Coronavirus disease 2019 infection among asymptomatic and symptomatic pregnant women: two weeks of confirmed presentations to an affiliated pair of New York City hospitals

COVID-19 infection in pregnant women, preterm delivery, birth weight, and vertical transmission: a systematic review and meta-analysis

In less than four months, the total of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 1,684,833 worldwide. Outcomes among the public of pregnant women with COVID-19 are still unclear. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to analyze whether COVID-19 in pregnant women is related to premature birth and birth weight, and to summarize the diagnostic results of neonates born to mothers with COVID-19 for investigating the possibility of vertical transmission. Searches were performed in PubMed, Scopus, LILACS, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Preprints, bioRxiv, and medRxiv. We used the odds ratio (OR) and mean difference (MD) as measure of analysis. Summary estimates were calculated using random effects models. 38 studies were included; data from 279 women were analyzed; 60 patients were diagnosed with COVID-19. The meta-analysis showed no significant association between COVID-19 and preterm delivery (OR = 2.25; 95%CI: 0.96, 5.31; p = 0.06; I² = 0%). No significant relationship was found between birth weight and COVID-19 (MD = -124.16; 95%CI: -260.54, 12.22; p = 0.07; I² = 0%). Among 432 newborns, 10 were reported with positive results for early SARS-CoV-2. Due to the characteristics of the studies, the level of evidence of this meta-analysis was considered very low. COVID-19 in pregnant women may not be associated with the occurrence of preterm deliveries or the birth weight of the newborn children, however the evidence to date is very uncertain. A few reports suggest vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to newborn is possible, but evidence is still uncertain.

Consensus transcriptional regulatory networks of coronavirus-infected human cells

Establishing consensus around the transcriptional interface between coronavirus (CoV) infection and human cellular signaling pathways can catalyze the development of novel anti-CoV therapeutics. Here, we used publicly archived transcriptomic datasets to compute consensus regulatory signatures, or consensomes, that rank human genes based on their rates of differential expression in MERS-CoV (MERS), SARS-CoV-1 (SARS1) and SARS-CoV-2 (SARS2)-infected cells. Validating the CoV consensomes, we show that high confidence transcriptional targets (HCTs) of CoV infection intersect with HCTs of signaling pathway nodes with known roles in CoV infection. Among a series of novel use cases, we gather evidence for hypotheses that SARS2 infection efficiently represses E2F family target genes encoding key drivers of DNA replication and the cell cycle; that progesterone receptor signaling antagonizes SARS2-induced inflammatory signaling in the airway epithelium; and that SARS2 HCTs are enriched for genes involved in epithelial to mesenchymal transition. The CoV infection consensomes and HCT intersection analyses are freely accessible through the Signaling Pathways Project knowledgebase, and as Cytoscape-style networks in the Network Data Exchange repository.

Severe coronavirus infection in pregnancy: challenging cases report

There are few data on the impact of COVID-19 in pregnancy, however, analyzing these data is important to guide the clinical practice, covering the early prevention, detection, patients’ isolation, epidemiological investigation, diagnosis and early treatment. This is a report of three cases of COVID-19 confirmed by real-time reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of nasopharyngeal secretions collected in swabs from pregnant women in the city of Vitoria, Espirito Santo State, Brazil. In the three cases, all the patients presented with fever, one had shortness of breath, one had diarrhea, two of them reported abdominal pain and two of them had cough. The three patients progressed with a severe clinical evolution of COVID-19. The permanence in the intensive care unit (ICU) was more than 10 days. Two of them recovered and one remained in the ICU with irreversible refractory shock, multiple organ failure and died. The mode of delivery was individualized and based on the obstetric indication and severity of the maternal infection, and the cesarean section was indicated in the two severe maternal COVID-19 cases that evolved favorably. These newborns were premature and tested negative for COVID-19 by RT-PCR.

Contemporary Issues in Women's Health

Clinical characteristics and outcomes of pregnant women with COVID‐19 in Wuhan, China;

SARS‐CoV‐2 infection and pregnancy.