Worst Hit Countries Research Articles

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)-associated mucormycosis (CAM): The unholy triad of COVID-19, diabetes mellitus, and corticosteroid therapy.

The whole world has battled with multiple waves of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus. However, the second wave of COVID-19 had caused a worldwide havoc in terms of disease transmissibility, severity, and mortality. India has been among the worst hit countries during the second wave, which substantially overburdened and overwhelmed the Indian health care system. While secondary infections and co-infections among COVID-19 patients were increasingly being reported, COVID-19-associated mucormycosis (CAM) emerged as a new challenge particularly from India and became a matter of immediate concern. The most common causes attributed to the rise of CAM were undiagnosed/uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, excessive use of corticosteroids, and prolonged hospital stay, all of which create a perfect environment for mucormycosis infection to set in.

Evaluation of the artemisinin content of Artemisia annua L. grown in different Agro ecological zones of Cameroon

Artemisinin and its derivatives are potent antimalarials that have become essential components of Artemisinin Based Combination Therapies (ACTs) for malaria treatment. Production of artemisinin is less compared to its world demand and access to ACTs is still limited in worst hit countries. Secondary metabolite production in plants depends on a number of factors including agro ecology. This work sought to evaluate the growth characteristics and artemisinin content of Artemisia annua grown in four agro ecological zones of Cameroon. Experimental fields comprising of A annua were set up in the different agro-ecological zones, for growth and artemisinin assessments. Artemisinin detection and quantification was compared in leaves/flowers and stems of Artemisia annua from these agro-ecological zones, using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography. Soil provenance and other agro ecological factors significantly affected the growth parameters of A. annua as there were significant differences (p<0.05) in plant height, leaf area, number of branches, stem girth and number of leaves across the different study areas. There was significant variation (P<0.05) in the content of artemisinin from the plant in the different agro ecological zones. The mean levels of artemisinin in the samples was 0.34-0.80% in stem samples, and 0.18-0.61% for leaves/flowers. The highest artemisinin yield in leaf/flowers samples (0.61%) was recorded in samples from Bamenda, while that of stem samples (0.80%) was recorded in samples from Ngaoundere. The study confirms the effect of agro ecological factors on artemisinin content of A. annua in Cameroon and reveal that A. annua grown in most regions of the country contain commercially viable levels of artemisinin which can further be exploited for pharmaceutical purposes.

Estimating the welfare gains from anti-retroviral therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the start of the century, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced large gains in life expectancy and average consumption levels. Around the same time, an unprecedented international effort has taken place to combat HIV/AIDS mortality with the expansion of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) across many of the hardest hit countries. In this paper, I estimate the impact of ART on average welfare over time in 42 countries using the equivalent consumption approach. I decompose the change in welfare to isolate the relative contribution of ART-driven improvements in life expectancy and consumption. The results indicate that ART has accounted for around 12% of total welfare growth in SSA between 2000 and 2017. In those countries most affected by HIV/AIDS, this figure rises to around 40%. Moreover, the estimates suggest that welfare in some of the worst-hit countries would have declined over time without the ART expansion.

Business Responses Towards Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development Goals During Covid-19 Pandemic

Objective: In India, incorporating structural transformation in corporate social responsibility for achieving sustainable development goals in the Covid-19 Pandemic has become a priority. Therefore, the present article aims to review the corporate social responsibility activities conducted by Nine Indian companies (two public sector organizations and seven private sector organizations) towards attaining Sustainable Development Goals in times of global pandemic.
 
 To explore CSR activities performed by the Indian companies (both public and private) in recent times of crisis of covid-19.
 To assess the impact of Covid-19 on the economic, social, and technological environment of Indian Companies in recent times.
 
 
 Method: For our research, we chose India since it was one of the earliest and worst-hit countries during the recent pandemic. Even though huge Asian corporations are a minority, It is a good fit for our study goal for various reasons. Less and medium-sized businesses, on the other hand, have a far smaller influence on society, Due to their prominence in the press, clients or consumers are more likely to provide feedback if they are proactive. As a second point, major companies have greater resources (e.g., human and financial) to spend on reporting and distributing social and environmental information. The existing study applied bibliometric analysis in the exploratory research. The data collection done through secondary sources in which articles extracted with the use of PRISMA flowchart.
 
