Battle beyond Borders... Bows to Bravery and Brilliance

It is a great feeling of accomplishment to go through the rich scientific articles of esteemed Indian Journal of Cardiovascular Diseases in Women and a privilege to write this editorial page expressing my views about the same.

March 11th, 2020, would be historical day to remember for centuries, when starting as uncomplicated viral pneumonia in Wuhan spread fast throughout the globe with nearly 223 countries and territories affected, it was declared as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by the World Health Organization.

Pandemic opened pandora's box of multiple problems in hospitals and communities. It created unrivaled strain and challenged health-care systems and its resources in both developing and developed countries of the world. It shook whole world's economy from very small home-based businesses to big corporates.

The world came together as a community or as a family to face challenges and continued to do so from delta variant era to omicron era and other variants of COVID-19. World leaders, health-care leaders, scientists, doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other auxiliary staff workers raised their sleeves, risking their own lives and saving millions of others. All the available health-care resources including very early onset of clinical trials, fastest possible collection/interpretation of research data, medicines, the fastest development of vaccination in the scientific history, and above and beyond elevated community education were shared and exchanged on the world's platform, like never seen before. One such endeavor was beautifully led by the Indian Journal of Cardiovascular Diseases in Women—WINCARS during very early days of COVID-19 pandemic.

The scholarly publication Issue 03, Volume 5, September 2020; COVID-19: Women's Health Issues that I went through left me with the strong urge to reflect on the contributions made by the knowledgeable colleagues in their respective areas of academia and clinical fields.

Peer-reviewed articles were scientifically deep-rooted leaving me amazed with the rigorous and critical selection process undertaken by the journals. Logical conclusions, catering to benefits of the scientific communities as a whole, go a long way. I was very much convinced with the importance of most of the topics that were thought provoking and interesting especially when little was known about COVID-19 during early pandemic days.

During early pandemic days, there were so many questions, no answers, no data, and no standard of care guidelines available. In my practice, being neurooncologist, I take care of brain and spine tumor patients. I was trying to search better resources to take care of my patients who were at higher risk of COVID-19 and its complications. I came through WINCARS and found it very educational and informative. WINCARS helped me to educate myself further regarding COVID-19, its cardiovascular, neurological, pulmonary, obstetrical complications, and its impact on cancer patients.

⇒WINCARS scholarly publication Issue 03, Volume 5, September 2020; COVID-19: Women's Health Issues; I would like to highlight few articles from this issue in view of limited space, though all the articles are very educational and informative.

• 1. First of all, I applaud diligence, scientific endeavor, emotions behind this special issue and Editor-in-Chief Dr. Maddury Jyotsna's thoughtfulness along with WINCARS family to dedicate this issue to first female cardiologist of India, Dr. Padmavati who we lost to COVID-19 1 month before this issue at the age of 103 years.

• 2. “Consensus Scientific Statement on Advisory Working Guidelines and Recommendations for the Female Population in COVID-19 Era” by WINCARS written by Dr. Shibba Takkar and Dr. Maddury Jyotsna.

It is landmark article and one of the pioneers in the scientific world in the COVID-19 era to guide physicians for management of patients.

• 3. “Venous Thromboembolism in COVID-19: Are Women Different?” A comprehensive terrific article impressively portrayed by Dr. Shibba Takkar and Dr. Prerna Goyal

This article highlighted role of thromboprophylaxis in view of cytokine storm that helped tremendously to save lives in oncology patients on case-by-case basis. In the COVID-19 era, advantages of low-molecular-weight heparin over unfractionated heparin were very clearly evident in this article.

• 4. “COVID-19 and Women: An Obstetrician's Perspective”; a monumental endeavor and beautifully inked by Dr. Pooja Tandon.

It was actually reassuring article for pregnant women their fears related to risks of miscarriage/abortions and questions related to termination of pregnancy apart from guidelines for obstetrical care especially in high obstetrical risk pregnancy. It was very educational for other physicians to handle questions related to obstetrical issues in the COVID-19 era.

• 5. “Drug–Drug, Drug–Disease and Disease–Disease Interactions in COVID-19 with Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs)” by Dr. Maddury Jyotsna.

A very challenging topic even during day-to-day basis practice was methodically handled by Dr. Jyotsna. Numerous antiviral agents and immunotherapies available to treat COVID-19 and their interactions with cardiovascular drugs and impact on disease were elaborated incredibly.

• 6. “The Neurological Aspects of COVID-19: Do Women Respond Differently?”

Dr. Aastha Takkar did fantastic job in summarizing very complex topic of neurological complications. Very informative article.