Clinical efficacy of convalescent plasma for treatment of COVID-19 infections: Results of a multicenter clinical study

Since Dec. 2019 the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has infected millions and claimed life of several hundred thousand worldwide. However, so far no approved vaccine or drug therapy is available for treatment of virus infection. Convalescent plasma has been considered a potential modality for COVID-19 infection. One hundred eighty-nine COVID-19 positive patients including 115 patients in plasma therapy group and 74 patients in control group, registered in the hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 infection, entered this multi-center clinical study. Comparison of outcomes including all-cause mortality, total hospitalization days and patients� need for intubation between the two patient groups shows that total of 98 (98.2 ) of patients who received convalescent plasma were discharged from hospital which is substantially higher compared to 56 (78.7 ) patients in control group. Length of hospitalization days was significantly lower (9.54 days) in convalescent plasma group compared with that of control group (12.88 days). Only 8 patients (7) in convalescent plasma group required intubation while that was 20 in control group. This clinical study provides strong evidence to support the efficacy of convalescent plasma therapy in COVID-19 patients and recommends this treatment for management of these patients. Clinical efficacy, immediate availability and potential cost effectiveness could be considered as main advantages of convalescent plasma therapy. © 2020 Elsevier Lt

A hybrid fuzzy approach for the closed-loop supply chain network design under uncertainty

International audienc

Effectiveness of photochemical and sonochemical processes in degradation of Basic Violet 16 (BV16) dye from aqueous solutions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>In this study, degradation of Basic Violet 16 (BV16) by ultraviolet radiation (UV), ultrasonic irradiation (US), UV/H₂O₂ and US/H₂O₂ processes was investigated in a laboratory-scale batch photoreactor equipped with a 55W immersed-type low-pressure mercury vapor lamp and a sonoreactor with high frequency (130kHz) plate type transducer at 100W of acoustic power. The effects of initial dye concentration, concentration of H₂O₂ and solution pH and presence of Na₂SO₄ was studied on the sonochemical and photochemical destruction of BV16 in aqueous phase. The results indicated that in the UV/H₂O₂ and US/H₂O₂ systems, a sufficient amount of H₂O₂ was necessary, but a very high H₂O₂ concentration would inhibit the reaction rate. The optimum H₂O₂ concentration was achieved in the range of 17 mmol/L at dye concentration of 30 mg/L. A degradation of 99% was obtained with UV/H₂O₂ within 8 minutes while decolorization efficiency by using UV (23%), US (<6%) and US/H₂O₂(<15%) processes were negligible for this kind of dye. Pseudo-first order kinetics with respect to dyestuffs concentrations was found to fit all the experimental data.</p