefs in theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic and characterizes the informational, demographic, and trust profiles of individuals who believe in conspiracy theories. There is considerable variation across countries in the level of conspiracy beliefs, with people in a set of countries like Romania, Poland, Greece, and Hungary being relatively more susceptible than respondents in northern Europe. We find several factors are correlated with conspiracy beliefs across countries. Relative to respondents who do not read news on social media, social media users tend to endorse more conspiracies, and this is the case for Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube users in particular. We also observe a link between distrust in medical experts or government and endorsement of conspiracy theories in most countries. In a subset of countries, we also find individuals with medium level of education and those who are younger to believe in a higher number of conspiracy theories.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/9zfg4/" target="_blank">Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Online News Consumption during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
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<li><strong>Global Sensitivity Analysis of the Onset of Nasal Passage Infection by SARS-CoV-2 With Respect to Heterogeneity in Host Physiology and Host Cell-Virus Kinetic Interactions</strong> -
<div>
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, positive nasal swab tests have revealed dramatic population heterogeneity in viral titers spanning 6 orders-of-magnitude. Our goal here is to probe potential drivers of infection outcome sensitivity arising from (i) physiological heterogeneity between hosts and (ii) host-variant heterogeneity in the detailed kinetics of cell infection and viral replication. Toward this goal, we apply global sensitivity methods (Partial Rank Correlation Coefficient analysis and Latin Hypercube Sampling) to a physiologically faithful, stochastic, spatial model of inhaled SARS-CoV-2 exposure and infection in the human respiratory tract. We focus on the nasal passage as the primary origin of respiratory infection and site of clinical testing, and we simulate the spatial and dynamic progression of shed viral load and infected cells in the immediate 48 hours post infection. We impose immune evasion, i.e., suppressed immune protection, based on the preponderance of clinical evidence that nasal infections occur rapidly post exposure, largely independent of immune status. Global sensitivity methods provide the de-correlated outcome sensitivities to each source of within-host heterogeneity, including the dynamic progression of sensitivities at 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours post infection. The results reveal a dynamic rank-ordering of the drivers of outcome sensitivity in early infection, providing insights into the dramatic population-scale outcome diversity during the COVID-19 pandemic. While we focus on SARS-CoV-2, the model and methods are applicable to any inhaled virus in the immediate 48 hours post infection.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.04.565660v1" target="_blank">Global Sensitivity Analysis of the Onset of Nasal Passage Infection by SARS-CoV-2 With Respect to Heterogeneity in Host Physiology and Host Cell-Virus Kinetic Interactions</a>
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<li><strong>Integrated longitudinal multi-omics study identifies immune programs associated with COVID-19 severity and mortality in 1152 hospitalized participants</strong> -
<div>
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients exhibit diverse clinical outcomes, with some individuals diverging over time even though their initial disease severity appears similar. A systematic evaluation of molecular and cellular profiles over the full disease course can link immune programs and their coordination with progression heterogeneity. In this study, we carried out deep immunophenotyping and conducted longitudinal multi-omics modeling integrating ten distinct assays on a total of 1,152 IMPACC participants and identified several immune cascades that were significant drivers of differential clinical outcomes. Increasing disease severity was driven by a temporal pattern that began with the early upregulation of immunosuppressive metabolites and then elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines, signatures of coagulation, NETosis, and T-cell functional dysregulation. A second immune cascade, predictive of 28-day mortality among critically ill patients, was characterized by reduced total plasma immunoglobulins and B cells, as well as dysregulated IFN responsiveness. We demonstrated that the balance disruption between IFN-stimulated genes and IFN inhibitors is a crucial biomarker of COVID-19 mortality, potentially contributing to the failure of viral clearance in patients with fatal illness. Our longitudinal multi-omics profiling study revealed novel temporal coordination across diverse omics that potentially explain disease progression, providing insights that inform the targeted development of therapies for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, especially those critically ill.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.03.565292v1" target="_blank">Integrated longitudinal multi-omics study identifies immune programs associated with COVID-19 severity and mortality in 1152 hospitalized participants</a>
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<li><strong>Dynamic gene expression analysis reveals distinct severity phases of immune and cellular dysregulation in COVID-19</strong> -
