Background: The mortality associated with the pandemic COVID-19 is a subject of intense scrutiny as COVID-19 can cause severe disease leading to hospitalization in ICU and potentially death, especially in the elderly with comorbidities. A statistical analysis is carried out to study the impact of age, gender and comorbidities on deaths among early one lakh infected population of Karnataka, a large state in south India.Methods: Daily case fatality rate and adjusted case fatality rate (CFR) (adjusted to median death time) are estimated. The impacts of age, gender and comorbidities on mortality outcomes of COVID patients are studied.Results: The daily CFR on 27th July for Karnataka is estimated from the dataset to be 1.93%. However, the adjusted CFR based on the median number of days from diagnosis to death was found to be 2.15% (95% confidence interval 2%-2.3%) on that day. The deaths among male patients outnumber those in females. As far as age of the patients is concerned, more than 50% of the deaths occurred in the age group 50-60 and 60-70 years. Majority of deaths reported in the state were associated with at least one of the comorbidity. Diabetes mellitus and hypertension were the most significant comorbidities.Conclusions: The daily adjusted CFR for the study region is found to be lower than the CFR of the whole nation. Also the age, gender and comorbidities were found to be associated with the deaths as opposed to the infection alone. It was also deduced that, patients with a history of diabetes or hypertension or ischemic heart disease or a combination of any of these were most likely to experience severe outcomes of the infection.

Survival probabilities of SARS-COV-2 virus causing COVID-19 in the infectee are tracked using the duration of recovery times of patients in Karnataka state of India. Influence of age, gender, and other symptoms and illness on recovery time is studied. The death of COVID-19 patients and the infectees still under treatment are censored.

Background Hemophilia A is an X chromosome–linked bleeding disorder caused by the deficiency of coagulation factor VIII (FVIII). The majority of the Indian population with hemophilia A use plasma‐derived clotting factors and, in some instances, fresh frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate. Safer and more efficient treatment options are needed for this group of patients. Objectives To assess the safety of turoctocog alfa, a third‐generation recombinant FVIII molecule, for the treatment and prophylaxis of bleeding episodes in previously treated Indian patients with moderate or severe hemophilia A. Patients/Methods This single‐country, multicenter, open‐label, nonrandomized trial enrolled 60 patients who received prophylactic treatment with turoctocog alfa for 8 weeks, which corresponded to a minimum of 20 exposure days. Confirmed development of FVIII inhibitors during the 8‐week treatment period was evaluated. Other assessments included frequencies of adverse drug reactions (ARs), serious adverse reactions, drug‐related allergic reactions, and infusion reactions during the 12‐week period after the first treatment; hemostatic effect of turoctocog alfa for the treatment of bleeding episodes; and total annualized dose of turoctocog alfa administered during the 8‐week treatment period. Results No incidence of FVIII inhibitors was detected. No safety concerns such as ARs, serious ARs, or drug‐related allergic reactions were noted. The hemostatic success rate for the treatment of bleeding episodes with turoctocog alfa was 81.6%. Conclusions The trial results demonstrated that turoctocog alfa is a safe treatment option for the prophylaxis and treatment of bleeding episodes in previously treated adolescent and adult patients with hemophilia A in the Indian population.

No abstract

Background: There is a scarcity of studies regarding antidepressant activity of vitamin D in animals while there are some contradictory reports regarding the same in humans. Therefore the present study was planned to investigate the antidepressant effect of vitamin D and its interaction with standard antidepressant drugs in animals.Methods: Forced swim test (FST) in adult male Wistar rats and tail suspension test (TST) in adult male Swiss albino mice were used to investigate antidepressant activity of vitamin D administered in single dose and multiple doses. Imipramine, a tri-cyclic antidepressant and fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor were used as standard antidepressant drugs. For interaction studies, half the therapeutic equivalent dose of vitamin D was combined with sub-effective dose (SED) of imipramine or fluoxetine. Data was expressed as Mean±SD and analyzed by standard statistical tests. P<0.05= significant. Present study was ethically approved.Results: Single dose administration of vitamin D did not show significant antidepressant effect either in FST or TST. Multiple dose administration of vitamin D showed significant antidepressant activity in TST but not in FST. Combination of vitamin D (half dose) with SED of either standard antidepressant drugs did not show any significant antidepressant activity. None of the treatment groups showed any significant difference on locomotor activity.Conclusions: In the present study, multiple dose administration of vitamin D showed some antidepressant activity. Further studies are needed to confirm and elaborate the role of vitamin D in behavioral disorders like depression.