Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection
Epidemiological assessment of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection
COVID-19 began as an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 (WHO, 2020). The disease, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has affected >271,900,000 people worldwide and led to >5,000,000 deaths as of December 19, 2021 (WHO, 2021c). There are currently five SARS-CoV-2 variants that are classified as variants of concern: Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1), Delta (B.1.617.2), and more recently, Omicron (B.1.1.529) (WHO, 2021b).Clinical Presentation and Outcome of Hospitalized Patients With COVID-19 in the First and Second Waves in Saudi Arabia
The world had witnessed the occurrence of multiple waves of the SARS-CoV-2. Data comparing the clinical characteristics and outcomes of hospitalized patients in Saudi Arabia during the first and second waves are lacking. This study compares the characteristics and the outcomes of patients in these 2 waves.Safety and Reactogenicity of the ChAdOx1 (AZD1222) COVID-19 Vaccine in Saudi Arabia
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The pandemic has resulted in a significant disruption in social lives and has had a major economic impact. Countries around the globe have taken extraordinary measures to combat the disease. The results from phase III clinical trials have shown that both the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine (BNT162b2) and the Oxford-AstraZeneca adenovirus vector vaccine ChAdOx1-S, also known as Ad26.COV2.S, are very effective in decreasing disease and mortality with a planned two-dose schedule (Polack et al., 2020).Re-infection with a different SARS-CoV-2 clade and prolonged viral shedding in a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation patient
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread worldwide (WHO 2020). Understanding severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) shedding, transmission dynamics, and re-infection with different SARS-CoV-2 clades in immunocompromised persons is an important clinical and public health challenge (Choi et al., 2020).Test-based de-isolation in COVID-19 immunocompromised patients: Cycle threshold value versus SARS-CoV-2 viral culture
With the ongoing coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic, an increasing number of immunocompromised patients are becoming infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) worldwide, including solid organ transplant recipients (Elias et al., 2020). Immunocompromised patients may have prolonged viral shedding and thus may be unrecognized sources of SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Baang et al., 2021). It has been reported that critically ill patients have positive infectious SARS-CoV-2 cultures for 20 days, while those with mild disease have positive viral cultures for 8–10 days post infection (van Kampen et al., 2021; Wölfel et al., 2020).Seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 among blood donors in the early months of the pandemic in Saudi Arabia
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a novel coronavirus causing Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) infection at a pandemic scale. It was first detected in Wuhan city, China, in December 2019 and has since rapidly spread worldwide including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (AlJishi and Al-Tawfiq, 2021; AlJishi et al., 2021; Al-Tawfiq and Memish, 2020b). Patients with COVID-19 have a wide clinical spectrum from an asymptomatic or mild infection in most cases to a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in others (Al-Tawfiq, 2020).
