On 30 January 2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. On 11 March 2020, it officially became a pandemic. Two days later, there was a call to make “COVID-19 and coronavirus-related publications, and the available data supporting them, immediately accessible”. This led to the公共卫生紧急COVID-19倡议。
到目前为止，几家出版商已经回复了电话。由此产生的打开访问和转载的承诺删除了一些barriers writers and readers faced in the past。These include at-times slow peer review and publication processes, publication costs for writers and access fees for readers. Apart from quick and free access to a lot of new information, there is the potential for a greater variety of topics and findings (e.g. including more niche topics and “negative results”). Also, there have been学术全球卫生出版物作者的失衡，“外国研究人员”主导主题，这些主题主要影响中等收入，尤其是低收入国家。希望现在的出版物变得更加开放和成本降低了，这将会有所改变，但是多长时间？
在谨慎的一面，预印本增加了让不良研究经历的危险。最近的一篇关于羟基氯喹的论文证明了这一点，并且在作者声称使用的数据中存在不一致之处。尽管目前已撤回，但本文已经造成了相当大的危害。该药物的试验已被暂停，尽管现在已经重新启动了药物，但这已经推迟了进一步研究羟氯喹，是否可以帮助预防和/或对Covid-19的治疗。
What else has changed? Research has been hampered by lockdown restrictions, in particilar research that is not on COVID-19.实验室关闭很普遍，特别是早期的职业研究人员想知道大流行后他们是否仍然会有职业。一些希望现在终于回来了锁定放松around the globe. Still, consequences will be felt for months to come if not longer.
Papers on parasites and vectors may look less shiny than those on COVID-19; nevertheless there are interesting and important publications out right now. Many of them are available free of charge but few refer to events and research taking place since the start of 2020, and it seems that those that do tend to have some link to COVID-19. So indirectly, publications on parasites and vectors also have been impacted by currently ongoing pandemic-induced changes in academic publishing. This may be good, but also requires us to read with more care.
Repurposing drugs for COVID-19
Several old drugs for other diseases – not just chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine – have been or are still being considered for the treatment of COVID-19. This includes therepurposing of drugs反对埃博拉病毒，登革热，Zika，Zika，Chikunganya，疟疾，Leishmaniasis，贾第鞭毛疾病，s虫和不同种类的蠕虫，包括tape虫，trematodes，trematodes，trematodes，strongyatodes，strong ysatodes，contrestodes，trematodes，strong ysatodes和河流盲人（另请参见：请参阅：请参阅：请参阅：请参阅：请参阅：请参阅：hereandhere）。
Unfortunately, repurposing efforts could worsen已经存在的短缺由于最近的Covid-19锁定，抗疟药并增加risk of substandard/falsified productsif no additional meassures for quality assurance are taken. Reports of people in the US and Nigeriaaccidentally poisoning themselves by taking chloroquine formulations against COVID-19demonstrate the need for a warning: as for now, none of the drugs under discussion seems to have proven its suitability as a COVID-19 drug.
到目前为止，其他爆发到2020年
登革热causes about 10,000 deaths every year in over 125 countries around the globe. A quick Google search yields 14 countries with dengue outbreaks in 2020:新加坡，，，，Thailand，，，，巴拉圭，，，，印尼，，，，阿根廷，，，，Fiji，，，，the Marshall Islands，，，，France，，，，Peru，，，，哥伦比亚，，，，巴西，，，，Nicaragua，，，，Venezuelaand澳大利亚。此外，我发现one academic paper on a recent dengue outbreak in Brazil。It recorded a significant increase of suspected cases in comparison to last year. The current development has led to the question: “登革热是新的全球健康问题吗？” - 不幸的是，在付费墙后面的论文中。
Do these outbreaks get the proper attention now that the world is focusing their attention on COVID-19? One paper asks whether the COVID-19 pandemic was “掩盖尼日利亚的致命Lassa Fever流行“. Lassa fever has an annual peak from December to April. This year, more cases were reported than last year.在刚果博士中，埃博拉病例再次上升爆发后，四月份结束了。在这两个国家中，Lassa Fever和Ebola的死亡比率高于Covid-19，但媒体的覆盖范围仍然很低。
Interesting interactions
By comparing distribution maps of coronaviruses from 2003, 2017 and 2020 (the latest as of 25 March) with a distribution map of malaria from 2017, a paper points out an “inverse relationship in the overall number of cases infected with coronaviruses and Plasmodium parasite”。本文考虑了疟疾中流区域冠状病毒病例数量少的两个可能原因：与疟疾相关的进化适应性与使用氯喹在预防和治疗疟疾方面相关。
另一篇论文指出，Covid-19在非洲的传播比预期的要慢。该论文产生了以下假设由寄生虫诱导的免疫调节可能会降低对Covid-19的敏感性。另一方面，另一篇论文假设与舵手共同感染可能会使covid-19的严重程度恶化。
相关并不意味着因果关系。在资源丰富的国家的诊断范围内的可用性更大的情况下，在疟疾是非流行的地区的确认病例数量越高。然而，研究寄生虫在此中的作用是有意义的。
For this purpose and in general, we need good, open and diverse research and publishing.
Comments