Objective: To review and identify the major drivers for COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Methods: A scoping review of studies of COVID-19 vaccine perceptions and barriers to using the COVID-19 vaccines. Two search engines, including PubMed and Google Scholar, were purposefully searched. Results: Eight studies from different countries were reviewed to categorize factors influencing people's acceptance of COVID-19 according to the Health Belief Model (HBM). Perceived susceptibility, and severity of the disease (COVID-19), in addition to perceived benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and "cues to action", can enhance vaccination acceptance. In contrast, perceived barriers to the COVID-19 vaccine can increase people's hesitancy to be vaccinated. Conclusions: The HBM domains are successful in the prediction of human behaviors toward preventive measures, including vaccination. In general, high perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, and minimum barriers should always be maintained to keep the vaccination rate high. Reducing the hesitancy to get the vaccine can be achieved by increasing awareness campaigns about the vaccine's efficacy in preventing infection.
Automated clinical decision support system (CDSS) acts as new paradigm in medical services today. CDSSs are utilized to increment specialists (doctors) in their perplexing decision-making. Along these lines, a reasonable decision support system is built up dependent on doctors' knowledge and data mining derivation framework so as to help with the interest the board in the medical care gracefully to control the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) virus pandemic and, generally, to determine the class of infection and to provide a suitable protocol treatment depending on the symptoms of patient. Firstly, it needs to determine the three early symptoms of COVID-19 pandemic criteria (fever, tiredness, dry cough and breat
... Show More<p>Analyzing X-rays and computed tomography-scan (CT scan) images using a convolutional neural network (CNN) method is a very interesting subject, especially after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, a study is made on 423 patients’ CT scan images from Al-Kadhimiya (Madenat Al Emammain Al Kadhmain) hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, to diagnose if they have COVID or not using CNN. The total data being tested has 15000 CT-scan images chosen in a specific way to give a correct diagnosis. The activation function used in this research is the wavelet function, which differs from CNN activation functions. The convolutional wavelet neural network (CWNN) model proposed in this paper is compared with regular convol
... Show MoreCOVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to be a global concern with new variants. Our research focused on the relationship between COVID-19 and air pollution, and we included findings from recently published research. In summary, there is a direct relationship between air pollution and COVID-19 infection and fatality rates. This relationship was evident after many parts of the world declared lockdowns. Research to understand the relationship between infection rates and air pollutants identified indirect factors that contributed to the spread of infection. In this article, we explore studies on air pollutants, the use of face masks, weather conditions, short-
... Show MoreThe Iraqi pharmaceutical sector faces significant challenges arising from the prevalence of substandard and falsified (S/F) medications, which pose a direct threat to public health safety. To strengthen regulatory oversight, health authorities have implemented national medicine track-and-trace system. However, the ultimate efficacy of these regulatory tools is heavily dependent on public awareness and the level of societal acceptance.
This study ai
The Iraqi sports journalism has paid great attention to sports events through press coverage of all its forms and arts, especially the coverage of the World Cup of football which is one of the most watched events in the world. Thousands of journals are preparing for the immediate coverage of such event which is a daunting task in itself. Newspapers have devoted a wider space to this great event in its pages as well as the weakly sports newspapers work on issuing a daily special issue. The importance of this research sheds light on the coverage of major events such as World Cup in Iraqi newspapers. The topic is new
... Show MoreBiomarkers such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP) and Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) have a role in the pathogenesis of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The aim of this study was to explore the differences between serum levels of such biomarkers in severe and non-severe COVID-19 cases and compare them with normal people and to evaluate the sociodemographic variables and chronic diseases effect on the severity of COVID-19. The study included 160 subjects, divided into two groups, a case group of 80 patients, and a control group of 80 normal persons. The case group was divided into two subgroups: 40 severe COVID-19 patients and 40 patients with non-severe disease. Blood IL-6 was asses
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Community pharmacists faced more complex challenges in meeting patients’ medication needs during the pandemic than previously reported in the literature. Objectives To explore the perception and abilities of community pharmacists in managing patients’ needs in terms of medication dispensing during the pandemic, and to examine its effect on improving the patients’ situations. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional study design, validated by 30 experts, was conducted using an electronic survey (Google Form) to assess the effect of the dispensing practice of Iraqi community pharmacists on the patient’s clinical outcomes during the pandemic. The survey was distributed on professional pharmacist’s social media platforms from December
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