Nipah virus (NiV) is a deadly virus with a high mortality rate that has affected many developing countries in the past. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many economically deprived countries such as Madagascar, Cambodia, and Thailand are also at high risk for future outbreaks. The first case of NiV was reported in 1998 and almost two decades later, little scientific progress has been made in finding a proper treatment and prevention vaccine. As many developing countries are not properly equipped to fight the infection, it is vital to properly educate the health systems. The aim of this review is to provide an epidemiological background as well as to understand the transmission routes, presentation, and the diagnosis and prevention of this deadly virus.
Introduction
The world is currently facing the pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The total number of cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is rising daily and no vaccine has yet been approved. While the pathophysiology behind the virus is still being studied, many possible several risk factors using small sample sizes have been found.
Material and methods
We conducted a pooled analysis using several databases such as Medline, Scopus, Wangfang, Web of Science, Research Square, medrxiv, and Google Scholar to identify studies reporting severe and non-severe groups of COVID-19 patients. The odds ratios as well as the 95% confidence intervals for hypertension, diabetes, and cerebrovascular disease leading to severe COVID-19 were calculated using R-software.
Results
Fifty-three articles were used for our analysis and they involved 30,935 confirmed cases of COVID-19 from several countries across the world. The odds ratio for severe COVID-19 in hypertensive patients, diabetics, and patients with a history of cerebrovascular disease was 2.58 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.16–3.08, from 53 studies), 2.17 (95% CI: 1.72–2.74, from 44 studies), and 2.63 (95% CI: 1.80–3.85, from 25 studies), respectively.
Conclusions
Our analysis confirms that patients with hypertension, diabetes, or cerebrovascular disease are at a higher risk of a severe outcome of COVID-19. It is thus vital for physicians to identify the main risk factors for a severe outcome of this disease.
It has been more than a year since the new virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in Wuhan, China. The disease it causes was named Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and on 11 March 2020 it was declared a pandemic. As the virus continues to spread, the number of patients worldwide has already crossed the 100 million mark with more than 2 million deaths. We sought to provide an update on the progress made in identifying the virus, its pathophysiology, risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, and smoking, as well as various methods of treatment. Our review also provided an overview of the different vaccines.
The American Heart Association recently reported that stroke is currently the 5th most common cause of death among Americans as one in every 19 deaths is from stroke [1]. While some studies have shown a decline in the incidence and rate of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) hospitalizations among adults in the United States [2], its impact over the healthcare system in the United States is still a major burden. Several racial/ethnic and gender disparities have also been reported among AIS patients over the years. A rise in the incidence among younger individuals, which could be linked with the use of multiple drugs predisposing to stroke such as cocaine [3, 4], has also raised serious concerns about the condition [2]. Thus, we conducted a retrospective study on the incidence and mortality of AIS hospitalizations and understand its economic impact in the United States.
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