 Result: The study's findings state that most selected Indian Companies spend Rupees 50-1000 crores as corporate social responsibility activities and contribute to the Pradhan Mantri Relief Fund as a business response to face challenges in times of pandemic. Moreover, private companies spend more on CSR activities than public companies in India. The study provides suggestions to the government to make the corporate social responsibility activities compulsory for all the profitable companies so that country can maintain a corporate pool of contingent funds that can utilize to meet such times of critical circumstances.
 
 Conclusion: Companies are taking steps to ensure the safety and protection of their personnel. This has been reflected in corporate social responsibility initiatives as well. Corporate social responsibility efforts must include pushing for and facilitating access to health insurance programmes and other equity indicators as a result.

Covid-19 and stock market liquidity: international evidence

This study analyzes the impact of Covid-19 on stock market liquidity of China and four worst hit countries by the pandemic. Using daily data for the stock market illiquidity spanning over July 1, 2019 to July 10, 2020 and the data for new cases and deaths over the period from December 31, 2019 to July 10, 2020, the results of our GARCH analysis show that liquidity in stock markets of all the sampled countries hit hard by the news of the Covid-19 outbreak. We find that for all sampled countries increase in illiquidity due to temporary shocks reverts to long term trend shortly, suggesting that the liquidity shocks due to the incidence of Covid-19 were short lived. The findings of our VAR analysis show an absence of any short-term relationship between Covid-19 new cases or deaths and illiquidity. Since the series are not integrated at same level, long-term relationship between Covid-19 and stock market illiquidity do not exist as well suggesting no evidence of the effect of Covid-19 on stock market liquidity.

Confronting trends of antibiotic resistance beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: insight from five worst hit countries

Antibiotic resistance is and has been a prominent obstacle prior to the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the inability to efficiently treat the newly discovered coronavirus disease and the rise of bacterial co-infections in COVID-19 patients, the consumption of antibiotics increased drastically. Although the COVID-19 situation has somewhat contributed to reducing the spread of infections, the increment in antibiotic resistance is still a significant consequence. This emergence of increased rates is a global issue. The purpose of this review is to study the trend of antibiotic resistance before and since the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, China, India, Russia, and The United States of America. It was found that the most troublesome pathogens with the highest resistance rates in Brazil were Acinetobacter spp. The said bacterium species had developed peak resistance against meropenem, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, and amikacin. Also, China had incredibly susceptible pathogens resistant towards macrolides, penicillins, and aminoglycosides; however, not much change was witnessed in the resistance rates of several pathogens. In India, increased usage of azithromycin led to the emergence of macrolide resistance among various bacterial pathogens, whereas the perpetual usage of doxycycline had not yet resulted in any tetracycline resistance. Although, the occurrence of fungal infections had enlarged, causing COVID-19-associated mucormycosis more frequent among the Indian population. While commonly present pathogens in Russia were extremely resistant to most antibiotic classes, Acinetobacter baumannii was the chief resistant bacterium reported. The United States of America was recognized with concentrated resistance against vancomycin, fluoroquinolones, and extended-spectrum β-lactamase producing antibiotics. This alarming rate of growing antibiotic resistance in world’s battle with COVID-19 is indeed a matter of concern.

Vulnerability and COVID-19 infection rates: A changing relationship during the first year of the pandemic

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Spain was one of the worst-hit countries, although not all areas and social groups were affected equally. This study focuses on Malaga, a cosmopolitan tourist destination located on the southern Mediterranean coast that has the sixth largest population in Spain. Specifically, it examines the relationship between multidimensional vulnerability and COVID-19 infection rates across the city’s census tracts for the period February 2020 to February 2021. The analysis uses high frequency (daily) data on the accumulated incidence of the disease at 14 days and shows that COVID-19 did not spread symmetrically across the census tracts of Malaga but had a greater impact on the most vulnerable neighbourhoods. However, the pattern of this relationship was not uniform in the period examined, with specific contextual factors driving the higher infection rates across time. Our findings show that pandemic containment regulations cannot overlook vulnerability considerations and universal restrictions to reduce the spread of disease should be supplemented by targeted regulations for specific areas.

