Yasemin DEMİRBİLEK, Gülen PEHLİVANTÜRK, Zeynep Özge ÖZGÜLER, Emine Alp MEŞE
Yasemin DEMİRBİLEK, Gülen PEHLİVANTÜRK, Zeynep Özge ÖZGÜLER, Emine Alp MEŞE
Our first COVID-19 case in Turkey was a 44-year-old male who referred to the hospital on March 9, 2020. The first related
death occurred on March 17, 2020. Preparedness for the pandemic has been ongoing before the first case was detected. The National
Pandemic Plan was published in 2006. The Pandemic Influenza National Preparedness Plan was available after being updated in light of
experiences gained during the 2009 Influenza A pandemic. Accordingly, Pandemic Coordination Boards and Operation Centers have
been established on the national and provincial levels. This was an adaptable plan to the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). We
formed teams to work on a 24/7 basis and established a Scientific Committee at the Public Health Emergency Operation Center within
the General Directorate of Public Health. “COVID-19 Risk Assessment”, “COVID-19 Guideline” and “Case Report Form”, regulations
of personal protective equipment along with need-based guidelines, treatment algorithms, brochures and related documents have been
released. For the case-based follow-up, Public Health Management System (HSYS) is being used. PCR and rapid diagnostic kits are
being used to analyze the samples at the central Microbiology Reference Laboratory and the authorized laboratories in several provinces.
Various preventive measures were implemented including flight restrictions to certain countries, gradually expanded to suspending all
flights and prohibiting the entry of foreign nationals, 14-day isolation and symptom monitoring for those that came from countries
under risk. Persons with chronic diseases have been granted an administrative leave, on campus education at schools and activities of
public rest and entertainment areas were temporarily suspended. The measures have been implemented for penitentiary institutions,
dormitories, nursing homes, public transport and intercity buses, and also weekend curfews are implemented. In accordance with the
pandemic plan, actions have been carried out with a multi-sectoral approach, and preventive measures have been implemented to cover
the society as a whole.
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Eskild PETERSEN, Deniz GÖKENGİN
Eskild PETERSEN, Deniz GÖKENGİN
Background/aim: Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is now a pandemic spreading in most countries including Turkey.
Materials and methods: The current knowledge of COVID-19 and the virus causing it, SARS-CoV-2, was reviewed. The epidemiology
and control in different countries was compared and the differences discussed.
Results: The population attack rates and case fatality rates vary from country to country with Lombardy in northern Italy reporting
an attack rate in the general population of 0.37% compared to 0.004% in Hong Kong. The differences are caused by different testing
strategies and reporting systems.
Conclusion: Turkey is early in the outbreak. Different control strategies are available with South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore being
models to follow.
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Ceren ÇETİN, Ateş KARA
Ceren ÇETİN, Ateş KARA
Pandemics have had very important consequences in human history. Lots of people lost their lives and countries have been
intensively affected in terms of socioeconomic problems. Unfortunately, avoidance of pandemics and limiting the spread are still
currently not always possible. Maybe the most important factor for this is the increasing frequency of traveling. Increasing airline
traveling rate also increases the rate of spread. Global organizations like the World Health Organization and United Nations are trying
to play a supreme role over the countries. Pandemics do not have borders; therefore, efforts should be given globally, definition of
pandemic should be established as soon as possible, and protective measures should be shared with countries. If these are not done,
severe health consequences and serious economic problems are inevitable.
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Mustafa HASÖKSÜZ, Selçuk KILIÇ, Fahriye SARAC
Mustafa HASÖKSÜZ, Selçuk KILIÇ, Fahriye SARAC
Coronaviruses (CoVs) cause a broad spectrum of diseases in domestic and wild animals, poultry, and rodents, ranging from
mild to severe enteric, respiratory, and systemic disease, and also cause the common cold or pneumonia in humans. Seven coronavirus
species are known to cause human infection, 4 of which, HCoV 229E, HCoV NL63, HCoV HKU1 and HCoV OC43, typically cause
cold symptoms in immunocompetent individuals. The others namely SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus),
MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) were zoonotic in origin and cause severe respiratory illness and fatalities.
