Since the COVID-19 pandemic has been pestilential over a considerable duration, global deployment and financial crisis could not be reversed as before. It brought up essentials to allow the nations back to work with effective preventive measures. This review intended to evaluate the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) exposed in the environmental matrices, influencing factors on the virus persistence and disinfection methods. Applying the PRISMA 2009 tool, MEDLINE/PubMed, HINARI, and Google Scholar were primarily explored. Data were extracted, entered into the modified data extraction forms and analysed narratively. Quality appraisal was done by the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool. The findings were presented descriptively. Persistence of SARS-CoV-2 was revealed <4 hours on aluminium, 4 hours on copper, 24 hours on cardboard, 44 hours on glass, 48 hours on stainless steel, 72 hours on plastic, 92 hours on polystyrene plastic, 1.1-1.2 hours in the air, 7 days (higher titer) to 3 days (lower titer) in wastewater. Virus decaying was noted 5-10 times faster at 27°C than at 10°C and 2-5 times faster with 65% relative humidity (RH) than with 40% and 100% RH. Virus infectivity was reduced by far-UVC (222 nm) light for 90% (8 minutes), 95% (11 minutes), 99% (16 minutes) and 99.99% (25 minutes). Sodium hypochlorite (800 g/m3) and ammonium-based detergents were remarkably effective for preliminary disinfection. This review identified the duration of SARS-CoV-2 survival in environmental matrices for both healthcare and non-healthcare settings. The study explored the impacts of environmental factors on the virus and effective disinfection methods to be considered accordingly to the findings.

Background The life quality of about two-thirds of patients with COVID-19 is affected by related olfactory dysfunctions. The negative impact of olfactory dysfunction ranged from the decreased pleasure of eating to impaired quality of life. This research aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects of corticosteroid treatments by comparing that to other currently available treatments and interventions. Methods The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist’s 27-point checklist was used to conduct this review. PubMed (Public/Publisher MEDLINE), PubMed Central and EMBASE (Excerpta Medica Database) databases were conveniently selected and Boolean search commands were used for a comprehensive literature search. Five core search terms were "effects of treatments", " COVID-19-related olfactory dysfunction", "corticosteroids", "treatments" and "interventions". The reporting qualities of the included studies were appraised using JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) appraisal tools. The characteristics of the 21 experimental studies with a total sample (of 130,550) were aggregated using frequencies and percentages and presented descriptively. The main interventions and their effects on the duration of the COVID-19-related olfactory dysfunction were narratively analyzed. Results Among patients with COVID-19, the normal functions of the olfactory lobe were about 23 days earlier to gain with the treatments of fluticasone and triamcinolone acetonide nasal spray compared with that of mometasone furoate nasal spray and oral corticosteroid. The smell loss duration was reduced by fluticasone and triamcinolone acetonide nasal spray 9 days earlier than the inflawell syrup and 16 days earlier than the lavender syrup. The nasal spray of corticosteroids ended the COVID-19-related smell loss symptoms 2 days earlier than the zinc supplementation, about 47 days earlier than carbamazepine treatment and was more effective than palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) and luteolin and omega-3 supplementations and olfactory training. Treatment with oral corticosteroid plus olfactory training significantly improved Threshold, Discrimination and Identification (TDI) scores compared with olfactory training alone. A full dose of the COVID-19 vaccination was not uncertain to reduce the COVID-19-related smell loss duration. Conclusion Corticosteroid treatment is effective in reducing the duration of COVID-19-related smell loss and olfactory training, the basic, essential and effective intervention, should be used as a combination therapy.

Background: Globally, about 1.3 million human-immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive women get pregnant once a year, and about 160,000 children are born with the HIV. This study was conducted to investigate pregnant women's awareness, attitude, and practice regarding the prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT).Methods: This cross-sectional study collected qualitative data from 152 pregnant women registered in the health facilities in Taungoo township. Simple random sampling was applied to cull three out of total rural health centres and systematic random sampling was exercised to recruit the required pregnant women from all registered pregnancies. The semi-structured questionnaire and statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) version 23 were used for data collection and analysis accordingly.Results: In overall, the pregnant women studied had good awareness (56.6%), favourable attitude (60.5%), and good practice (55.3%) on PMTCT services. 78.3% were aware of the PMTCT project and knew that a baby can be prevented from HIV transmission by an HIV mother, 57.8% agreed that counselling and testing for HIV during pregnancy are important and 85.5% were tested for HIV. The awareness was associated with the family type (p=0.049), the attitude was associated with age (p=0.048), residence (p=0.024), and frequency of antenatal visits during current pregnancy (p=0.021), and practice was associated with antenatal care delivery sites (p=0.038), husband's support for antenatal care (p=0.004) and taking antenatal services during a previous pregnancy (p=0.033).Conclusions: Many unsatisfactory findings regarding PMTCT services were noted. So, strategic interventions and effective approaches for getting the full coverage of PMTCT programs should be strengthened.

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In the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) countries, community-delivered malaria volunteers (CDMVs) have been serving a vital role in providing primary preventive and curative services of malaria in the uncovered areas, but they have encountered different challenges. The main purpose of this systematic review was to determine the CDMVs’ challenges in malaria elimination settings of the GMS. A review team applied MEDLINE and PubMed, Google Scholar, and Myanmar Health Sciences Research Journal as major databases and Boolean operators as the focus search for selecting a final set of 46 English studies designed with qualitative and quantitative, and published in 2010 and after. The service qualities of CDMVs were affected by different challenges: motivational challenges (lack of incentive pay, supervision, shortage of malaria supply and inadequate training), community acceptance challenges (negative comments and less preference of community, unawareness of the CDMVs' roles, and inappropriate care of traditional healers), technical challenges (unsatisfactory knowledge and practices, complexities of reporting formats and applications), communication and transportation challenges (lack of electricity and Internet, inapplicability of transportation aids and poor road infrastructure), safety challenges (testing blood with unsafe technique), financial and logistic supply challenges (lack of supply for additional costs, and interruption of malaria ‘supply’) challenges in malaria management (difficulties in managing the patients with mixed malaria, invalid RDT results and severe patients). This review recommends that more research on the community malaria services should be invited and the malaria programmers from each GMS country should establish more perfect volunteer policies for eliminating the CDMVs’ challenges.