Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV‐2) infection is rapidly evolving as a serious global pandemic. The present study describes the clinical characteristics of SARS CoV‐2 infection patients. The samples were subjected to reverse‐transcription polymerase chain reaction or Rapid Antigen test for diagnosis of SARS CoV‐2. A cohort of 3745 patients with confirmed diagnosis of SARS CoV‐2 infection in a tertiary care center in New Delhi, India were included in this study. Data were collected from offline and online medical records over a period of 6 months. Amongst 3745 SARS CoV‐2 infected patients, 2245 (60%) were symptomatic and 1500 (40%) were asymptomatic. Most common presenting symptom was cough (49.3%) followed febrile episodes (47.1%), breathlessness (42.7%), and sore throat (35.1%). Cough along with breathlessness (24.1) was the most common combination of symptoms followed by fever with cough (22.7). The most common comorbidity found among symptomatic group was diabetes (42.5%) followed by hypertension (21.4%) and chronic kidney disease (18%). Comorbidities like diabetes mellitus, chronic diseases of lungs, heart, and kidneys were found to be common in symptomatic group and this was found to be statistically significant (p < .05). COVID‐19 is an evolving disease and data from our study help in understanding the clinic‐epidemiological profile of patients.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) pathogenesis is thought to be induced by a mix of genetic susceptibility, microbial populations, and immune triggers such as infections. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-nCoV2) may have increased capacity to generate autoimmune disease as evidenced by known spikes in diseases such as type 1 diabetes mellitus. Public health interventions like masking and closures additionally created remarkable drops in typical viral infections, with remarkable shifts in influenza-like illness reporting in 2020. This study aims to evaluate the impact of SARS-nCoV2 and associated interventions on pediatric IBD presentation in New York City using records of new diagnoses at a consortium of 4 institutions between 2016 and June 2022. We fit time series model (autoregressive integrated moving average model) to monthly and quarterly number of cases of each disease for January 2016–March 2020 and forecast the period between April 2020 and June 2022. We note no decrease in ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn disease (CD) in the aftermath of historic low levels of overall viral illness, and statistically significant increases in CD diagnoses and elevation in UC diagnoses creating a trend suggesting overall increase in IBD diagnoses exceeding the baseline rate of increase. These data suggest a possible linkage between SARS-nCoV2 infection rates and subsequent pediatric IBD presentation.
SARS-nCoV2 may have increased capacity to generate autoimmune disease; multiple reports suggest increased risk of Type 1 Diabetes, and case reports suggest other autoimmune linkages. Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) pathogenesis appears to be a mix of genetic susceptibility, microbial populations, and immune triggers such as infections. Given the perceived role of infection in pathogenesis, decreased incidence of all infections during the pandemic secondary to non-pharmaceutical interventions should decrease IBD incidence rates. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the Covid-19 pandemic and IBD presentation in NYC using data from new diagnoses at a consortium of institutions.
Using EMR systems all diagnoses at 4 collaborating institutions were retrieved from 2015-2021. We fit time series model (ARIMA) to the quarterly number of cases of each disease for January 2016-March 2020 and forecast the subsequent 21 months. We not only did not observe a decline in pediatric IBD secondary to absent viral illness, but noted a statistically significant increase in Crohn's Disease approximately 6 months after the initial 2020 COVID wave in NYC, and trends suggesting increases overall in IBD diagnoses above the existing trend towards increased disease presentation that pre-dated the pandemic. This data suggests that there may be a linkage between SARS-nCoV2 infection rates and subsequent pediatric IBD presentation, warranting further evaluation in the aftermath of the Omicron wave.
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