Abstract:The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B infection in pregnant women and to evaluate the risk factors of hepatitis B infection. The study was conducted during the period (March to June, 2010) in Khartoum state, Sudan. A total of 160 pregnant women who presented to the labor ward or antenatal clinic of Khartoum Teaching Hospital were enrolled. Socio-demographic characteristics were gathered, in addition to obstetric history through a structured questionnaire. Hepatitis B surface antigen was assayed using rapid test. The seropositivity among the studied population was 12 (7.5%) for HBsAg (Hepatitis B surface antigen). Some of the studied risk factors were found to be statistically significant in relation to hepatitis B virus infection among Sudanese pregnant women in Khartoum state. The study concluded that HBV infection among pregnant Sudanese women is of high endemicity in Khartoum state.

Background: It would be rational to describe the pattern of the clinical characteristics of the survivors and the nonsurvivors during the critical intensive-infection era of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The explicit objective of the current scoping review was to delineate the predictive risk factors associated with case fatality rate (CFR). Methods: Six retrospective studies of subjects infected with COVID-19 published between December 1, 2020, and March 30, 2020, describing nonsurvivors in Wuhan/Hubei, China, were identified. Results: There were 1769 subjects with a mean age of 52 years, and 65.9% were male. The highest comorbidity reported was cardiovascular diseases at 22.2% (393/1769). The overall number of cases admitted to the intensive care unit was 228 (12.9%). The reported overall CFR was 7.7% (136/1769), with the highest at 28.2% (54/191), and the lowest at 1.4% (15/1099). The mean duration of onset until death for nonsurvivors was 15.3 days. Conclusion: We have found that older age, male gender, the longer duration from onset till death (days), development of acute respiratory distress syndrome/shock, preexisting diabetes, and preexisting cardiovascular diseases were the major risk factors associated with high CFR.

<p>Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process that is ubiquitous in the universe and allows the conversion of the magnetic field energy into heating and acceleration of plasma. It’s also very important as it is responsible for the dominant transport of plasma, momentum, and energy across the magnetopause from the solar wind into the Earth magnetosphere. Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs) are the primary large-scale propagating structures and important drivers of unusual space weather disturbances causing magnetospheric activity. The present study reports on a magnetic reconnection event detected by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) on 21 October 2015 around 04:40 UT and related to a large-scale solar wind (SW) perturbation impacting the Earth’s magnetopause. Based on OMNI data, the event impacting the Earth’s magnetosphere is ahead of weak CIR (SW beta=~7 and Alfvénic Mach number~15) where the density of solar wind is about ~20 cm <sup>-3 </sup>(compared with average SW density ~3-10 cm <sup>-3</sup>). Furthermore, the magnetosheath (MSH) density measured by MMS just after the crossing of the magnetopause is about ~95 cm <sup>-3</sup> (compared with average MSH density ~20 cm <sup>-3</sup>). Reconnection signatures such as ion and electron jets, Hall field, and energy conversion are compared with a “classical” reconnection event observed during quiet solar wind conditions.</p>

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