COVID-19 AND COASTAL DESTINATION IMPACTS: THE CASE OF SOUTH AFRICA

The COVID-19 pandemic underlines the importance of geography and geographical analysis to tourism scholarship. This paper utilises a spatial approach to examine the impacts of the pandemic on tourism flows and examine the comparative performance of coastal tourism destinations in COVID-times. The case research is on South Africa one of the worst-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the pandemic. Existing international literature points to a geographical change in consumer preferences for coastal destinations with reduced flows to traditional mass coastal destinations. The South African findings demonstrate the highly negative effects of the pandemic upon coastal tourism as a whole with the largest coastal cities experiencing the worst impacts. COVID-19 has caused a reversal of trends recorded for the past two decades for the benefits of coastal tourism to be concentrated in South Africa’s large coastal cities. Instead, it has resulted in the relative improvement of smaller coastal centres and in particular of centres which are relatively well-located for access to the domestic markets offered by large cities. These South African findings signal potential shifts in consumer psyche and travel behaviour as an outcome of COVID-19.

Evaluation of Biochemical Test Results in Patients with COVID-19 Infection

Background: The current pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, affected the health care systems, health services and economy globally. Moreover, it significantly affected the health of the population worldwide. Mortality and morbidity rates are still increasing. According to WHO, as of September 2021 there have been 224180869 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4621173 deaths. USA, India, and Brazil are the three world's worst-hit countries. In Greece the mortality rate is at 3%.
 Methods: Study population included 565 patients, who were admitted at the Emergency Department and the Pathology Department of Naval and Veterans Hospital, Athens, Greece, during a period of 3,5 months. Patients’ demographic characteristics, underlying diseases, travel history, symptoms, aetiology of admission and history of contact with confirmed cases were recorded. All patients included to the study were positive for SARS-CoV-2 and characterized as COVID-19 patients. All statistical analyses were conducted using MINITAB 17.
 Results: Statistically significant differences in the results of albumin (marginal p-value), urea, creatinine, AST, ALT, and LDH between hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients were detected. Also, we observed statistically significant differences in the results of albumin, urea, creatinine, and ALT, between male and female patients. Moreover, patient age was statistically significant between male and female patients. The Logistic regression model of hospitalization show that statistically significant variables are ALT, LDH, age and gender.
 Conclusions: The rapid spreading of the new COVID-19 pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2 increased the need for the measurement of biochemical tests and the evaluation of their correlation with patient hospitalization. Biochemical monitoring of COVID-19 patients is critical for assessing disease severity and progression as well as monitoring therapeutic intervention. Several common biochemical tests have been implicated in COVID-19 infection progression, providing important prognostic information. In the present study we evaluated the test results of albumin, urea, creatinine, AST, ALT, LDH and total bilirubin in patients with COVID-19 infection.

Potential of Prospective Medicinal Plants of Bangladesh for the Complementary Management of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has been a healthcare disaster because of the unique and distinct characteristics of the pathogen, the easy and rapid transmission of the virus from humans to humans, the challenges in diagnosis and confirmation of the disease and the inability to invent and distribute safe and effective drugs or vaccines worldwide that would work against all the variants of coronavirus. Bangladesh, despite being a third-world country with limited health resources, has not been one of the worst-hit countries in the world but has still suffered with the loss of nearly eleven thousand people. Traditional and herbal remedies have become popular in this sub-continent since long ago and used for the treatment and management of different diseases including infectious disease. In this review, we have summarized the reports of immunostimulating, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and respiratory distress syndrome improving activities of prospective indigenous plants of Bangladesh that may be recommended for use as complementary and alternative medicine or may be potential sources for the discovery and development of anti-COVID-19 medicaments. Thus, the review will be beneficial for the researchers, complementary and alternative medicines or herbal medicine manufacturers, formulators to find out and manage the potential herbal/nutraceutical/medicinal agents for the preparation of complementary and alternative medicines, as well as to the scientist for further research for the discovery and development of therapeutics/new drugs for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 as well as other viral infections. Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 25(1): 89-114, 2022 (January)

Twitter Mediated Sociopolitical Communication During the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis in India.

While Twitter has grown popular among political leaders as a means of computer-mediated mass media communication alternative, the COVID-19 pandemic required new strategies for socio-political communication to handle such a crisis. Using the case of India, which was one of the worst-hit countries and is also the world’s largest democracy, this research explicates how political leaders responded to the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter during the first wave as it was the first time such a crisis occurred. Theoretical frameworks of discursive leadership and situational crisis communication theory have been used to analyze interactions based on the usage patterns, the content of communication, the extent of usage in relation to the severity of the crisis, and the possible role of leaders’ position along with the status of their political party. The sample consisted of tweets posted by six prominent political leaders in India across the four consecutive lockdown periods from 25th March to 31st May 2020. A total of 4,158 tweets were scrapped and after filtering for retweets, the final dataset consisted of 2,809 original tweets. Exploratory data analysis, sentiment analysis, and content analysis were conducted. It was found that the tweets had an overall positive sentiment, an important crisis management strategy. Four main themes emerged: crisis management information, strengthening followers’ resilience and trust, reputation management, and leaders’ proactiveness. By focusing on such discursive aspects of crisis management, the study comprehensively highlights how political interactions on twitter integrated with politics and governance to handle COVID-19 in India. The study has implications for the fields of digital media interaction, political communication, public relations, and crisis leadership.

