COVID-19: Before the Fall, An Evidence-Based Narrative Review of Treatment Options

Who Gets Sick From COVID-19? Sociodemographic Correlates of Severe Adult Health Outcomes During Alpha- and Delta-Variant Predominant Periods: September 2020-November 2021

BACKGROUND

Because COVID-19 case data do not capture most SARS-CoV-2 infections, the actual risk of severe disease and death per infection is unknown. Integrating sociodemographic data into analysis can show consequential health disparities.

METHODS

Data were merged from September 2020 to November 2021 from 6 national surveillance systems in matched geographic areas and analyzed to estimate numbers of COVID-19-associated cases, emergency department visits, and deaths per 100 000 infections. Relative risks of outcomes per infection were compared by sociodemographic factors in a data set including 1490 counties from 50 states and the District of Columbia, covering 71% of the US population.

RESULTS

Per infection with SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality were higher among non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native persons, non-Hispanic Black persons, and Hispanic or Latino persons vs non-Hispanic White persons; males vs females; older people vs younger; residents in more socially vulnerable counties vs less; those in large central metro areas vs rural; and people in the South vs the Northeast.

DISCUSSION

Meaningful disparities in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality per infection were associated with sociodemography and geography. Addressing these disparities could have helped prevent the loss of tens of thousands of lives.

Bacterial Co-Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance in Patients Hospitalized with Suspected or Confirmed COVID-19 Pneumonia in Kazakhstan

Our study was carried out to characterize respiratory tract microbiota in patients with “COVID-like pneumonia” in Kazakhstan and analyze differences between COVID-19 positive and negative groups. Sputum samples were collected from hospitalized patients, ≥18 years old, in the three cities in Kazakhstan with the highest COVID-19 burden in July 2020. Isolates were identified by MALDI-TOF MS. Susceptibility testing was performed by disk diffusion. We used SPSS 26 and MedCalc 19 for statistical analysis. Among 209 patients with pneumonia, the median age was 62 years and 55% were male. RT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases were found in 40% of patients, and 46% had a bacterial co-infection. Co-infection was not associated with SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test results, but antibiotic use was. The most frequent bacteria were Klebsiella pneumoniae (23%), Escherichia coli (12%), and Acinetobacter baumannii (11%). Notably, 68% of Klebsiella pneumoniae had phenotypic evidence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamases in disk diffusion assays, 87% of Acinetobacter baumannii exhibited resistance to beta-lactams, and >50% of E. coli strains had evidence of ESBL production and 64% were resistant to fluoroquinolones. Patients with a bacterial co-infection had a higher proportion of severe disease than those without a co-infection. The results reinforce the importance of using appropriate targeted antibiotics and effective infection control practices to prevent the spread of resistant nosocomial infections.

Old drugs, new tricks: leveraging known compounds to disrupt coronavirus-induced cytokine storm

A major complication in COVID-19 infection consists in the onset of acute respiratory distress fueled by a dysregulation of the host immune network that leads to a run-away cytokine storm. Here, we present an in silico approach that captures the host immune system's complex regulatory dynamics, allowing us to identify and rank candidate drugs and drug pairs that engage with minimal subsets of immune mediators such that their downstream interactions effectively disrupt the signaling cascades driving cytokine storm. Drug-target regulatory interactions are extracted from peer-reviewed literature using automated text-mining for over 5000 compounds associated with COVID-induced cytokine storm and elements of the underlying biology. The targets and mode of action of each compound, as well as combinations of compounds, were scored against their functional alignment with sets of competing model-predicted optimal intervention strategies, as well as the availability of like-acting compounds and known off-target effects. Top-ranking individual compounds identified included a number of known immune suppressors such as calcineurin and mTOR inhibitors as well as compounds less frequently associated for their immune-modulatory effects, including antimicrobials, statins, and cholinergic agonists. Pairwise combinations of drugs targeting distinct biological pathways tended to perform significantly better than single drugs with dexamethasone emerging as a frequent high-ranking companion. While these predicted drug combinations aim to disrupt COVID-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome, the approach itself can be applied more broadly to other diseases and may provide a standard tool for drug discovery initiatives in evaluating alternative targets and repurposing approved drugs.

COVID-19 vaccines uptake: Public knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance among adult Africans

Introduction

The willingness of Africa’s population to patronise the COVID-19 vaccines is critical to the efficiency of national immunisation programmes. This study surveys the views of adult African inhabitants toward vaccination and the possibility of participating or not participating in governments’ efforts to get citizens vaccinated.

