To investigate the effect of ginger root powder on egg production, cholesterol, antioxidant and hen performance, 100 30-week-old laying hens (Hy-Line W36) were equally and randomly assigned to four diets for 8 weeks. The diets included a control diet (0.0% ginger) and diets with 0.25, 0.5 or 0.75% ginger root powder. Although, the egg weight, feed intake and feed conversion ratio were not (PB0.05) influenced by ginger root supplementation, the egg production was higher and cholesterol lower (PB0.05) in birds fed diet with 0.5 or 0.75% ginger root compared to control birds. Ginger powder concentrations of 0.5 or 0.75% g (PB0.05) increased activities of glutathione peroxidase but reduced malondialdehyde content in the plasma. It is concluded that the use of 0.5% ginger root in diet may positively increase egg production and lower egg cholesterol without any adverse effect on egg weight and feed conversion ratio.

To control COVID‐19, several strategies were proposed in Iran since the start of the outbreak. The number of reported infected people and its consequent death toll herald relative inadequacies in the quality and extent of the measures in curbing the COVID‐19 transmission cycle. This study was conducted to investigate knowledge, attitude, precautionary practices and degree of fear related to COVID‐19 in a sample of Iranian population. This study was conducted among 457 residents of Kurdistan Province, Iran, through social networks and social media (WhatsApp and Telegram). Knowledge, attitude and practice and fear of COVID‐19 were collected using valid tools. Multiple logistic regression and multivariate linear regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with binary outcome attitudes, practices and continuous variables knowledge and fear of COVID‐19, respectively. The mean (SD) age of participants was 37.86 (10.42); of them, 252 (55.1%) were men, and more than two‐thirds were married (74.8%). About 10% of the respondents were in believed that COVID‐19 could create a type of social stigma. Level of knowledge about COVID‐19 in 77.8% of the study attendees was acceptable, and 352 of them (70%) were confident that the virus would eventually be successfully controlled in the world, but only 252 of the attendants (50%) had confidence about successful control of COVID‐19 in Iran. Applying multiple logistic regression, knowledge (OR: 1.18, p = 0.028) and fear (OR: 1.04, p = 0.028) of COVID‐19 were associated with positive attitude towards controllability of COVID‐19. Gender (OR: 1.96, p = 0.012), sources of information (OR: 5.00, p = 0.005) and knowledge (OR: 1.27, p = 0.006) were also indicated association with taking precautionary practices to control COVID‐19. Further studies are recommended to boost level of knowledge, strengthen positive attitude and ameliorate behavioural pattern for successful control of COVID‐19 in Iran.

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Background COVID-19 is a public health emergency with a high mortality rate and it reduces the patient’s Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) significantly. This effect is measured in the current study. Methods In a cross-sectional study in Iran, 320 randomly selected treated patients from COVID-19 were studied. To collect the required data, we applied a questionnaire that included socio-demographic factors, clinical characteristics, and questions on the patients’ HRQoL. Time trade-off (TTO) approach was used to measure the lost HRQoL attributed to COVID-19. Besides, we applied a two-limit Tobit regression model to determine the effects of the socio-demographic factors on patients’ health utility and the visual analogue scale approach was used to estimate the perceived total current health status. Results The overall mean (SE) and median (IQR) of the health utility values were 0.863 (0.01) and 0.909 (0.21) respectively. These values for the traders (those who were willing to lose a part of their remaining time of life to avoid the disease) were estimated at 0.793 (0.01) and 0.848 (0.17), respectively. The lowest amount of utility value belonged to the elderly (mean (SE) = 0.742 (0.04); median (IQR) = 0.765 (0.42)) and those living in rural areas (mean (SE)) = 0.804 (0.03); median (IQR) = 0.877 (0.30)). The univariate analysis showed that age, place of residence, and household size had a statistically significant effect on health utility. Moreover, findings of the regression analysis indicated that the participants’ age and hospitalization status were the key determinants of COVID-19 health utility value. Conclusion COVID-19 is associated with a substantial and measurable decrease in HRQoL. This decline in HRQoL can be directly compared with that induced by systemic health states.

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