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Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has affected over 180 countries, resulting in global mass death. It has been reported that patients with underlying disease are more likely to contract the disease and become critically ill. The impact of chronic kidney disease (CKD) on the severity of COVID-19 has been underlined in the literature. In this analysis, we have provided evidence of an association between CKD and COVID-19. We followed the PRISMA protocol and conducted a literature search using Google Scholar, EMBASE, PubMed, and Clinical trail.gov. The initial search yielded 2102 articles. We included 20 cohorts based on inclusion criteria reporting an association between CKD and COVID-19 after excluding irrelevant articles, including review articles and duplicates. We conducted pooled prevalence of CKD and meta-analysis to estimate the odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (CI) using Cochrane RevMan (version 5.4, Copenhagen: The Nordic Cochrane Centre, The Cochrane Collaboration), and R programming language version 4.16-2 (University of Auckland, New Zealand). Our study involved 4350 patients from different countries, and 212 (4.9%) patients had CKD. Among 20 cohorts, 57.27% were male with a median age of 55.5 years. Eight hundred sixty-six patients developed severe COVID-19, and out of which, 39 (4.5%) were CKD patients. CKD patients had a significantly increased risk of severe disease as compared to non-CKD patients with a pooled OR of 2.15 (95% CI 1.16-4.01) (I 2 =41;  p =0.02). Out of 443 COIVD-19 patients who died, 85 patients had CKD, with a prevalence of 19.18%. CKD patients had an increased risk of death as compared to non-CKD patients with a pooled OR of 5.58 (95% CI 3.27-9.54) (I 2 =0; p <0.00001). CKD is manifested as a common underlying disease in COVID-19 patients who had a worse prognosis, including mortality., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2021, Menon et al.)

Infection with Bartonella henselae ,a gram-negative coccobacillus, most frequently presents as cat-scratch disease (CSD) and often accompanies a recent history of cat bite or scratch. As compared to adults, teenagers and children or immunocompromised patients are predominantly affected by CSD. In immunocompetent individuals, CSD is typically a self-limiting clinical syndrome with complete resolution of febrile illness in two to four weeks with or without antimicrobial therapy. While most cases present with fever of unknown origin (FUO), previous reports have also documented atypical clinical presentation or systemic symptoms in few cases, including reports of hepatosplenic involvement. We present a case of visceral bartonellosis in an immunocompetent 15-year-old female, who presented with a six-week history of fever and abdominal pain with hepatosplenomegaly. She recovered completely after prolonged antibiotic treatment for six weeks with doxycycline and amikacin. We emphasize that in the workup of FUO, it may be pertinent to include bartonellosis as a differential especially in cases exhibiting hepatosplenomegaly on examination along with hepatosplenic lesions on imaging., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2021, Sharma et al.)