Seroepidemiology of Toxoplasma gondii infection in pregnant women in a public hospital in northern Mexico

BACKGROUND: Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection in pregnant women represents a risk for congenital disease. There is scarce information about the epidemiology of T. gondii infection in pregnant women in Mexico. Therefore, we sought to determine the prevalence of T. gondii infection and associated socio-demographic, clinical and behavioural characteristics in a population of pregnant women of Durango City, Mexico. METHODS: Three hundred and forty three women seeking prenatal care in a public hospital of Durango City in Mexico were examined for T. gondii infection. All women were tested for anti-T. gondii IgM and IgG antibodies by using IMx Toxo IgM and IMx Toxo IgG 2.0 kits (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL, USA), respectively. Socio-demographic, clinical and behavioural characteristics from each participant were also obtained. RESULTS: Twenty one out of the 343 (6.1%) women had IgG anti-T. gondii antibodies. None of the 343 women had IgM anti-T. gondii antibodies. Multivariate analysis using logic regression showed that T. gondii infection was associated with living in a house with soil floor (adjusted OR = 7.16; 95% CI: 1.39–36.84), residing outside of Durango State (adjusted OR = 4.25; 95% CI: 1.72–10.49), and turkey meat consumption (adjusted OR = 3.85; 95% CI: 1.30–11.44). Other characteristics as cat contact, gardening, and food preferences did not show any association with T. gondii infection. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of T. gondii infection in pregnant women of Durango City is low as compared with those reported in other regions of Mexico and the majority of other countries. Poor housing conditions as soil floors, residing in other Mexican States, and turkey meat consumption might contribute to acquire T. gondii infection

Prospective individual patient data meta-analysis of two randomized trials on convalescent plasma for COVID-19 outpatients

Data on convalescent plasma (CP) treatment in COVID-19 outpatients are scarce. We aimed to assess whether CP administered during the first week of symptoms reduced the disease progression or risk of hospitalization of outpatients. Two multicenter, double-blind randomized trials (NCT04621123, NCT04589949) were merged with data pooling starting when = 50 years and symptomatic for <= 7days were included. The intervention consisted of 200-300mL of CP with a predefined minimum level of antibodies. Primary endpoints were a 5-point disease severity scale and a composite of hospitalization or death by 28 days. Amongst the 797 patients included, 390 received CP and 392 placebo; they had a median age of 58 years, 1 comorbidity, 5 days symptoms and 93% had negative IgG antibody-test. Seventy-four patients were hospitalized, 6 required mechanical ventilation and 3 died. The odds ratio (OR) of CP for improved disease severity scale was 0.936 (credible interval (CI) 0.667-1.311); OR for hospitalization or death was 0.919 (CI 0.592-1.416). CP effect on hospital admission or death was largest in patients with <= 5 days of symptoms (OR 0.658, 95%CI 0.394-1.085). CP did not decrease the time to full symptom resolution

La realidad virtual como método de enseñanza de la reanimación cardiopulmonar: un estudio aleatorizado

Objetivos. Analizar la eficacia de la realidad virtual (RV) en la formación en reanimación cardiopulmonar (RCP). Método. Estudio experimental, analítico, transversal para analizar el aprendizaje en RCP a través de la RV, en el que los participantes fueron asignados aleatoriamente en grupo control (GC) y grupo RV (GRV). Resultados. La nota del test fue de GRV fue 9,28 (DE 0,91) y el de GC 7,78 (DE 1,63) [diferencia de medias 1,49 (IC95% 0,96-2,02), p < 0,001]. El ritmo medio de las compresiones fue 97,5 (DE 9,7) compresiones/min para el GRV y 80,9 (DE 7,7) compresiones/min para el GC [diferencia de medias 16,6 (IC95% 15,0-18,2), p = 0,003]. La profundi- dad media fue 34,0 (DE 6,5) mm para el GRV y 27,3 (DE 4,9) mm para el GC [diferencia de medias 6,7 (IC95% 5,7- 7,8), p < 0,001]. Conclusión. La RV es un método de enseñanza de RCP capaz de mejorar los conocimientos teóricos y habilidades prácticas.Enfermerí