Summary

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and the disease now affects nearly every country and region. Caused by SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 continues nearly 18 months later to present significant challenges to health systems and public health in both hemispheres, as well as the economies of every country. The morbidity and mortality of the infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 has been significant, and various waves of disease outbreaks initially overwhelmed many hospitals and clinics and continue to do so in many countries. This influences everyone, and public health countermeasures have been dramatic in terms of their impact on employment, social systems, and mental health. This entry collection aims to gather diverse fields about COVID-19, including in epidemiology, public health, medicine, genetics, systems biology, informatics, data science, engineering, sociology, anthropology, nursing, environmental studies, statistics, and psychology.

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Entries
Topic Review
SARS-CoV-2 and the Risk Assessment
In December 2019, several cases of atypical pneumonia were detected in Wuhan city, Hubei province, inland China. The initial outbreak was of considerable size first in China subsequently spread to the rest of the world. Immediately after the epidemic (which according to the World Health Organization had risen to pandemic status), the problem of whether or not to update the occupational risk assessment arose, also considering how the biological risk from SARS CoV-2 should be understood: specific or generic. To this end, we conducted a literature review to identify national health legislation and policies, examining how Italy has addressed the COVID-19 emergency in occupational health planning, in order to develop considerations on the need to update the Risk Assessment Document following the pandemic status. The data that emerged from the review of current legislation allowed us to conclude that the risk from SARS-CoV-2 is in most work activities to be understood as a generic or aggravated generic risk, requiring the employer to apply and control the preventive measures suggested by health authorities to contain the spread of the virus.
  • 934
  • 14 May 2021
Topic Review
Formulation of Nanocarrier-based Viral Vaccines
Vaccination, employing peptides, nucleic acids, and other molecules, or using pathogen-based strategies, in fact, is one of the most potent approaches in the management of viral diseases. However, the vaccine candidate requires protection from degradation and precise delivery to the target cells. This can be achieved by employing different types of drug and vaccine delivery strategies, among which, nanotechnology-based systems seem to be more promising. 
  • 1.2K
  • 25 May 2021
Topic Review
Single-Molecule FRET Imaging
Single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) has provided a powerful platform to connect structure–function in motion, revealing dynamic aspects of spikes for several viruses: SARS-CoV-2, HIV-1, influenza, and Ebola.
  • 1.0K
  • 11 May 2021
Topic Review
Big Data Analytics in COVID-19
The COVID-19 epidemic has caused a large number of human losses and havoc in the economic, social, societal, and health systems around the world. Controlling such epidemic requires understanding its characteristics and behavior, which can be identified by collecting and analyzing the related big data. Big data analytics tools play a vital role in building knowledge required in making decisions and precautionary measures. However, due to the vast amount of data available on COVID-19 from various sources, there is a need to review the roles of big data analysis in controlling the spread of COVID-19, presenting the main challenges and directions of COVID-19 data analysis, as well as providing a framework on the related existing applications and studies to facilitate future research on COVID-19 analysis.
  • 3.5K
  • 04 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Hypo-Thalamic Circuits
The hypothalamus is a complex structure that is composed of many nuclei and diverse neuronal cell groups. It is characterized by intricate intrahypothalamic circuits that orchestrate a finely tuned communication within the CNS and with the PNS. Hypothalamic circuits are critical for maintaining homeostatic challenges including immune responses to viral infections.
  • 972
  • 07 May 2021
Topic Review
Protective Face Masks
The pandemic has resulted in the loss of lives and has caused economic hardships. Most of the devices used to protect against the transmission of the novel COVID-19 disease are related to textile structures. Hence, the challenge for textile professionals is to design and develop suitable textile structures with multiple functionalities for capturing viruses, passivating them, and, at the same time, having no adverse effects on humans during the complete period of use. In addition to manufacturing efficient, biocompatible, and cost-effective protective face masks, it is also necessary to inform the public about the benefits and risks of protective face mask materials.
  • 943
  • 27 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Biotechnology for COVID-19 Diagnosis
To date, six human coronaviruses have been identified: α-coronaviruses (HCoVs-NL63, HCoVs-229E), β-coronaviruses (HCoVs-OC43, HCoVs-HKU1), severe acute respiratory syndrome-CoV (SARS-CoV), and Middle East respiratory syndrome-CoV (MERS-CoV). After the SARS-CoV-1 epidemic, the world is living a new threat to human health since December 2019—the SARS-CoV-2 or the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence of the novel coronavirus is associated with an atypical pneumonia that has led to 90,176,569 infections and 1,936,617 deaths worldwide, as of 10 January 2021. Structurally, SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped RNA(Ribonucleic acid) virus comprising a spike protein (S), a hemagglutinin-esterase dimer (HE), a membrane glycoprotein (M), an envelope protein (E), and a nucleocapsid protein (N). It has been demonstrated that the mechanism of the viral infection requires angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) binding to the protein S with high affinity. Highly expressed in the endothelial cells of the cardiovascular system and kidneys, this human receptor is used by the virus as an entry to invade target cells. Currently, immunoassays are the most popular diagnostic tools available in the market and used in medical structures. Basically, these methods use antibodies as bioreceptors targeting capsid proteins or whole viruses. In serological testing, capsid proteins are used as viral antigens to bind the immunoglobulins generated by the patient against the pathogen. Antibodies are usually obtained from animal immunization with N, S, or E protein or from the blood samples of patients who are infected [14]. In addition to the commercialized ELISA kits and rapid tests, several research reports have described novel immunoassays and immunosensors for coronavirus detection. We discuss in this part the principle of these methods as well as the most important results.
  • 1.4K
  • 21 Apr 2021
Topic Review
COVID-19 on Sexual&Reproductive Health
The emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly transformed the pre-existing worldwide sexual and reproductive health environment. The provision and supply of contraceptives, and a wide variety of sexual health, new-born, and maternal health services have been seriously affected. Thus, this scoping review mapped the available evidence on the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on sexual and reproductive health. 
  • 982
  • 20 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Cardiovascular Complications Associated with COVID-19
An infectious coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is accompanied with elevated risk and adverse outcome among infected patients, even sudden death due to significant multiple organ dysfunction, including dire cardiovascular complications. Myocardial impairment due to invasion of SARS-CoV-2 virus via angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor to cardiovascular cells/tissue leads to endothelial inflammation and dysfunction, de-stabilization of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques, stent thrombosis and cardiac stress, caused by diminished oxygen supply and cardiac muscle damage and myocardial infarction. A number of promising therapeutic approaches are currently under clinical trials to avoid a massive surge of COVID-19 patients with prevalence of adverse cardiac events.
  • 1.8K
  • 19 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Saliva and SARS-CoV-2
A novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak has become a global ongoing pandemic. This pandemic represents a great work risk for all health professionals, it includes dental professionals who are in constant contact with saliva, which represents one of the main routes of transmission of the disease. For several decades, saliva has been continuously studied as a means of assessing human health because it contains a wide variety of biomarkers. This is because saliva is a mixture of fluids from the salivary glands, crevicular fluids, desquamated epithelial cells, microorganisms, and a great number of proteins such as immunoglobulins, hormones, enzymes, and cytokines. Besides, a wide variety of oral tissues and cells are susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2 and that they express the ACE2 receptor, which is the main route of entry of the virus into cells, as well as the proteins TMPRSS and furin that contributes to the binding of the virus to the host cells.
  • 833
  • 14 Apr 2021
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