Routine vaccination activities, such as detection, reporting, and management of adverse events following immunization (AEFIs), are generally handled by healthcare providers (HCPs). Safe vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) were introduced to control the Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. The study aimed to assess the knowledge, perceptions, and practice of HCPs in Iraq about reporting adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, and their association with sociodemographic variables. The study was a cross-sectional study that was carried out between August and September 2021 at the COVID-19 vaccination centers in Iraq. This study used an online and paper-based questionnaire, which was distributed among HCPs (physicians and pharmacists) in COVID-19 vaccination centers. A total of 117 pharmacists and physicians responded to the survey. Two-thirds of respondents were pharmacists. The majority of the respondents (49.6%) had fair knowledge levels on AEFIs. The perception of 43% of the participants was very good, whereas the perception of 28%, 23%, and 6% of the participants was fair, good, and poor, respectively. The reporting practice of HCPs was inadequate in 53% of respondents. The number of pharmacists who had good knowledge of AEFIs was significantly higher than that of the physicians. The age group (30-39) years of HCPs was significantly associated with more positive perception towards AEFIs. The number of pharmacists that had good perception was significantly higher than that of the physicians. Furthermore, HCPs aged 30 to 39 years had significantly higher reporting practices than other age groups. The study highlighted that the HCPs working at the COVID-19 vaccination centers have low knowledge of AEFIs. On the other hand, HCPs had more positive perception towards reporting AEFIs. Education programs and reference materials are needed to increase their awareness about AEFIs.
After the outbreak of COVID-19, immediately it converted from epidemic to pandemic. Radiologic images of CT and X-ray have been widely used to detect COVID-19 disease through observing infrahilar opacity in the lungs. Deep learning has gained popularity in diagnosing many health diseases including COVID-19 and its rapid spreading necessitates the adoption of deep learning in identifying COVID-19 cases. In this study, a deep learning model, based on some principles has been proposed for automatic detection of COVID-19 from X-ray images. The SimpNet architecture has been adopted in our study and trained with X-ray images. The model was evaluated on both binary (COVID-19 and No-findings) classification and multi-class (COVID-19, No-findings
... Show MoreThe emergence of COVID-19 has resulted in an unprecedented escalation in different aspects of human activities, including medical education. Students and educators across academic institutions have confronted various challenges in following the guidelines of protection against the disease on one hand and accomplishing learning curricula on the other hand. In this short view, we presented our experience in implementing e-learning to the undergraduate nursing students during the present COVID-19 pandemic emphasizing the learning content, barriers, and feedback of students and educators. We hope that this view will trigger the preparedness of nursing faculties in Iraq to deal with this new modality of learning and improve it should t
... Show MoreSusceptibility to the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has recently been associated with ABO blood groups in patients of different ethnicities. This study sought to understand the genetic association of this polymorphic system with risk of disease in Iraqi patients. Two outcomes of COVID-19, recovery and death, were also explored. ABO blood groups were determined in 300 hospitalized COVID-19 Iraqi patients (159 under therapy, 104 recovered, and 37 deceased) and 595 healthy blood donors. The detection kit for 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) RNA (PCR-Fluorescence Probing) was used in the diagnosis of disease.
Education around the world has been negatively affected by the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Many institutions had to transition to distance learning in compliance with the enforced safety measures. Distance learning might work well for settings with stable internet connections, professional technical teams, and basic implementation of technology in education. In contrast, distance learning faces serious challenges in less fortunate settings with inferior infrastructure. This report aims to shed light on the immediate action steps taken at a leading pharmacy school in Iraq to accommodate for the enforced changes in pharmacy education. The University of Baghdad College of Pharmacy went from less than minimal technology impl
... Show MoreCoronavirus: (COVID-19) is a recently discovered viral disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus.
The majority of patients with corona-virus infections will have a mild-moderate respiratory disease that recovers without special care. Most often, the elderly, and others with chronic medical conditions such as asthma, coronary disease, respiratory illness, and malignancy are seriously ill.
COVID-19 is spread mostly by salivary droplets or nasal secretions when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
COVID-19 causes severe acute respiratory illness (SARS-COV-2). The first incidence was recorded in Wuhan, China, in 2019. Since then it spreads leading to a pandemic.
... Show MoreThe post-Corona Covid-19 world is not the world before it, the problem of perception of personality traits with two axes: the characteristics of psychological and social compatibility, and the second aspect the mental disorder during the pandemic, and the accompanying precautions and prohibitions during the academic year 2020 AD. The aim of the research is to reveal the perception of the personal characteristics of Bisha University employees (students and faculty) during the Corona Covid-19 pandemic, and to reveal statistically significant differences in the perception of the personality traits of Bisha’s members during the Covid 19 according to the scientific qualification variables (female students -faculty members), marital st
... Show MoreAbstract:
Objective (s): This study aims to assess nurses' knowledge and practice regarding physiotherapy protocol at intensive care units
Methodology: descriptive cross-sectional study design executed at the ICU in the city hospitals of AL- for the time of 13th October/ 2021 to 7th April /2022. Questionnaire filled by 75 nurses who work in ICU who had chosen by non-probability (purposive) selection collected the data. Then the researcher used an observational checklist to evaluate nurses’ practice. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS.
Results: the study found a deficit in nurses’ knowledge and pra
... Show MoreCoronavirus disease (Covid-19) has threatened human life, so it has become necessary to study this disease from many aspects. This study aims to identify the nature of the effect of interdependence between these countries and the impact of each other on each other by designating these countries as heads for the proposed graph and measuring the distance between them using the ultrametric spanning tree. In this paper, a network of countries in the Middle East is described using the tools of graph theory.
Background: Age progression is regarded as a critical risk factor in morbidity and mortality because of a weakened immune system. Although various studies have dealt with electrolyte imbalance in COVID-19 patients, the outcomes of these studies were partially understood. Objective: The current study aims to determine some biochemical parameters in old Iraqi COVID-19 patients and highlight the outcomes according to the aging role in the development of COVID-19 by suggesting new mechanisms. Materials and methods: forty COVID-19 patients were enrolled in the current study and divided into two groups: Gm includes (20) men, and Gf includes (20) women. The parameters (Na+, K+, Cl-, LDH, and Hb ) were determined in sera of patients and c
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