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Background: COVID-19 patients experience dynamic changes in immune and cellular function over time with potential clinical implications. However, there is insufficient research investigating, on a gene expression level, the mechanisms that become activated or suppressed over time as patients deteriorate or recover, which can inform use of repurposed and novel drugs as therapies. Objective: To investigate longitudinal changes in gene expression profiles throughout the COVID-19 disease timeline. Methods: Three-hundred whole blood samples from 128 adult patients were collected during hospitalization from COVID-19, with up to five samples per patient. Transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq), differential gene expression analysis and pathway enrichment was performed. Drug-gene set enrichment analysis was used to identify FDA-approved medications that could inhibit critical genes and proteins at each disease phase. Prognostic gene-expression signatures were generated using machine learning to distinguish 3 disease stages. Results: Samples were longitudinally grouped by clinical criteria and gene expression into six disease phases: Mild, Moderate, Severe, Critical, Recovery, and Discharge. Distinct mechanisms with differing trajectories during COVID-19 hospitalization were apparent. Antiviral responses peaked early in COVID-19, while heme metabolism pathways became active much later during disease. Adaptive immune dysfunction, inflammation, and metabolic derangements were most pronounced during phases with higher disease severity, while hemostatic abnormalities were elevated early and persisted throughout the disease course. Drug-gene set enrichment analysis predicted repurposed medications for potential use, including platelet inhibitors in early disease, antidiabetic medications for patients with increased disease severity, and dasatinib throughout the disease course. Disease phases could be categorized using specific gene signatures for prognosis and treatment selection. Disease phases were also highly correlated to previously developed sepsis endotypes, indicating that severity and disease timing were significant contributors to heterogeneity observed in sepsis and COVID-19. Conclusions: Higher temporal resolution of longitudinal mechanisms in COVID-19 revealed multiple immune and cellular changes that were activated at different phases of COVID-19. Understanding how a patient's gene expression profile changes over time can permit more accurate risk stratification of patients and provide time-dependent personalized treatments with repurposed medications. This creates an opportunity for timely intervention before patients transition to a more severe phase, potentially accelerating patients to recovery.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.11.04.565404v1" target="_blank">Dynamic gene expression analysis reveals distinct severity phases of immune and cellular dysregulation in COVID-19</a>
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<li><strong>Supply Chain Resilience and Medicine Availability in Saudi Arabian Pharmacies: A Case Study in Jeddah</strong> -
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This article investigates the critical issue of supply chain resilience and its impact on medicine availability in Saudi Arabian pharmacies, focusing on a case study in Jeddah. During the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacies in Jeddah experienced significant supply chain disruptions, leading to challenges in maintaining medicine availability. The study explores the resilience measures implemented by these pharmacies during the crisis and offers practical recommendations to enhance supply chain resilience. These recommendations include regulatory adjustments, the adoption of advanced technology, and strategic approaches to ensure uninterrupted access to essential medicines. This research underscores the crucial role of resilient supply chains in the context of public health and emphasizes the need for proactive measures to safeguard medicine availability in Saudi Arabian pharmacies and similar healthcare settings.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/f47xh/" target="_blank">Supply Chain Resilience and Medicine Availability in Saudi Arabian Pharmacies: A Case Study in Jeddah</a>
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<li><strong>Zheln.com: A protocol for a universal living overview of health-related systematic reviews</strong> -
<div>
BACKGROUND Objectives. 1. Identify and monitor most of published systematic reviews. 2. Tag the identified systematic records with medical specialties. 3. Select or crowdfund reviews for further appraisal. 4. Critically appraise and replicate the selected systematic reviews. 5. Disseminate practice implications of positively appraised reviews to both the public and evidence-based practitioners in health care and other fields associated with intervention into a human life, such as education, business, policy, or ecology. METHODS Eligibility criteria. Record eligibility is assessed by checking the record title and, if the title failed, abstract against the true positive criteria for systematic reviews taken from the publication by Shojania &amp; Bero, 2001 (PMID 11525102). The record/study flow is as follows: All eligible records are amenable for tagging, selection, and crowdfunding process; Only those eligible records that have been selected or crowdfunded are subject to critical appraisal; For all records that have been selected, all relevant reports are collected; Reports are grouped into studies; Only for the studies appraised positively, practical implications are summarized and disseminated. COVID-19 publications are not selected. Crowdfunding an appraisal of any eligible record is possible for any individual or organization. Information sources. MEDLINE via PubMed. Adding other search sources, such as Scopus, OSF, and