On 31 December 2019, the existence of patients with pneumonia of an unknown aetiology was reported to WHO by the national
authorities in China. This virus was officially identified by the coronavirus study group as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the present outbreak of a coronavirus-associated acute respiratory disease was labelled coronavirus disease 19
(COVID-19). COVID-19’s first cases were seen in Turkey on March 10, 2020 and was number 47,029 cases and 1006 deaths after 1
month. Infections with SARS-CoV-2 are now widespread, and as of 10 April 2020, 1,727,602 cases have been confirmed in more than
210 countries, with 105,728 deaths.
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İlhami ÇELİK, Esma SAATÇİ, Füsun ÖNER EYÜBOĞLU
İlhami ÇELİK, Esma SAATÇİ, Füsun ÖNER EYÜBOĞLU
Infectious diseases remain as the significant causes of human and animal morbidity and mortality, leading to extensive
outbreaks and epidemics. Acute respiratory viral diseases claim over 4 million deaths and cause millions of hospitalizations in developing
countries every year. Emerging viruses, especially the RNA viruses, are more pathogenic since most people have no herd immunity.
The RNA viruses can adapt to the rapidly changing global and local environment due to the high error rate of their polymerases that
replicate their genomes. Currently, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is determined as an infectious disease caused by severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was first identified in 2019 in Wuhan. Herein we discuss emerging and
reemerging respiratory viral infections till to SARS-CoV-2.
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Hasan TEZER, Tuğba Bedir DEMİRDAĞ
Hasan TEZER, Tuğba Bedir DEMİRDAĞ
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was firstly reported at the end of 2019. The disease rapidly spread all around the world in a
few months and was declared a worldwide pandemic by WHO in March 2020. By April 9, there were 1,436,198 confirmed COVID-19
cases in the world, nearly with 6% mortality rate. This novel infectious disease causes respiratory tract illness that may generally occur as
mild upper respiratory tract disease or pneumonia. In older patients and/or patients with underlying conditions, it may result in acute
respiratory distress syndrome, multi organ failure and even death. According to the current literature, children account approximately for
1%–5% of diagnosed COVID-19 cases. Generally, COVID-19 seems to be a less severe disease for children than adults. Approximately
90% of pediatric patients are diagnosed as asymptomatic, mild, or moderate disease. However, up to 6.7% of cases may be severe. Severe
illness is generally seen in patients smaller than 1 year of age and patients who have underlying disesases. The epidemiological and
clinical patterns of COVID-19 and treatment approaches in pediatric patients still remain unclear although many pediatric reports
are published. This review aims to summarize the current epidemics, clinical presentations, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19 in
pediatric patients.
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Abdurrahman TUFAN, Aslıhan AVANOĞLU GÜLER, Marco Matucci CERİNİC
Abdurrahman TUFAN, Aslıhan AVANOĞLU GÜLER, Marco Matucci CERİNİC
In the Wuhan Province of China, in December 2019, the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a severe involvement
of the lower respiratory tract leading to an acute respiratory syndrome. Subsequently, coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) provoked a
pandemic which is considered a life-threatening disease. The SARS-CoV-2, a family member of betacoronaviruses, possesses singlestranded
positive-sense RNA with typical structural proteins, involving the envelope, membrane, nucleocapsid and spike proteins
that are responsible for the viral infectivity, and nonstructural proteins. The effectual host immune response including innate and
adaptive immunity against SARS-Cov-2 seems crucial to control and resolve the viral infection. However, the severity and outcome
of the COVID-19 might be associated with the excessive production of proinflammatory cytokines “cytokine storm” leading to an
acute respiratory distress syndrome. Regretfully, the exact pathophysiology and treatment, especially for the severe COVID-19, is
still uncertain. The results of preliminary studies have shown that immune-modulatory or immune-suppressive treatments such as
hydroxychloroquine, interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-1 antagonists, commonly used in rheumatology, might be considered as treatment
choices for COVID-19, particularly in severe disease. In this review, to gain better information about appropriate anti-inflammatory
treatments, mostly used in rheumatology for COVID-19, we have focused the attention on the structural features of SARS-CoV-2, the
host immune response against SARS-CoV-2 and its association with the cytokine storm.
