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Over the last few years, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) unleashed a global public health catastrophe that had a substantial influence on human physical and mental health, the global economy, and socio-political dynamics. SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory pathogen and the cause of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which testified how unprepared humans are for pandemics. Scientists and policymakers continue to face challenges in developing ideal therapeutic agents and vaccines, while at the same time deciphering the pathology and immunology of SARS-CoV-2. Challenges in the early part of the pandemic included the rapid development of diagnostic assays, vaccines, and therapeutic agents. The ongoing transmission of COVID-19 is coupled with the emergence of viral variants that differ in their transmission efficiency, virulence, and vaccine susceptibility, thus complicating the spread of the pandemic. Our understanding of how the human immune system responds to these viruses as well as the patient groups (such as the elderly and immunocompromised individuals) who are often more susceptible to serious illness have both been aided by this epidemic. COVID-19 causes different symptoms to occur at different stages of infection, making it difficult to determine distinct treatment regimens employed for the various clinical phases of the disease. Unsurprisingly, determining the efficacy of currently available medications and developing novel therapeutic strategies have been a process of trial and error. The global scientific community collaborated to research and develop vaccines at a neck-breaking speed. This review summarises the overall picture of the COVID-19 pandemic, different mutations in SARS-CoV-2, immune response, and the treatment modalities against SARS-CoV-2., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an airborne pathogenic microorganism that causes tuberculosis (TB). This pathogen invades lung tissues causing pulmonary infections and disseminates into other host organs. The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is employed to provide immune protection against TB; however, its efficacy is dependent on the age, immune status and geographic location of vaccinated individuals. Advanced diagnostic approaches such as GeneXpert MTB/RIF® and line probe assays (LPAs) have allowed rapid detection of drug-resistant, multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Mtb strains. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, public and private health institutions are further burdened by the high prevalence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the causative agent of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and TB co-infections across different age groups. Epigenetic mechanisms have been widely exploited by Mtb and HIV to bypass the host's innate and adaptive immune responses, leading to microbial proliferation and disease manifestation. In the current study, we investigated the impact of epigenetic mechanisms in regulating target gene expression in healthy and patients co-infected with MDR TB-HIV., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The Global Action Plan on antimicrobial resistance calls for the use of antimicrobial medicines in human and animal health to be optimized, in tandem with a strengthening of the knowledge and evidence base through surveillance and research. However, there is a paucity of consumption data for African countries such as South Africa. Determining antimicrobial consumption data in low-resource settings remains a challenge. This article describes alternative mechanisms of assessing antimicrobial consumption data, such as the use of Intercontinental Marketing Services (IMS) data and contract data arising from tenders (an open Request for Proposal, RFP), as opposed to the international norms of daily defined doses per 100 patient-days or per 1000 population. Despite their limitations, these serve as indicators of antimicrobial exposure at the population level and represent an alternative method for ascertaining antimicrobial consumption in human health. Furthermore, South Africa has the largest antiretroviral treatment programme globally and carries a high burden of tuberculosis. This prompted the inclusion of antiretroviral and anti-tuberculosis antibiotic consumption data. Knowledge of antimicrobial utilization is imperative for meaningful future interventions. Baseline antimicrobial utilization data could guide future research initiatives that could provide a better understanding of the different measures of antibiotic use and the level of antibiotic resistance., (Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)