Method

A cross-sectional online survey of adult Africans was undertaken from December 2020 to March 2021. Responses were anonymised. The Pearson Chi-square test was performed to determine whether or not there were any variations in knowledge, awareness, perception and acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccines among the participants. Binomial logistic regression was used to evaluate the factors associated with willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccines and participate in immunisation programmes.

Results

The results indicate that COVID-19 vaccines are more likely to be used by adult Africans over the age of 18 who are largely technologically savvy (55 percent) if the vaccine is made broadly available. A total of 33 percent of those who responded said they were unlikely to receive the vaccine, with another 15 percent stating they were undecided. Aside from that, we found that vaccine hesitancy was closely associated with socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, education and source of information. We also found that there were widespread conspiracies and myths about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Conclusion

More than one-third of African adults who participated in the survey indicated they would not receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with majority of them expressing skepticisms about the vaccine’s efficacy. It is possible that many of the people who would not be vaccinated would have an impact on the implementation of a COVID-19 immunisation programme that is meant for all of society. Majority of the respondents were unwilling to pay for the COVID-19 vaccines when made available. An awareness campaign should be focused on promoting the benefits of vaccination at the individual and population levels, as well as on taking preemptive actions to debunk misconceptions about the vaccines before they become further widespread.

COVID-19 at a Glance: An Up-to-Date Overview on Variants, Drug Design and Therapies

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a member of the Coronavirus family which caused the worldwide pandemic of human respiratory illness coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Presumably emerging at the end of 2019, it poses a severe threat to public health and safety, with a high incidence of transmission, predominately through aerosols and/or direct contact with infected surfaces. In 2020, the search for vaccines began, leading to the obtaining of, to date, about twenty COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in at least one country. However, COVID-19 continues to spread and new genetic mutations and variants have been discovered, requiring pharmacological treatments. The most common therapies for COVID-19 are represented by antiviral and antimalarial agents, antibiotics, immunomodulators, angiotensin II receptor blockers, bradykinin B2 receptor antagonists and corticosteroids. In addition, nutraceuticals, vitamins D and C, omega-3 fatty acids and probiotics are under study. Finally, drug repositioning, which concerns the investigation of existing drugs for new therapeutic target indications, has been widely proposed in the literature for COVID-19 therapies. Considering the importance of this ongoing global public health emergency, this review aims to offer a synthetic up-to-date overview regarding diagnoses, variants and vaccines for COVID-19, with particular attention paid to the adopted treatments.

Targeting the Pentose Phosphate Pathway for SARS-CoV-2 Therapy

SARS-CoV-2 is causing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, for which effective pharmacological therapies are needed. SARS-CoV-2 induces a shift of the host cell metabolism towards glycolysis, and the glycolysis inhibitor 2-deoxy-d-glucose (2DG), which interferes with SARS-CoV-2 infection, is under development for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The glycolytic pathway generates intermediates that supply the non-oxidative branch of the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP). In this study, the analysis of proteomics data indicated increased transketolase (TKT) levels in SARS-CoV-2-infected cells, suggesting that a role is played by the non-oxidative PPP. In agreement, the TKT inhibitor benfooxythiamine (BOT) inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication and increased the anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of 2DG. In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with changes in the regulation of the PPP. The TKT inhibitor BOT inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication and increased the activity of the glycolysis inhibitor 2DG. Notably, metabolic drugs like BOT and 2DG may also interfere with COVID-19-associated immunopathology by modifying the metabolism of immune cells in addition to inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 replication. Hence, they may improve COVID-19 therapy outcomes by exerting antiviral and immunomodulatory effects.

