A novel member of human coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), has been recently recognized in China and rapidly spread worldwide. Studies showed the decreasing of peripheral blood lymphocytes in a majority of patients. In this study, we have reported the clinical features, laboratory characteristics, the frequency of peripheral blood lymphocyte subpopulations, and their apoptosis pattern in Iranian coronavirus infectious disease (COVID‐19) patients. Demographic and clinical data of 61 hospitalized confirmed cases with COVID‐19 at Imam Khomeini Hospital were collected and analyzed. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated from all samples and the apoptosis pattern was evaluated using Annexin V/propidium iodide method. The frequency of lymphocyte subsets, including T‐CD4+, T‐CD8+, NK, B cells, and monocytes, was measured in all patients and 31 controls by flow cytometry. Our findings demonstrated that the percentage of lymphocytes, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells were decreased in COVID‐19 patients compared with the control group. Regarding the clinical severity, the number of lymphocytes, CD4+, CD8+ T cells, and NK cells were also decreased in severe cases when compared with mild cases. Finally, our data have also indicated the increase in apoptosis of mononuclear cells from COVID‐19 patients which was more remarkable in severe clinical cases. The frequency of immune cells is a useful indicator for prediction of severity and prognosis of COVID‐19 patients. These results could help to explain the immunopathogenesis of SARS‐CoV‐2 and introducing novel biomarkers, therapeutic strategies, and vaccine candidates.

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PurposeRobust biomarkers that predict disease outcomes amongst COVID-19 patients are necessary for both patient triage and resource prioritisation. Numerous candidate biomarkers have been proposed for COVID-19. However, at present, there is no consensus on the best diagnostic approach to predict outcomes in infected patients. Moreover, it is not clear whether such tools would apply to other potentially pandemic pathogens and therefore of use as stockpile for future pandemic preparedness.MethodsWe conducted a multi-cohort observational study to investigate the biology and the prognostic role of interferon alpha-inducible protein 27 (IFI27) in COVID-19 patients.ResultsWe show that IFI27 is expressed in the respiratory tract of COVID-19 patients and elevated IFI27 expression in the lower respiratory tract is associated with the presence of a high viral load. We further demonstrate that the systemic host response, as measured by blood IFI27 expression, is associated with COVID-19 infection. For clinical outcome prediction (e.g., respiratory failure), IFI27 expression displays a high sensitivity (0.95) and specificity (0.83), outperforming other known predictors of COVID-19 outcomes. Furthermore, IFI27 is upregulated in the blood of infected patients in response to other respiratory viruses. For example, in the pandemic H1N1/09 influenza virus infection, IFI27-like genes were highly upregulated in the blood samples of severely infected patients.ConclusionThese data suggest that prognostic biomarkers targeting the family of IFI27 genes could potentially supplement conventional diagnostic tools in future virus pandemics, independent of whether such pandemics are caused by a coronavirus, an influenza virus or another as yet-to-be discovered respiratory virus.

Varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes chicken pox as a primary infection following which it becomes latent in neurons. It may then reactivate to cause shingles (herpes zoster). Severity of lesions and VZV pathogenicity are depended on the host's immune response and variant in VZV Dr Athina Myrto ChioniIdentification of VZV seroprevalance rate in general population may lead to develop new health strategic managements such as vaccination. Therefore, we aimed to provide a systematic review of the seroprevalence of VZV infection among Iranian population and estimate age-and gender-specific prevalence of VZV.Keywords "seroprevalence", "varicella zoster virus", and "Iran" were searched in international electronic databases and also in national Persian databases. Twenty two pooled studies among 262 total studies containing (240 published articles, 18 dissertations, and 4 proceedings abstracts) from 1992 to 2014 with total sample size of 7867 individuals were included in the final review.Data was analyzed using random effect method. The heterogeneity was calculated using I-square statistics.The overall IgG seroprevalence rate of VZV infection in general population of Iran was 78.50% (95% CI; 77.74% -79.25%). There was significant heterogeneity among the studies (P<0.0001; I²=99.4%). Furthermore, the relative risk of VZV infection is high in females (80.47%, 95% CI; 79.40% -81.54%) and older adults (95.30%, 95% CI; 94.11% -96.48%).Our results may represent a true background and estimation of VZV infection in Iran and generate the cost-benefits immunization program. Moreover, the ensuing data suggests further attention on disease seroprevalence in order to obtain efficient data for therapeutic intervention targeted against VZV.

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