medRxiv, is planned in the future when more appraisers become available. The Replicated Version of the PubMed Systematic Review Subset Query Zheln Edition (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/Z3JU7) will be used. The searches are run daily. Risk of bias. Critical appraisal will feature: Duplication assessment; Replication; Assessment against the MECIR conduct standards; ROB-ME assessment; GRADE assessment. Synthesis of results. No across-studies synthesis is planned. Within-studies, I will formulate explicit practice-relevant statements based on the extracted health outcomes and quality-of-conduct assessment. Also, the process of each critical appraisal is video-recorded and published on YouTube daily. OTHER Funding. The review is crowdfunded; the details are available from the Zheln website (https://zheln.com). Crowd funders had no role in the design of the protocol. They will be able to request critical appraisal and additional critical appraisal (with new data provided) of any eligible record but will not influence the review process otherwise. Registration. The project is hosted on GitHub. Also, there is an umbrella Open Science Framework project that links repositories and preprints (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJKFC). The protocol for this overview of systematic reviews has been submitted for registration in PROSPERO.
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<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/y2nrb/" target="_blank">Zheln.com: A protocol for a universal living overview of health-related systematic reviews</a>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Brief Digital Intervention to Increase COVID-19 Vaccination Among Individuals With Anxiety or Depression</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Misinformation; Vaccine Hesitancy; Anxiety; Depression; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Attitudinal inoculation; Behavioral: Cognitive-behavioral therapy-informed intervention; Behavioral: Conventional public health messaging <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: City University of New York, School of Public Health; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A PhaseⅡ Study to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine( ZSVG-02-O)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O); Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O); Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell) ,Inactivated <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: CNBG-Virogin Biotech (Shanghai) Ltd. <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pilot Randomized Study of RD-X19 Tx Device in Subjects With PCC (Long Covid) in the Outpatient Setting</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Post COVID-19 Condition (PCC) <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: RDX-19 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: KNOWBio Inc.; NAMSA <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CPAP Therapy Through a Helmet or a Full Face Mask in Patients With Acute Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure: Cross-over Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pneumonia, Bacterial; Respiratory Failure; COVID-19 Pneumonia <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Diagnostic Test: Arterial blood gases; Diagnostic Test: Respiratory rate (RR); Diagnostic Test: Pulseoximeter; Diagnostic Test: Assessment of accessory respiratory muscles work; Diagnostic Test: Esophageal pressure measurement; Diagnostic Test: Discomfort Visual Analog Scale (VAS); Diagnostic Test: Noninvasive blood pressure; Diagnostic Test: Heart rate <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Phase Study to Evaluate the Safety and Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Vaccine( ZSVG-02-O)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine (ZSVG-02-O); Biological: Placebo; Biological: COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell) ,Inactivated <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: CNBG-Virogin Biotech (Shanghai) Ltd.; Shulan (Hangzhou) Hospital <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Investigation of Efficacy and Safety of Electrical Signal Therapy Provided by Dr Biolyse® Device in COVID-19 Disease</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Pneumonia; Virus Diseases; COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Signal Therapy provided by Dr.Biolyse device; Other: Liquid Support Treatment <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: AVB Biotechnology <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SAFE Workplace Intervention for People With IDD</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Developement of Infectious Airborne Disease Prevention Workplace Curriclulm <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: SAFE Employment Training <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Temple University; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of an EMDR Intervention on Traumatic and Obsessive Symptoms</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Adult ALL; Post-traumatic Stress Disorder; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Disgust; Guilt; Shame <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: EMDR <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Pisa <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lithium Long COVID Dose-finding Study</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Lithium <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: State University of New York at Buffalo <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pharmacokinetics and Safety of GST-HG171 Tablets in Subjects With Impaired and Normal Renal Function</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Pneumonia <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: GST-HG171 Tablets <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Fujian Akeylink Biotechnology Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Preoperative Educational Videos on Maternal Stress Whose Children Received Congenital Heart Disease Surgery: During COVID-19 Panic</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Educational Videos; Maternal; Uncertainty; Anxiety; Depression; Congenital Heart Disease; Children <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Preoperative educational videos plus routine education; Other: Preoperative routine education <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Chung Shan Medical University <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pharmacokinetics and Safety of GST-HG171 Tablets in Subjects With Impaired and Normal Liver Function</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Pneumonia <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Drug: GST-HG171 Tablets <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Fujian Akeylink Biotechnology Co., Ltd. <br/><b>Completed</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Evaluation of Concordance Between Exhaled Air Test (eBAM-CoV) and RT-PCR to Detect SARS-CoV-2</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: SARS-CoV-2 Infection; COVID-19; Coronavirus <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: eBAM Cov Testing <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nīmes; University of Nimes; brains laboratory sas, FRANCE <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study to Safety, Tolerability and Immunogenicity of EG-COVII in Healthy Adult</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: EG-COVII <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: EyeGene Inc. <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The prediction of main protease SARS-CoV-2 inhibition based on models of enzyme-inhibitor complexes</strong> - A set of linear regression equations predicting the IC50 values for SARS-CoV-2 main protease inhibitors was analyzed. For 180 competitive inhibitors, we have simulated the molecular dynamics of enzyme-inhibitor complexes with known structures or modeled using molecular docking. In the docking procedure, the selection of final poses was restricted by similarity to known structural analogs. The values of the energy contributions obtained by means of calculation of the free energy change of the…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rituximab, but not other biologics, impairs humoral immunity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis-a study using CoVariant protein arrays</strong> - CONCLUSION: After receiving three doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, RA patients who underwent rituximab treatment generated sufficient antibodies but exhibited lower neutralizing activities against wild-type and multiple variants, including current Omicron. Other biological DMARDs, e.g. TNF inhibitor, IL-6 inhibitor and CTLA4-Ig, did not show obvious inhibition.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 infection in human airway epithelium with a xeno-nucleic acid aptamer</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Together, these results suggest that FANA-R8-9 effectively prevents infection by specific SARS-CoV-2 variants and indicate that aptamer technology could be utilized to target other clinically-relevant viruses in the respiratory mucosa.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Broad spectrum post-entry inhibitors of coronavirus replication: Cardiotonic steroids and monensin</strong> - A small molecule screen identified several cardiotonic steroids (digitoxin and ouabain) and the ionophore monensin as potent inhibitors of HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, and SARS-CoV-2 replication with EC(50)s in the low nM range. Subsequent tests confirmed antiviral activity in primary cell models including human nasal epithelial cells and lung organoids. Addition of digitoxin, ouabain, or monensin strongly reduced viral gene expression as measured by both viral protein and RNA accumulation….</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lipin-2 regulates the antiviral and anti-inflammatory responses to interferon</strong> - Interferons (IFN) are crucial antiviral and immunomodulatory cytokines that exert their function through the regulation of a myriad of genes, many of which are not yet characterized. Here, we reveal that lipin-2, a phosphatidic acid phosphatase whose mutations produce an autoinflammatory syndrome known as Majeed syndrome in humans, is regulated by IFN in a STAT-1-dependent manner. Lipin-2 inhibits viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, lipin-2 also acts as a regulator of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Saying no to SARS-CoV-2: the potential of nitric oxide in the treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia</strong> - Nitric oxide (NO), a gaseous free radical produced from L-arginine catalyzed by NO synthase, functions as an important signaling molecule in the human body. Its antiviral activity was confirmed in the 1990s, and has been studied more extensively since the outbreak of the SARS pandemic in 2003. In the fight against the ongoing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, some recent studies have revealed the potential of NO in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Understanding psychology students perspective on video psychotherapy and their intention to offer it after graduation: a mixed-methods study</strong> - INTRODUCTION: Video psychotherapy (VPT) demonstrated strong clinical efficacy in the past, with patients and psychotherapists expressing satisfaction with its outcomes. Despite this, VPT only gained full recognition