COVID-19 is a pandemic with over 5 million cases worldwide. The disease has imposed a huge burden on health resources. Evaluation of clinical and epidemiological profiles of such patients can help in understanding and managing the outbreak more efficiently. This study was a prospective observational analysis of 200 diagnosed COVID-19 patients admitted to a tertiary care center from 20th march to 8th May 2020. All these patients were positive for COVID-19 by an oro-nasopharyngeal swab-rtPCR based testing. Analyses of demographic factors, clinical characteristics, comorbidities, laboratory parameters, and the outcomes were performed. The mean age of the population was 40 years with a slight male predominance (116 patients out of 200, 58%). A majority of the patients (147, 73.5 %) were symptomatic, with fever being the most common symptom (109, 54.5%), followed by cough (91, 45.5%). An older age, presence of symptoms and their duration, leukocytosis, a high quick SOFA score, a high modified SOFA score, need for ventilator support, an AST level more than 3 times the upper limit of normal (ULN), and a serum creatinine level of 2 mg/dl or greater were at a significantly higher risk of ICU admission and mortality. Presence of diabetes mellitus, AST > three times ULN, serum creatinine 2 mg/dl or higher, and a qSOFA score of 1 or higher were all associated with significantly greater odds of critical care requirement. Triage and severity assessment helps in deciding the requirement for a hospital stay and ICU admission for COVID-19 which can easily be done using clinical and laboratory parameters. A mild, moderate and severe category approach with defined criteria and treatment guidelines will help in judicious utilization of health-care resources, especially for developing countries like India.   *Other members of the Safdarjung Hospital COVID-19 working group: Balvinder Singh (Microbiology), MK Sen (Pulmonary Medicine), Shibdas Chakrabarti (Pulmonary Medicine), NK Gupta (Pulmonary medicine), AJ Mahendran (Pulmonary Medicine), Ramesh Meena (Medicine), G Usha (Anaesthesiology), Santvana Kohli (Anaesthesiology), Sahil Diwan (Anaesthesiology), Rushika Saksena (Microbiology), Vikramjeet Dutta (Microbiology), Anupam Kr Anveshi (Microbiology)

Aluminum phosphide (ALP) is a cheap, easily available agricultural pesticide which causes lethal poisoning by liberation of phosphine and inhibition of cytochrome c oxidase thereby leading to cellular hypoxia. Although there is no known specific antidote, clinical trials are still going on. We present here two cases of ALP poisoning who were successfully managed by treatment with lipid emulsion and intravenous magnesium sulfate.

Respiratory viral infections, especially influenza have a potential to form a fatal association with cryptococcosis in the setting of compromised immunity. Considering the lethality of these two infections, we report an unusual case of dual infection of pandemic influenza A H1N1 and disseminated cryptococcosis in an HIV seropositive individual.

H ighlights There is no dearth of literature on pulmonary involvement in COVID-19 infection. However, extra-pulmonary manifestations are rare and can be easily missed during this pandemic. Our case series hopes to highlight the fact that neurological manifestations of COVID-19 infection are likely to be overlooked. Hence, a low threshold of clinical suspicion and testing for COVID-19 infection is needed in cases presenting with primary neurological symptoms. This will facilitate quicker detection, isolation of cases to prevent further transmission, and provision of early treatment.

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