Browsing by Author "Bhattarai, Srijana"
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Publication Adverse Events Following COVISHIELD and VERO CELL Vaccination Campaigns Against COVID-19(Nepal Health Research Council, 2023) Adhikari, Santosh; Maharjan, Jessica; Bhattarai, Sushan; Kunwar, Kshitij; Agrawal, Sumit; Dangal, Raj Kumar; Chapagain, Ram Hari; Bista, Tek Bahadur; Bhattarai, SrijanaAbstract Background: Vaccination against COVID-19 for Nepalese was initiated in January 2021 for various age groups. People were anxious about receiving the vaccines and were concerned about the safety profile of the vaccine they received. In this study, we have tried to observe the Adverse Events Following Immunization of two different vaccines namely COVISHIELD (ChAdOx1 nCOV-19) and VERO CELL (CZ02 strain), used in different phases of vaccination by the government of Nepal. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among people who received COVID-19 vaccines in this study using a self-administered questionnaire. Data was cleaned and then exported to IBM SPSS v.20 for analysis, Chi-square test was used to see the association between different variables and a p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Out of 303 respondents, all had received the first and 270 participants had received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, among which, 133 (43.89%) reported at least one side effect after the first dose of vaccination while 58 (21.48%) had self-reported side effects after the second dose of vaccination. Seventeen percent of the respondents had COVID-19 infection within the past 3 months before receiving COVID-19 vaccine. Three percent of participants had re-infection with COVID-19 after receiving the first or the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Among participants who experienced adverse events, 42% and 62.1% of participants experienced mild adverse events following the first dose and second dose of the vaccine, respectively. Conclusions: The adverse events following immunization for both vaccines after both doses of vaccination were quite low, with 43.89% of participants reporting side effects after the first dose and 21.48% of participants reporting side effects after the second dose. Adverse events were most frequently reported within 24 hours of vaccination and were mostly mild. There was no statistical significance of adverse events between both vaccines. Keywords: Adverse events following immunization (AEFI); COVID-19; COVISHIELD; VERO CELL. Author Biographies Santosh Adhikari, Kanti Children's Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal Sushan Bhattarai, Kanti Children's Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal Raj Kumar Dangal, Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Dhulikhel hospital, Dhulikhel, Nepal Srijana Bhattarai, Paropakar Maternity and Women's Hospital, Kathmandu, NepalPublication Burden of enteric fever and antibiotic sensitivity in Nepalese Children Prior to Typhoid Vaccine in National Immunization Program(Nepal Health Research Council, 2023) Chapagain, Ram Hari; Adhikari, Santosh; Bhattarai, Tribhuwan; Basaula, Yubanidhi; Bhattarai, SrijanaAbstract Background: Enteric fever is a major public health problem in developing and under developed countries. Case fatality rate without treatment is 10-30% and with appropriate treatment is only 1-4%. Gold standard for diagnosis is isolation of Salmonella enterica from blood or bone marrow. Antibiotics resistance is skyrocketing with emergence of multidrug resistance S. typhi and extensively drug resistant S. typhi. Methods: The blood culture done in Kanti children hospital in last six years were taken from the data base and the culture positive cases were taken from which the salmonella species positive cases along with the drug sensitivity pattern were used in our study. Results: The culture positivity rate was 2.8% and 7.6% (n=136) among the culture positive cases were Salmonella species. Salmonella typhi (121; 88.9%) was the most frequently isolated species, followed by Salmonella paratyphi A (13; 9.5%) and Salmonella paratyphi B (2;1.4%). Children with age 5-10 years was the most affected age group for infection with Salmonella, 50.0% (n=68). Nalidixic acid is resistant in 89.9% Salmonella typhi; followed by ciprofloxacin (31.8%), ofloxacin (18.2%), ampicillin (9.6%), azithromycin (8.4%), chloramphenicol (8.2%), cotrimoxazole (5.4%), cefixime (4%), ceftriaxone (2.5%) and cefotaxime (0.0%). Cefixime, ceftriaxone, cefotaxime are 100% sensitive to Salmonella paratyphi, followed by cotrimoxazole (92.9%), ofloxacin (81.8%), chloramphenicol (75%), azithromycin (66.7%), ampicillin (60%), ciprofloxacin (50%) and Nalidixic acid (23.1%). Conclusions: Salmonella species culture isolatation are declining every year. Fluoroquinolones have more resistance than first line drugs of typhoid, azithromycin resistance is rising but 3rd generation cephalosporins are sensitive to Salmonella species. Keywords: Drug sensitivity; enteric fever; salmonella paratyphi; salmonella typhi; typhoid vaccinePublication Methodological challenges in Health research during and aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic era(Nepal Medical Association, 2025) Bhattarai, Srijana; Shah, Shalabh; Bashyal, Bhanu Bhakta; Sunar, Chandra Bahadur; Shrestha, KaushalyaAbstract The global pandemic of COVID-19 has had an impact on health, social and economic sectors. Health research is not exempt from the current crisis and is facing many challenges. The main challenges while conducting health research in the COVID-19 context include methodological challenges faced during data collection’, ‘difficulty in identifying non-verbal cues’, ‘time constraints’ and ‘ethical issues. Responding to the crisis, quantitative and qualitative research projects need some modifications to address the challenges of conducting research in the COVID-19 pandemic context. This commentary highlights the major challenges encountered while conducting research during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides ways quality research can be conducted in pandemic or other situations where physical distancing needs to be maintained.