Suchergebnisse

SARS-CoV-2 is the causative virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has necessitated that all professional and elite sport is either suspended, postponed or cancelled altogether to minimise the risk of viral spread. As infection rates drop and quarantine restrictions are lifted, the question how athletes can safely resume competitive sport is being asked. Given the rapidly evolving knowledge base about the virus and changing governmental and public health recommendations, a precise answer to this question is fraught with complexity and nuance. Without robust data to inform policy, return-to-play (RTP) decisions are especially difficult for elite athletes on the suspicion that the COVID-19 virus could result in significant cardiorespiratory compromise in a minority of afflicted athletes. There are now consistent reports of athletes reporting persistent and residual symptoms many weeks to months after initial COVID-19 infection. These symptoms include cough, tachycardia and extreme fatigue. To support safe RTP, we provide sport and exercise medicine physicians with practical recommendations on how to exclude cardiorespiratory complications of COVID-19 in elite athletes who place high demand on their cardiorespiratory system. As new evidence emerges, guidance for a safe RTP should be updated.

BACKGROUND: A randomised trial designed to compare three and two doses of quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in adolescent girls in India was converted to a cohort study after suspension of HPV vaccination in trials by the Indian Government. In this Article, the revised aim of the cohort study was to compare vaccine efficacy of single dose to that of three and two doses in protecting against persistent HPV 16 and 18 infection at 10 years post vaccination. METHODS: In the randomised trial, unmarried girls aged 10–18 years were recruited from nine centres across India and randomly assigned to either two doses or three doses of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine (Gardasil [Merck Sharp & Dohme, Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA]; 0·5 mL administered intramuscularly). After suspension of recruitment and vaccination, the study became a longitudinal, prospective cohort study by default, and participants were allocated to four cohorts on the basis of the number vaccine doses received per protocol: the two-dose cohort (received vaccine on days 1 and 180 or later), three-dose cohort (days 1, 60, and 180 or later), two-dose default cohort (days 1 and 60 or later), and the single-dose default cohort. Participants were followed up yearly. Cervical specimens were collected from participants 18 months after marriage or 6 months after first childbirth, whichever was earlier, to assess incident and persistent HPV infections. Married participants were screened for cervical cancer as they reached 25 years of age. Unvaccinated women age-matched to the married vaccinated participants were recruited to serve as controls. Vaccine efficacy against persistent HPV 16 and 18 infections (the primary endpoint) was analysed for single-dose recipients and compared with that in two-dose and three-dose recipients after adjusting for imbalance in the distribution of potential confounders between the unvaccinated and vaccinated cohorts. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN98283094, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00923702. FINDINGS: ...