“An integrated system,three separated responsibilities”,a new fever clinic management model,in prevention and control of novel coronavirus pneumonia

BACKGROUND Since December 2019,there have been many new cases of coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan,Hubei Province,which has gradually spread throughout the country.AIM To explore our hospital’s innovative management system to ensure the efficient operation of fever clinics during the epidemic,since controlling the spread of disease is an important way to prevent and control the epidemic.METHODS In total,200 outpatients with fever at our hospital between November 2019 and July 2020 were selected and allocated into two groups.RESULTS The fever clinic in our hospital operated smoothly,and infection with the novel coronavirus disease(COVID-19)has not been reported in our hospital.Additionally,we did not have any cases of missed diagnosis.The awareness regarding COVID-19 infection sources,transmission routes,early symptoms,and preventive measures was significantly higher in our fever clinic than in those of the pre-management group.CONCLUSION"An integrated system,three separate responsibilities"ensured the efficient functioning of our fever outpatient clinic and early screening of COVID-19 cases,which effectively curbed the transmission of COVID-19 and hence prevented COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic in our hospital,ultimately achieving the maximum effect of epidemic prevention and control.

Clinical Presentations of Lassa Fever in Non-Endemic Parts of the World: A Systematic Review

Background: Lassa fever cases outside Africa are seen as imported cases of Lassa fever. Timely diagnosis of imported Lassa fever is important for timely intervention necessary to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with Lassa fever, and this requires the knowledge of the clinical manifestations of Lassa fever. Purpose: This review was done to see how clinical diagnosis of imported Lassa fever can be facilitated based on the clinical presentations of imported cases of Lassa fever in Lassa fever non-endemic region. Methods: The relevant articles for the review were obtained from the databases of PubMed and Google Scholar. Results: The clinical presentations of the imported Lassa fever cases consisted of multisystem involvement and were similar to those of Lassa fever patients who were treated in the Lassa fever endemic region. Conclusions: History of recent travel to, or residence in, Lassa fever endemic region is an important clue for clinical diagnosis of Lassa fever. The 2011 CDC surveillance case definition and the modified Khan case definition for Lassa fever may aid clinical diagnosis of Lassa fever. Any clinically suspected case of Lassa fever should have a laboratory confirmation.

Investigation of Amoxicillin Use in Fever Clinic Patients:Standardized Application of Antibiotics is Still Challenging

Amoxicillin is widely used by the Chinese population and available in pharmacies without prescription.We performed a retrospective study on patients with fever who took amoxicillin before going to the fever clinic of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University from March 1,2020 to March 31,2021.Among the total of 9093 patients attending the fever clinic,446 patients had a history of taking amoxicillin,from which 100 cases were randomly selected to evaluate the therapeutic effects of non-prescribed amoxicillin by changes in clinical symptoms,counts of white blood cells,neutrophils,and lymphocytes,and levels of C-reactive protein(CRP).The control group consisted of 100 randomly selected patients for who it was verified that they did not take antibiotics before attending the fever clinic.Our study showed that there were no significant differences between the group of patients taking amoxicillin and the control group in terms of symptom improvement,white blood cell,neutrophil or lymphocyte counts,or the levels of CRP.Therefore,our study indicated that although non-prescribed amoxicillin is widely used among patients with fever,it does not provide significant beneficial therapeutic effects.There is still a long way to go to standardize the application of antibiotics and popularize knowledge on proper antibiotics use among the population.