BACKGROUND: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic inflammatory disease affects about 0.5–1% of adults. Sexuality is an integral part of human quality of life and responsible for our individual welfare, study the association between them is highly important as many studies revealed that sexuality is greatly affected in RA patients. AIM: This study aims to determine the possible different risk factors for sexual dysfunction (SD) in RA and to study the magnitude of SD among RA male patients. METHODS: This is a case–control study carried on 60 males – aged between 18–45 years – attending Family Medicine and Rheumatology Clinic in Kasr Alainy, Cairo University, Egypt. Participants were divided into case and control groups, both groups were matched regarding socioeconomic status. All participants were evaluated for sexual function using international index of erectile function (IIEF), psychological state using patient health questionnaire (PHQ9), disease-related disability using health assessment questionnaire, disease severity using disease activity score 28, and serum testosterone level was assessed. RESULTS: There was a statistically significant difference between both groups regarding IIEF (OR o’s SD among patients were 1.66), PHQ9, and serum testosterone (p = 0.005). There was highly statistically significant negative correlation between sexual problems and depression, disease caused disability, RA duration and there was highly statistically significant positive correlation between sexual problems and serum hormonal level. CONCLUSION: Sexual problems are a prominent problem in males who suffer from RA. Sexual function was significant associated with disease activity, depression, quality of life, and with lower levels of total and free testosterone.

Background: Vaccines are the most important strategy to overcome the global pandemic of COVID 19. Although the vaccine’s protective effectiveness is commonly addressed, little is known regarding the adverse effects after vaccination. Therefore, this study’s primary objective was to study the prevalence of different COVID-19 vaccine side effects among the early vaccinated healthcare workers in Egypt. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was done to assess the post vaccination symptoms among the health care workers who were vaccinated with COVID vaccine in Egypt. Results: One hundred and ninety-two health care workers (HCWs) responded to this questionnaire. The most common symptoms reported after the 1st dose of vaccination were pain at injection site (81.7%), followed by tiredness (70.7%) then myalgia and bone pain (62.8%). The most reported distressing symptoms after the 2nd dose were local pain at injection site (18.8%), tiredness (13.6%) and headache (10.5%). Conclusion: We concluded that post vaccination symptoms among health care workers were mild, short symptoms, and there were no serious adverse effects after the first dose as well as the second dose. The majority of participants did not report COVID-19 infection after vaccination which confirms the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. Key words: Covid vaccine, healthcare workers, Egypt

Many foods have foodborne pathogens, and detection of it, is very important to serve safe supply of food, consequently reduce of foodborne diseases. Nucleic acid base detection method is one of the most rapid widely methods used in the detection of foodborne pathogens, it depends on the hybridizing between target sequence of the nucleic acid and oligonucleotide primers or probes complementary to the specific nucleic acid sequence of the targeted bacteria. Designing primers and probes for this method is a preliminary and critical step‏.‏ however, new bioinformatics tools are needed to automate, specific and improve the design sets to be used in Nucleic Acid base method. Thus, we developed Foodborne Pathogen primer prob design (FBPP), ‎an open-source Python-based application supported with SQL database for foodborne pathogen virulence factor, for (i) ‎ design primer /probe for detection purpose (ii) PCR & Gel electrophoreses Photo simulation (iii) check the specificity of primers / probe.

Objectives: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a quick and reliable phone-triage system is critical for early care and efficient distribution of hospital resources. The study aimed to assess the accuracy of the traditional phone-triage system and phone triage-driven deep learning model in the prediction of positive COVID-19 patients. Setting: This is a retrospective study conducted at the family medicine department, Cairo University. Methods: The study included a dataset of 943 suspected COVID-19 patients from the phone triage during the first wave of the pandemic. The accuracy of the phone triaging system was assessed. PCR-dependent and phone triage-driven deep learning model for automated classifications of natural human responses was conducted. Results: Based on the RT-PCR results, we found that myalgia, fever, and contact with a case with respiratory symptoms had the highest sensitivity among the symptoms/ risk factors that were asked during the phone calls (86.3%, 77.5%, and 75.1%, respectively). While immunodeficiency, smoking, and loss of smell or taste had the highest specificity (96.9%, 83.6%, and 74.0%, respectively). The positive predictive value (PPV) of phone triage was 48.4%. The classification accuracy achieved by the deep learning model was 66%, while the PPV was 70.5%. Conclusion: Phone triage and deep learning models are feasible and convenient tools for screening COVID-19 patients. Using the deep learning models for symptoms screening will help to provide the proper medical care as early as possible for those at a higher risk of developing severe illness paving the way for a more efficient allocation of the scanty health resources.

Many foods have foodborne pathogens, and detection of it, is very important to serve safe supply of food, consequently reduce of foodborne diseases. Nucleic acid base detection method is one of the most rapid widely methods used in the detection of foodborne pathogens, it depends on the hybridizing between target sequence of the nucleic acid and oligonucleotide primers or probes complementary to the specific nucleic acid sequence of the targeted bacteria. Designing primers and probes for this method is a preliminary and critical step‏.‏ however, new bioinformatics tools are needed to automate, specific and improve the design sets to be used in Nucleic Acid base method. Thus, we developed Foodborne Pathogen primer prob design (FBPP), ‎an open-source Python-based application supported with SQL database for foodborne pathogen virulence factor, for (i) ‎ design primer /probe for detection purpose (ii) PCR & Gel electrophoreses Photo simulation (iii) check the specificity of primers / probe.