Clinical presentation of post-COVID pain and its impact on quality of life in long COVID patients: a cross-sectional household survey of SARS-CoV-2 cases in Bangladesh

Background Pain is one of the prevalent Long COVID Symptoms (LCS). Pain interferes with the quality of life (QoL) and induces disease burden. Purpose The study aimed to elicit the clinical presentation of pain and determine the relationships between QoL and pain in LCS. Methods This household cross-sectional study of 12,925 SARS-CoV-2 cases between July and December 2021 was carried out in eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh. Stratifed random sampling from the cases retrieved from the Ministry of Health was employed. Symptom screening was performed through COVID-19 Yorkshire Rehabilitation Scale, and long COVID was diagnosed according to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. The analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS (Version 20.00). Results The prevalence of pain in long COVID was between 01 and 3.1% in the studied population. The study also found fve categories of pain symptoms as LCS in Bangladesh: muscle pain 3.1% (95% CI; 2.4–3.8), chest pain 2.4% (95% CI; 1.8–3.1), joint pain 2.8% (95% CI; 2.2–2.3), headache 3.1% (95% CI; 2.4–3.8), and abdominal pain 0.3% (95% CI; 0.01–0.5). People with LCS as pain, multiple LCS, and longer duration of LCS had signifcantly lower quality of life across all domains of the WHOQOL-BREF (P<0.001) compared to asymptomatic cases. Conclusion Three out of ten people with long COVID experience painful symptoms, which can signifcantly reduce their quality of life. Comprehensive rehabilitation can improve the symptoms and reduce the burden of the disease

Disease Burden of Stroke in Bangladesh from 2015 to 2023 in Patients Receiving Rehabilitation: A Protocol for a Retrospective Cohort Study

Background: Stroke is a serious public health concern that has a significant impact on the global disease burden. It has significant social, economic, and healthcare consequences worldwide. To assess the total number of healthy years lost due to premature death and disability-related limitations, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) measure. Methods: We will conduct a retrospective cohort study and include all stroke patients who received rehabilitation services at the Centre for Rehabilitation of Paralysed (CRP) in Bangladesh from 2015 to 2019. Relevant data will be extracted from The CRP PDMS database, which includes data for 1835 patients and covers all divisions of Bangladesh. The primary outcome will be to calculate the disease burden of stroke by using DALYs, the level of disability, and the reason for the mortality rate in Bangladesh. Demographic characteristics and study outcomes will be summarised using descriptive statistics, Inferential statistics will be conducted, employing Pearson correlation for parametric data and either chi-square or Spearman rank correlation for nonparametric data. Multivariable logistic regression will be performed to determine the clinical variables associated with a worse clinical outcome. Ethics and dissemination: The study was approved by the Institute of Physiotherapy, Rehabilitation & Research (IPRR) (The Academic Institute of Bangladesh Physiotherapy Association) Ethics Committee (BPAIPRR/IRB/992/07/2023/663). The study's results will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and showcased at national and international conferences. Study Implication: Stroke is one of the major causes of prolonged disability. The prolongation of disease and disability leads to health-related, social and economic burdens. Usually, it's difficult to determine by the person and family level about the disease burden. On the other hand, the severity of stroke and post-stroke complications can be prevented by avoiding the risk factors. So, the study of finding the disease burden of stroke and the result of the implemented protocol of stroke can guide the management and awareness of prevention

Biological Control of Rice Bakanae by an Endophytic Bacillus oryzicola YC7007

In our previous study, we reported that a novel endophytic bacterium Bacillus oryzicola YC7007 has suppressed bacterial diseases of rice via induced systemic resistance and antibiotic production. This endophytic strain, B. oryzicola YC7007 was used as a biological control agent against bakanae disease of rice caused by Fusarium fujikuroi, and its mechanism of interaction with the pathogen and the rice was further elucidated. Root drenching with B. oryzicola YC7007 suspension reduced the disease severity of bakanae significantly when compared with the untreated controls. The treatments of B. oryzicola YC7007 suspension (2.0 × 10⁷ cfu/ml) to the rice rhizosphere reduced bakanae severity by 46–78% in pots and nursery box tests containing autoclaved and non-autoclaved soils. Moreover, in the detached rice leaves bioassay, the development of necrotic lesion and mycelial expansion of F. fujikuroi were inhibited significantly by spraying the culture filtrate of B. oryzicola YC7007. Drenching of ethyl acetate extracts of the culture filtrate to the rhizosphere of rice seedlings also reduced the bakanae disease severity in the plant culture dish tests. With the root drenching of B. oryzicola YC7007 suspension, the accumulation of hydrogen peroxide was observed at an early stage of rice seedlings, and a hormonal defense was elicited with and without pathogen inoculation. Our results showed that the strain B. oryzicola YC7007 had a good biocontrol activity against the bakanae disease of rice by direct inhibition, and was also capable of inducing systemic resistance against the pathogen via primed induction of the jasmonic acid pathway

Bacillus oryzicola sp. nov., an Endophytic Bacterium Isolated from the Roots of Rice with Antimicrobial, Plant Growth Promoting, and Systemic Resistance Inducing Activities in Rice

Biological control of major rice diseases has been attempted in several rice-growing countries in Asia during the last few decades and its application using antagonistic bacteria has proved to be somewhat successful for controlling various fungal diseases in field trials. Two novel endophytic Bacillus species, designated strains YC7007 and YC7010T, with anti-microbial, plant growth-promoting, and systemic resistance-inducing activities were isolated from the roots of rice in paddy fields at Jinju, Korea, and their multifunctional activities were analyzed. Strain YC7007 inhibited mycelial growth of major rice fungal pathogens strongly in vitro. Bacterial blight and panicle blight caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (KACC 10208) and Burkholderia glumae (KACC 44022), respectively, were also suppressed effectively by drenching a bacterial suspension (10⁷ cfu/ml) of strain YC7007 on the rhizosphere of rice. Additionally, strain YC7007 promoted the growth of rice seedlings with higher germination rates and more tillers than the untreated control. The taxonomic position of the strains was also investigated. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that both strains belong to the genus Bacillus, with high similarity to the closely related strains, Bacillus siamensis KACC 15859T (99.67%), Bacillus methylotrophicus KACC 13105T (99.65%), Bacillus amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum KACC 17177T (99.60%), and Bacillus tequilensis KACC 15944T (99.45%). The DNA-DNA relatedness value between strain YC7010T and the most closely related strain, B. siamensis KACC 15859T was 50.4±3.5%, but it was 91.5±11.0% between two strains YC7007 and YC7010T, indicating the same species. The major fatty acids of two strains were anteiso-C15:0 and iso C15:0. Both strains contained MK-7 as a major respiratory quinone system. The G+C contents of the genomic DNA of two strains were 50.5 mol% and 51.2 mol%, respectively. Based on these polyphasic studies, the two strains YC7007 and YC7010T represent novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus oryzicola sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YC7010T (= KACC 18228T). Taken together, our findings suggest that novel endophytic Bacillus strains can be used for the biological control of rice diseases