Background: the novel coronavirus (2019-ncov), formally known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2), the etiological cause of the (corona virus disease 2019) covid-19, appeared in wuhan, hubei province, china. On 11 march 2020, the world health organization (who) declared this disease as a pandemic. As new information on the clinical characteristics, treatment options, and outcomes for covid-19 emerges approximately every hour, physicians should keep themselves up-to-date on this topic.Objective: to study the demographic features, clinical signs and symptoms and certain vital and laboratory findings of covid-19 hospitalized cases; and to identify the used medication, complications, length of stay at the hospital and disease outcomes of confirmed covid-19 cases.Patients and methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study with analytic elements was conducted at ibn-al khateeb hospital, baghdad on covid-19 patients admitted to the hospital from 1st of march to 4th of may 2020. All inpatients of all age groups, diagnosed as covid-19 and had a definite outcome (recovered and discharge or death) during the period of the study were included.Results: the mean age ± sd for the patients included in the study was = 37.9±18.85 years, with 51.2% being males. The outcome was statistically significantly associated with age, marital status, hypertension, disease severity at admission and length of stay at hospital.Conclusion: this study found that age was associated with disease outcome. Care, attention and monitoring should be taken into consideration for hypertensive patients. Patients’ initial signs and symptoms of dyspnea, weakness and sore throat were significantly associated with disease outcome.

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Objective: To describe the demographic, clinical and laboratory features and, treatment and outcomes of Zika outbreak associated neurological syndromes. Methods: Zika outbreak associated neurological syndromes refer to specific neurological syndromes characterized by acute or sub-acute monophasic bilateral areflexic or hyporeflexic limb weakness and/or sensory impairment with or without cranial nerve, meningeal, myelopathic or encephalopathic abnormalities, with or without antecedent viral symptoms and without a more reasonable explanation during the Zika outbreak April to September 2016 at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH). Medical records of men and women aged 12 years and over meeting these criteria were identified from intra-hospital records and reviewed for specific neurological syndrome classification based on clinical features, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, brain and spinal cord magnetic resonance imaging and neurophysiology. Results: Thirty-five cases were identified and 25 medical records reviewed. Three, eleven and seven patients met Brighton diagnostic criteria for Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) levels 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Other neurological syndromes were transverse myelitis (1), meningoencephalitis (2) and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis or [ADEM] (1). These four patients had additional findings typical of Guillain-Barre syndrome. Twenty-one reported antecedent viral symptoms, 12 required mechanical ventilation for respiratory failure and 23 received Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIg). Four of the 25 (16%) patients died. Conclusion: The current Zika outbreak in Jamaica has been accompanied by a spectrum of immunologically mediated acute neurological syndromes, the most common of which is GBS and appears associated with significant morbidity and mortality.