Links between Child Shyness and Indices of Internalizing Problems during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Protective Role of Positivity

Shyness in childhood has been linked to socio-emotional difficulties such as anxiety, depression, and loneliness. On the contrary, positivity (i.e., a personal tendency to see oneself, life, and future in a positive light) has been described as a protective factor. Given the challenges experienced by children during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., closure of school and confinement), we aimed to test the potential protective role of positivity and how it may link child shyness and indices of internalizing problems (i.e., anxiety, depression, loneliness) during the first wave of the pandemic. Participants were N = 236 children (M age = 9.25 years, SD = 1.20) from Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the three worst-hit countries in Europe when the data were collected (April-June, 2020). Children completed online self-evaluation scales to assess temperamental shyness, positivity, and indices of internalizing problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from a multivariate regression analysis revealed significant interaction effects between shyness and positivity in the prediction of outcome variables. Follow-up simple slope analyses indicated that shyness was positively related to depression only among children with lower levels of positivity. The study highlights the role of children’s positivity in buffering the pernicious link between shyness and their negative feelings during the pandemic. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Legislative Behaviour of MPs in the Czech Republic in Times of Covid-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic has affected almost every aspect of our lives. While millions of people fought with the disease, economies, societies and institutions faced side-effects of government measures resisting the spread of the virus. This article describes the effects of the pandemic on the legislative behaviour of MPs in one of the worst-hit countries in the world, the Czech Republic. The results show that the number of bill proposals and roll calls substantially increased during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. Since the start of the outbreak, a third of roll calls and a half of bill proposals concerned the pandemic. Nonetheless, the outbreak did not substantially affect the voting unity of parliamentary party groups nor the opposition became more supportive of the cabinet. Still, while the liberal Pirates became more cooperative during the pandemic than the pre-pandemic period, the rightist antisystem party Freedom and Direct Democracy receded from the rest of the parties on the pandemic issues.

Education response to COVID 19 pandemic, a special issue proposed by UNICEF: Editorial review

This editorial paper presents 11 papers related to the special issue proposed by UNICEF on the Education Response to COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic provoked an education emergency of unprecedented scale. At its onset in February 2020, school closures were announced in the worst-hit countries. At the peak of the crisis, 90 per cent of learners worldwide had had their education disrupted. Some learners, especially those from the most marginalised population groups, were put at risk of permanent dropout, provoking long-term and significant negative effects on children’s life-long wellbeing and the socio-economic development of their communities and countries. This special issue, which received contributions from UNICEF staff and various researchers, focuses on the impact of school closures, the effectiveness of remote learning solutions, equity implications, the mitigation of learning loss and notions around re-opening better. Different research perspectives and evidence is gathered to help strengthen policy considerations and future planning. The conclusion emphasizes building on the innovative solutions generated by the response to the crisis to make education systems more resilient, whilst also reinforcing the focus on equity and inclusion so that pre-existing disparities are not exacerbated in the future.

Intelligent computing on time-series data analysis and prediction of COVID-19 pandemics.

Covid-19 disease caused by novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly contagious epidemic that originated in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in late December 2019. World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic on 12th March 2020. Researchers and policy makers are designing strategies to control the pandemic in order to minimize its impact on human health and economy round the clock. The SARS-CoV-2 virus transmits mostly through respiratory droplets and through contaminated surfacesin human body.Securing an appropriate level of safety during the pandemic situation is a highly problematic issue which resulted from the transportation sector which has been hit hard by COVID-19. This paper focuses on developing an intelligent computing model for forecasting the outbreak of COVID-19. The Facebook Prophet model predicts 90 days future values including the peak date of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 for six worst hit countries of the world including India and six high incidence states of India. The model also identifies five significant changepoints in the growth curve of confirmed cases of India which indicate the impact of the interventions imposed by Government of India on the growth rate of the infection. The goodness-of-fit of the model measures 85% MAPE for all six countries and all six states of India. The above computational analysis may be able to throw some light on planning and management of healthcare system and infrastructure.

