Background. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been declared a global public health emergency that is affecting people across the globe.Objectives. The aim of this study was to assess the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) of dental practitioners regarding the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-2019) pandemic.Material and methods. An online questionnaire was distributed among dentists across the globe using a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. The questionnaire was divided into 4 sections: the 1 st one contained personal information, whereas the 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th sections assessed knowledge (11 questions), attitudes (6 questions) and practices (7 questions) of the dentists. The data was subjected to the Shapiro-Wilk test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), multivariate linear regression, and Pearson' s correlation; 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated and odds ratio (OR) was obtained. The analysis was done using IBM SPSS for Windows, v. 21.0.Results. The total number of the responses received (860) was divided with regard to various continents (Asia, Americas -North and South, Europe, Africa, and other -Australia and Antarctica). The largest number of dentists came from the Asian continent (264; 30.7%). Most dentists had a degree of MDS (Master of Dental Science) (301; 35.0%), followed by BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) (282; 32.8%) and DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) (226; 26.3%). High/Good knowledge and practice scores were observed among 92.7% and 79.5 % of the dentists, respectively. Good knowledge scores were significantly associated with qualifications (p = 0.04) and years of practice (p = 0.02); good practice scores were associated with qualifications only (p = 0.03).Conclusions. The dentists were found to have good knowledge and practice scores, which is important to combat COVID-19. They are advised to follow the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines in their clinics, and sensitize their staff so that no stone is left unturned in defeating this pandemic.

Background: Sepsis is the leading cause of death in critically ill patients despite widespread use of newer antibiotics and resuscitation measures. There is a need of biomarkers to identify patients at high risk of adverse outcomes so that early and appropriate treatment can be instituted to improve the outcomes. Septic shock is one of the hyperferritinemic syndromes and ferritin level > 500 ng/ml was associated with 3.2 relative risk of death in children with severe sepsis and septic shock. This study was done to find the relation between serum ferritin and its glycosylated fraction at baseline and after 72 h with outcomes in patients with sepsis.Methods and materials: A total of 90 patients with sepsis diagnosed as per Sepsis-3 criteria admitted to a tertiary care referral hospital in South India between January 2017 and December 2018 were included in the study. Patients with severe iron deficiency anaemia, iron supplementation, recent blood transfusion and patients with conditions known to alter iron metabolism such as hemochromatosis, haemolytic anaemia, chronic inflammatory diseases, chronic kidney and liver diseases were excluded. At admission SOFA and APACHE II scores were calculated and SOFA score was calculated again after 72 h. Serum ferritin and its glycosylated fraction were estimated before or within 6 h of first antibiotic administration and after 72 h. Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Mann-Whitney test and Spearman's rank test were used to find the relation between ferritin and its glycosylated fraction and sepsis severity and mortality.Results: Of 90 patients, 58 (64%) were males and 57 (63%) were in the age group of 36 to 64 y. At baseline mean SOFA and APACHE II scores were 7 and 18 respectively. A total of 24 (27%) patients died. Median ferritin and glycosylated ferritin at baseline were 550 and 27 ng/ml respectively. APACHE II at admission and SOFA score correlated with mortality but neither the baseline nor ferritin and glycosylated ferritin correlated with mortality. Similarly there was no correlation between ferritin and glycosylated ferritin levels and APACHE II and SOFA scores.Conclusion: Serum ferritin and its glycosylated fraction did not correlate with severity or outcome in patients with sepsis.