COVID-19: The Pandemic

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic had a great impact on all walks of our lives. The global public health of this intensity is the first of its kind to affect education, economics, transportation across the globe. At first, it was havoc. However, we tackled this great stride with social distancing, lockdowns quarantine.  In dire straits of global crisis, we have put our efforts to continuously publish this issue to disseminate medical scientific information and knowledge to the readers. The COVID-19 has infected millions of people globally and claimed numerous lives. It originated in Wuhan city of China, December 2019. It hugely affected worldwide economics, medical educations, treatment strategies, transportations. With its impact on overall health and society, the pandemic has certainly made us think about the “new normal”’. Initially, Nepal was not affected. However, as time passed, Nepal was not spared too. The government stated measures like lockdown which helped in controlling the movements and thus the infection rate. Initially, we had few countable labs equipped with RT-PCR to present the scenario of most of the hospitals having their own lab. There was a time when health care providers as front-liners were deprived of personal protective equipment (PPE). Mask was scared, PPE was not affordable. Fighting COVID 19 without the protective gears is great professionalism and dedication shown by health care workers like doctors, nurses, paramedics in the care of the patients. As COVID 19 took a long turn, knowledge about its course, duration, and treatment strategies were studied in great detail. Today due to the scientific publication of research articles worldwide, healthcare providers are efficiently managing this pandemic. In this grave situation, we have brought this edition of NMJ. We hope the research findings presented in this issue will help the scientific community in better patient care. We are thankful to all authors and reviewers for their contributions to Nepal Medical Journal. We extend our deep gratitude to all those who helped us directly and indirectly in bringing this issue. We wish the same continued support in the future to help us impart scientific knowledge to the medical world. The Editorial BoardJuly 2021, Kathmandu, Nepal