Coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) is an ongoing global pandemic with a daily increasing number of affected individuals and a relatively high mortality rate. COVID-19 patients that develop cardiac injury are at increased risk of a worse clinical course with higher rates of mortality. Increasing amounts of evidence suggest that a system-wide inflammatory response and a cytokine storm mediated type syndrome plays a crucial role in disease progression. This systematic review investigates the possible role of hyperinflammation in inducing cardiac injury as one of the severe complications of COVID-19. A systematic literature search was performed using PubMed, Embase and Scopus databases to identify relevant clinical studies that investigatedc ardiovascular injury manifestations and reported inflammatory and cardiac biomarkers in COVID-19 patients. Only 29 studies met our inclusion criteria and the majority of these studies demonstrated significantly elevated inflammatory and cardiac blood markers. It was evident that underlying cardiovascular diseases may increase the risk of developing cardiac injury. However, many COVID-19 patients included in this review, developed different types of cardiac injury without having any underlying cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, many of these patients were either children or adolescents. Therefore, age and comorbidities may not always be the two main risk factors that dictate the severity and outcome of COVID-19. Further investigations are required to understand the underlying mechanisms of pathogenicity as an urgent requirement to develop the appropriate treatment and prevention strategies. These strategies may specifically target hyperinflammation as a suspected driving factor forsome of the severe complications of COVID-19.

Background The parent-adolescent relationship plays a key role in adolescent development, including behaviour, physical health, and mental health outcomes. Studies on the parental factors that contribute to an adolescent’s dietary habits, exercise, mental health, physical harm and substance use are limited in the Middle East and North Africa region, with none in Oman. This study aims to investigate the association between parental involvement and adolescent well-being in Oman. Methods Cross-sectional data from the 2015 Global School Health Survey for Oman was analysed. The dataset consisted of 3468 adolescents. Adolescents reported on their parental involvement (checking to see if they did their homework, understanding their problems, knowing what they are doing in their free time and not going through their things without permission). Parental involvement was scored on a 20-point scale. Associations with the following dependent variables: nutrition, exercise, hygiene, physical harm, bullying, substance use, tobacco use and mental health well-being were done using Spearman’s correlations, linear and logistic regressions. Results The surveyed population was 48% male, 65% aged 15 to 17 years old and 5% reported that they “most of the time or always” went hungry. Parental involvement was positively correlated with each of the dependent variables. Adolescents with higher parental involvement had significantly higher odds of good nutrition (1.391), hygiene (1.823) and exercise (1.531) and lower odds of physical harm (0.648), being bullied (0.628), poor mental health (0.415), tobacco use (0.496) and substance use (0.229). Conclusions Parental involvement plays a positive role in all aspects of adolescents’ well-being in Oman. Awareness campaigns and interventions aimed to help improve the well-being of adolescents should incorporate such positive role in their designs.

DNA barcoding technique has made it possible to authenticate various species used for food and medicinal purposes. In the identification of seafood species, studies are concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia. Elsewhere, including countries in the Middle East and North Africa, studies of this sort are scarce. This study focuses on packaged fresh or minimally processed fish fillet available at eight major supermarket chains in Qatar. A cocktail of eight primers attached with M13 tails established for fish species identification was adopted to facilitate PCR and sequencing. Sequences were compared with those available in the Barcode of Life Databases (BOLD Systems) and BLAST in NCBI databases. Among the 62 unique fish packages with resolved sequences, only three are confirmed to be mislabeled, at a rate of about 5%. Two of the substituted species are high value items while the third species was replaced by another, equally low-cost species. The relatively low rate of mislabeling in the samples is perhaps a result of strict local food safety regulations, which may have led to high consistency between the package labels and their contents.

Objective Pivotal clinical trials revealed good clinical efficiency of ocrelizumab while having a good safety profile in the management of multiple sclerosis (MS). However, real-world data of ocrelizumab in daily clinical practice remain scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the preliminary safety profile and effectiveness of ocrelizumab treatment for MS in an Arab population in a real-world clinical setting. Methods In this retrospective single-center observational study in Qatar, we reviewed the medical records and analyzed the clinical and MRI data of all patients with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) and active secondary progressive MS (aSPMS)—between October 2017 through December 2020—who had received at least one infusion of ocrelizumab (Q-OCRE). Results A total of 60 MS patients were included (57 with RRMS, three SPMS). The Median follow-up period was 19 months (range, 1–32). The most common reason for switching to ocrelizumab was increased disease activity and three-quarters of the patients were on a previous disease-modifying drug (DMD). No evidence of disease activity (NEDA) status at year 1 was achieved in 73% of the cohort. Mild infusion-related reactions (IRR) and infections were reported (mainly upper respiratory tract infections followed by urinary tract infection) with a declining percentage over the follow-up applications. No severe side effects were observed. Conclusion Our real-world experience confirms good efficacy, tolerability, and safety of ocrelizumab in our Arab population.

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