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Hakan GÖKER ,
Elifcan ALADAĞ ,
Haluk DEMİROĞLU ,
Cağlayan AYAZ ,
Yahya BÜYÜKAŞIK ,
Ahmet İNKAYA ,
Salih AKSU ,
Nilgün SAYINALP ,
İbrahim HAZNEDAROĞLU ,
Ömrüm UZUN ,
Murat AKOVA ,
Osman ÖZCEBE ,
Serhat ÜNAL
COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease of 2019) is an infectious disease outbreak later on declared as a pandemic, caused
by the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2). It spreads very rapidly and can result in severe acute respiratory
failure. The clinical studies have shown that advanced age and chronic diseases increase the risk of infection. However, influence of the
blood groups on COVID-19 infection and its outcome remains to be confirmed. The aim of this study is to investigate whether there
exists a relationship between the blood groups of the patients and risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and the clinical outcomes in COVID-19
patients.
Material and method: 186 patients with PCR confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in this study. Age, sex, blood groups,
comorbidities, need for intubation and intensive care unit follow up and mortalities of the patients were analyzed retrospectively. 1881
healthy individuals, who presented to the Hacettepe University Blood Bank served as the controls.
Results: The most frequently detected blood group was blood group A (57%) amongst the COVID-19 patients. This was followed by
blood group O (24.8%). The blood group types did not affect the clinical outcomes. The blood group A was statistically significantly
more frequent among those infected with COVID-19 compared to controls (57% vs. 38%, P < 0.001; OR: 2.1). On the other hand, the
frequency of blood group O was significantly lower in the COVID-19 patients, compared to the control group (24.8% vs. 37.2%, P: 0.001;
OR: 1.8).
Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest that while the blood group A might have a role in increased susceptibility to the
COVID-19 infection, the blood group O might be somewhat protective. However, once infected, blood group type does not seem to
influence clinical outcome.
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Hamad DHEIR, Savaş SİPAHİ, Selçuk YAYLACI, Mehmet KÖROĞLU, Ali Fuat ERDEM, Oğuz KARABAY
Hamad DHEIR, Savaş SİPAHİ, Selçuk YAYLACI, Mehmet KÖROĞLU, Ali Fuat ERDEM, Oğuz KARABAY
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Background/aim: To compare the clinical use, image quality and viewing angle of a commonly used contact wide angle viewing (WAV)
system (Advanced Visual Instruments (AVI) Panoramic Imaging Systems, NY, USA) with a commonly used noncontact WAV system
(Leica RUV800, Leica Microsystems, Switzerland).
Materials and methods: Images of 42 consecutively operated eyes were obtained with both systems at the same surgical stages and were
compared for image quality using the Imatest Master 4.5.13 (Imatest LLC, Boulder, USA) software. The viewing angles of the images
were calculated using the optic disc sizes measured from the OCT and infrared fundus images. The 68-degree AVI lens was compared
with the 90-dioptre (D) Leica RUV800 lens, while the 130-degree AVI lens was compared with the 132-D Leica RUV800 lens. The
surgical assistants were asked to grade the difficulty of holding the lens in place from 1 to 10, 1 being the easiest and 10 being the most
difficult.
Results: The contact system provided wider viewing angles with higher quality compared to the noncontact system both under fluid and
air media. The difference was clinically significant in eyes with impaired corneal clarity, very high myopia, or small pupil. The difficulty
of holding the lens in place ranged from 4 to 7, and decreased gradually with practice.
Conclusions: Both WAV systems provided high image quality and adequate viewing angles in most cases. However, the contact system
appeared to provide a superior image quality and/or a wider viewing angle in more challenging situations. The difficulty of holding the
contact lens in place was found to be moderate.
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