A Psychosocial Exploration of Body Dissatisfaction: A Narrative Review With a Focus on India During COVID-19.

COVID-19 has been an unprecedented global crisis. Besides the public health impact, the pandemic necessitated measures, such as quarantine, travel restrictions, and lockdown, that have had a huge effect on digital screen time, dietary habits, lifestyle measures, and exposure to food-related advertising. At the same time, a reduction in physical activity, an increase of social media consumption, and an increase in fitness tutorials during the lockdown have contributed to body image issues. Emerging evidence from India suggests that peer conversations about appearance as negative body talk (fat talk) is particularly salient in contributing to body dissatisfaction and body perception ideals, which are more prevalent in women. Even though there has been an increase in research on the psychosocial impact of COVID-19, its influence on body image perceptions and consequent distress have been stigmatized and classified as under-spoken areas. With this background, this article reviews research on the biopsychosocial factors that influence body dissatisfaction among women, particularly the role of media. It also highlights the development of body image concerns in India, one of the worst-hit countries in the pandemic, through liberalization, importing Western notions of body instrumentality, demographic shift, and resultant social changes. Finally, the psychosocial strategies for positive body image ideas to prevent and mitigate the adverse effects of body dissatisfaction are discussed, particularly those that focus on cognitive behavioral techniques (CBTs) from the perspectives of positive psychology, media literacy programs, and involvement of the media. Interventions and further research to address body dissatisfaction among women, especially in the post-COVID aftermath, need to be a recognized as a public health goal.

Prema-chandra Athukorala Comment on Rethinking “Economic Fundamentals” in an Era of Global Physical Shocks: Insights from the Philippines Experience with COVID-19

Prema-chandra Athukorala Comment on Rethinking “Economic Fundamentals” in an Era of Global Physical Shocks: Insights from the Philippines Experience with COVID-19

COVID-19 Pandemic and Balance of Constitutional Rights.

In 2020 the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 to be a pandemic. Governments around the world are facing a tough challenge that could jeopardise the national healthcare systems. Safeguarding the rights of Covid patients and all citizens - especially those who are now even more vulnerable than they were before - is part of this challenge. This work aims to examine the issues arising from the current emergency in terms of how individuals' constitutional rights have been balanced and how much people at the highest risk amid this pandemic - the homeless, the inmates in prison, geriatric and psychiatric patients, and doctors on the Covid frontline - have been protected. This analysis focuses mostly on one of the worst-hit countries by the SARS-CoV-2: Italy.

A STUDY TO ASSESS THE LEVEL OF STRESS REGARDING COVID-19 AMONG NURSING STUDENTS IN SELECTED NURSING COLLEGES LUCKNOW

The spread and onset of coronavirus (COVID-19) had a strong impact on the life of people. India was one of the worst-hit countries leading to several deaths, unemployment, and migration. The fear of the unknown had led to instability and poor adjustment among people. Differences in individual personality and their anxiety played a significant role in coping mechanisms with the scenario. COVID-19 pandemic has caused disasters and disorders all over the world. India is also going through a challenging situation as the number of infected/positive cases is increasing day by day. Due to the crisis of COVID-19 education system has come to a halt as schools and colleges are closed to slow down and prevent the spread of infection. Nursing institution also closed down and online mode of teaching was done. The present study sought to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on mental health among nursing students. OBJECTIVE: To assess the level of stress among the nursing students and to associate the level of stress with selected demographic variables. METHODS: The study design was descriptive and the study was conducted in Career College of Nursing among the 3rd Year GNM, and 4thYear B. Sc. Nursing Students and sample size was 100. The study was approved by research committee and informed consent was taken. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: The study found that 84% had moderate stress 8 % had high perceived stress and 8 % had low level of stress. There were no significant association between level of stress and demographic variables. CONCLUSION: Study reveals that majority of the students had moderate level of stress regarding COVID - 19.

THE NEWS EFFECT OF COVID-19 ON GLOBAL FINANCIAL MARKET VOLATILITY

This study investigates whether the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic caused a contagion and negatively affected the stock market. Using data from the 10 worst-hit countries over the period from December 2019 to May 2020 and an EGARCH model, the study shows that market speculations lead to negative stock returns and higher stock market volatility. Further, estimates of both bivariate time-series regression and random-effects panel regression show significant effects of COVID-19 related media coverage on the stock market.