from the German healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic. As society increasingly relies on new media, it seems likely that VPT will become even more relevant. Previous studies surveyed practicing psychotherapists and patients about advantages and disadvantages of VPT. In…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Oral mucosa immunity: ultimate strategy to stop spreading of pandemic viruses</strong> - Global pandemics are most likely initiated via zoonotic transmission to humans in which respiratory viruses infect airways with relevance to mucosal systems. Out of the known pandemics, five were initiated by respiratory viruses including current ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Striking progress in vaccine development and therapeutics has helped ameliorate the mortality and morbidity by infectious agents. Yet, organism replication and virus spread through mucosal tissues cannot be…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Intracellular delivery of nuclear localization sequence peptide mitigates COVID-19 by inhibiting nuclear transport of inflammation associated transcription factors</strong> - The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, can trigger dysregulated immune responses known as cytokine release syndrome (CRS), leading to severe organ dysfunction and respiratory distress. Our study focuses on developing an improved cell-permeable nuclear import inhibitor, iCP-NI, capable of blocking the nuclear transport of inflammation-associated transcription factors (IATFs), specifically nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB). By fusing advanced macromolecule transduction domains…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment for Long COVID: From Molecular Mechanism to Clinical Practice</strong> - Long COVID symptoms typically occur within 3 months of an initial COVID-19 infection, last for more than 2 months, and cannot be explained by other diagnoses. The most common symptoms include fatigue, dyspnea, coughing, and cognitive impairment. The mechanisms of long COVID are not fully understood, but several hypotheses have been put forth. These include coagulation and fibrosis pathway activation, inflammatory and autoimmune manifestations, persistent virus presence, and Epstein-Barr virus…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The extracellular polysaccharide inhibit porcine epidemic diarrhea virus with extract and gene editing Lacticaseibacillus</strong> - Lacticaseibacillus is one of the predominant microorganisms in gut from human and animal, and the lacticaseibacillus have effective applications against the viral diarrhea of piglets in the farm. However, the function and the concrete cell single pathways of the active ingredient from lacticaseibacillus was not clear within anti-infection in the postbiotics research. Here, we compared the biological function of extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) purified from lacticaseibacillus casei (L. casei)…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Selectivity, efficacy and safety of JAKinibs: new evidence for a still evolving story</strong> - Fundamental insight gained over the last decades led to the discovery of cytokines as pivotal drivers of inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis/psoriasis arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases, atopic dermatitis and spondylarthritis. A deeper understanding of the pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory effects of various cytokines has prompted new cytokine-targeting therapies, which revolutionised the treatment options in the last years for patients with inflammatory…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Veratramine Inhibits Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Entry through Macropinocytosis by Suppressing PI3K/Akt Pathway</strong> - Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) is a contagious intestinal disease caused by α-coronavirus porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). At present, no effective vaccine is available to prevent the disease. Therefore, research for novel antivirals is important. This study aimed to identify the antiviral mechanism of Veratramine (VAM), which actively inhibits PEDV replication with a 50% inhibitory concentration (IC(50)) of 5 µM. Upon VAM treatment, both PEDV-nucleocapsid (N) protein level and virus…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Promising role of Vitamin D and plant metabolites against COVID-19: Clinical trials review</strong> - Vitamin D possesses immunomodulatory qualities and is protective against respiratory infections. Additionally, it strengthens adaptive and cellular immunity and boosts the expression of genes involved in oxidation. Experts suggested taking vitamin D supplements to avoid and treat viral infection and also COVID-19, on the other hand, since the beginning of time, the use of plants as medicines have been vital to human wellbeing. The WHO estimates that 80 % of people worldwide use plants or herbs…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Plant-Derived Antioxidants for Management of COVID-19: A Comprehensive Review of Molecular Mechanisms</strong> - We aimed to review the literature to introduce some effective plant-derived antioxidants to prevent and treat COVID-19. Natural products from plants are excellent sources to be used for such discoveries. Among different plant-derived bioactive substances, components including luteolin, quercetin, glycyrrhizin, andrographolide, patchouli alcohol, baicalin, and baicalein were investigated for several viral infections as well as SARS-COV-2. The mechanisms of effects detected for these agents were…</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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