A Potential Role of the CD47/SIRPalpha Axis in COVID-19 Pathogenesis

The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Most SARS-CoV-2 infections are mild or even asymptomatic. However, a small fraction of infected individuals develops severe, life-threatening disease, which is caused by an uncontrolled immune response resulting in hyperinflammation. However, the factors predisposing individuals to severe disease remain poorly understood. Here, we show that levels of CD47, which is known to mediate immune escape in cancer and virus-infected cells, are elevated in SARS-CoV-2-infected Caco-2 cells, Calu-3 cells, and air-liquid interface cultures of primary human bronchial epithelial cells. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 infection increases SIRPalpha levels, the binding partner of CD47, on primary human monocytes. Systematic literature searches further indicated that known risk factors such as older age and diabetes are associated with increased CD47 levels. High CD47 levels contribute to vascular disease, vasoconstriction, and hypertension, conditions that may predispose SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals to COVID-19-related complications such as pulmonary hypertension, lung fibrosis, myocardial injury, stroke, and acute kidney injury. Hence, age-related and virus-induced CD47 expression is a candidate mechanism potentially contributing to severe COVID-19, as well as a therapeutic target, which may be addressed by antibodies and small molecules. Further research will be needed to investigate the potential involvement of CD47 and SIRPalpha in COVID-19 pathology. Our data should encourage other research groups to consider the potential relevance of the CD47/ SIRPalpha axis in their COVID-19 research.

Therapeutic and protective potential of mesenchymal stem cells, pharmaceutical agents and current vaccines against covid-19

It has been almost 18 months since the first outbreak of COVID-19 disease was reported in Wuhan, China. This unexpected devastating phenomenon, raised a great deal of concerns and anxiety among people around the world and imposed a huge economic burden on the nations' health care systems. Accordingly, clinical scientists, pharmacologists and physicians worldwide felt an urgent demand for a safe, effective therapeutic agent, treatment strategy or vaccine in order to prevent or cure the recently-emerged disease. Initially, due to lack of specific pharmacological agents and approved vaccines to combat the COVID-19, the disease control in the confirmed cases was limited to supportive care. Accordingly, repositioning or repurposing current drugs and examining their possible therapeutic efficacy received a great deal of attention. Despite revealing promising results in some clinical trials, the overall results are conflicting. For this reason, there is an urgent to seek and investigate other potential therapeutics. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) representing immunomodulatory and regenerative capacity to treat both curable and intractable diseases, have been investigated in COVID-19 clinical trials carried out in different parts of the world. Nevertheless, up to now, none of MSC-based approaches has been approved in controlling COVID-19 infection. Thanks to the fact that the final solution for defeating the pandemic is developing a safe, effective vaccine, enormous efforts and clinical research have been carried out. In this review, we will concisely discuss the safety and efficacy of the most relevant pharmacological agents, MSC-based approaches and candidate vaccines for treating and preventing COVID-19 infection.

Phase II Clinical Trial of Combination Therapy with Favipiravir and Methylprednisolone for COVID-19 with Non-Critical Respiratory Failure

Introduction

The administration of systemic corticosteroids is a key strategy for improving COVID-19 outcomes. However, evidence is lacking on combination therapies of antiviral agents and systemic corticosteroids. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of the combination therapy of favipiravir and methylprednisolone in preventing respiratory failure progression in patients with COVID-19 and non-critical respiratory failure.

Methods

We conducted a multicenter, open-label, single-arm phase II study. The patients received favipiravir 3600 mg on the first day, followed by 1600 mg for a total of 10–14 days. Methylprednisolone was administered intravenously at 1 mg/ideal body weight (IBW)/day from days 1 to 5, followed by 0.5 mg/IBW/day from days 6 to 10 if clinically indicated. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients requiring mechanical ventilation (MV) (including noninvasive positive pressure ventilation) or those who met the criteria for tracheal intubation within 14 days of the study treatment initiation (MVCTI-14).

Results

Sixty-nine patients were enrolled and underwent the study treatment. Of them, the MVCTI-14 proportion was 29.2% (90% confidence interval 20.1–39.9, p = 0.200). The proportion of patients who required MV or who died within 30 days was 26.2%, and 30-day mortality was 4.9%. The most significant risk factor for MVCTI-14 was a smoking history (odds ratio 4.1, 95% confidence interval 1.2–14.2). The most common grade 3–4 treatment-related adverse event was hyperglycemia, which was observed in 21.7%.

Conclusion

The MVCTI-14 proportion did not reach a favorable level in the clinical trial setting with the threshold of 35%. However, the proportion of MV or death within 30 days was 26.6%, which might be close to the findings (28.1%) of the RECOVERY trial, which showed the efficacy of dexamethasone for patients with COVID-19 and non-critical respiratory failure. Further evaluation of this combination therapy is needed.

Clinical Trial Registration

Japan Registry of Clinical Trials (jRCT) identifier jRCTs041200025.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40121-021-00512-9.