• COVID-19
• Publicationsclose
• 2019-2023close
• Article close
• SV close
• English close

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) shedding and antibody responses are not fully understood, particularly in relation to underlying medical conditions, clinical manifestations, and mortality. We enrolled MERS-CoV-positive patients at a hospital in Saudi Arabia and periodically collected specimens from multiple sites for real-time reverse transcription PCR and serologic testing. We conducted interviews and chart abstractions to collect clinical, epidemiologic, and laboratory information. We found that diabetes mellitus among survivors was associated with prolonged MERS-CoV RNA detection in the respiratory tract. Among case-patients who died, development of robust neutralizing serum antibody responses during the second and third week of illness was not sufficient for patient recovery or virus clearance. Fever and cough among mildly ill patients typically aligned with RNA detection in the upper respiratory tract; RNA levels peaked during the first week of illness. These findings should be considered in the development of infection control policies, vaccines, and antibody therapeutics.

We conducted a nationwide study of the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection in the Faroe Islands. Of 1,075 randomly selected participants, 6 (0.6%) tested seropositive for antibodies to the virus. Adjustment for test sensitivity and specificity yielded a 0.7% prevalence. Our findings will help us evaluate our public health response.

Abstract Background The World Health Organization recommends periodic evaluations of influenza surveillance systems to identify areas for improvement and provide evidence of data reliability for policymaking. However, data about the performance of established influenza surveillance systems are limited in Africa, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Methods We used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to evaluate the performance of the influenza sentinel surveillance system (ISSS) in DRC during 2012–2015. The performance of the system was evaluated using eight surveillance attributes: (i) data quality and completeness for key variables, (ii) timeliness, (iii) representativeness, (iv) flexibility, (v) simplicity, (vi) acceptability, (vii) stability and (viii) utility. For each attribute, specific indicators were developed and described using quantitative and qualitative methods. Scores for each indicator were as follows: < 60% weak performance; 60–79% moderate performance; ≥80% good performance. Results During 2012–2015, we enrolled and tested 4339 patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) and 2869 patients with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) from 11 sentinel sites situated in 5 of 11 provinces. Influenza viruses were detected in 446 (10.3%) samples from patients with ILI and in 151 (5.5%) samples from patients with SARI with higher detection during December–May. Data quality and completeness was > 90% for all evaluated indicators. Other strengths of the system were timeliness, simplicity, stability and utility that scored > 70% each. Representativeness, flexibility and acceptability had moderate performance. It was reported that the ISSS contributed to: (i) a better understanding of the epidemiology, circulating patterns and proportional contribution of influenza virus among patients with ILI or SARI; (ii) acquisition of new key competences related to influenza surveillance and diagnosis; and (iii) continuous education of surveillance staff and clinicians at sentinel sites about influenza. However, due to limited resources no actions were undertaken to mitigate the impact of seasonal influenza epidemics. Conclusions The system performed overall satisfactorily and provided reliable and timely data about influenza circulation in DRC. The simplicity of the system contributed to its stability. A better use of the available data could be made to inform and promote prevention interventions especially among the most vulnerable groups.

The COVID-19 has dramatically increased the inequalities of the opportunities to education and health services of the children with disabilities. The data collected from international agencies between 2020 and 2021 demonstrate the danger of further rising the risk of exclusion of children with disabilities especially in developing countries. The marginalization of people with sensory disabilities during the Pandemic have further expanded compared to the pre-Covid situation. The article aims to investigate the barriers that children with hearing disabilities have encountered in accessing socio-educational and rehabilitation services and reflect on the importance of social support flexibly from different local actors. In this perspective, the Center of Attention for Communication, Hearing and Language of the Central American University José Simeón Cañas of El Salvador provides educational and rehabilitation service aimed to children with hearing disabilities transforming their methodologies and practices. Based on this analysis, perspectives of action and research will be envisaged to plan the future starting from the lessons learned.

Resumen La pandemia del COVID-19 y las medidas para enfrentarla han trastocado innumerables procesos sociales. La migración hacia los Estados Unidos está lejos de ser la excepción. Después de aportar cifras que apoyan la hipótesis del descenso del flujo migratorio hacia los Estados Unidos en 2020 debido al temor al coronavirus y a una contracción del mercado laboral, este texto compara la situación de los migrantes centroamericanos en dos ubicaciones: los suburbios de Virginia y la ciudad de Los Angeles. Cuatro centroamericanos proporcionan información fresca sobre cómo están lidiando con las restricciones impuestas por los diferentes niveles del Estado y la reducción de las oportunidades de empleo. Sus declaraciones permiten identificar algunos factores de elevada influencia en un incremento de riesgos y daños en la ciudad de Los Angeles: densidad poblacional, desacuerdos entre las autoridades estatales y un estilo de vida de intensa socialización típico de una megalópolis. Por esta razón el impacto del COVID-19 en los lugares aquí mencionados es una historia de dos ciudades con fuertes contrastes. Quedan muchas preguntas para seguir investigando. Este texto ante todo muestra un retrato de cómo los asuntos relacionados con la pandemia son enfrentados por los migrantes en la vida cotidiana, según sus propias palabras.

OBJECTIVES: A multicentre survey was designed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on dental practice worldwide, estimate the COVID-19 related symptoms/signs, work attitudes and behaviour and the routine use of protective measures and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). METHODS: A global survey using a standardized questionnaire with research groups from 36 countries was designed. The questionnaire was developed and pretested during April 2020 and contained three domains: 1) Personal data; 2) COVID-19 positive rate and symptoms/signs presumably related to the coronavirus; 3) Working conditions and PPE adopted after the outbreak. Countries' data were grouped by the Country Positive Rate (CPR) during the survey period and by Gross-National-Income per capita. An ordinal multinomial logistic regression model was carried out with COVID-19 self-reported rate referred by dental professionals as dependent variable to assess the association with questionnaire items. RESULTS: A total of 52,491 questionnaires were returned with a male/female ratio of 0.63. Out of the total respondents, 7,859 dental professionals (15%) reported symptoms/signs compatible with COVID-19. More than half of the sample (n = 27,818; 53%) stated to use FFP2/N95 masks, while 21,558 (41.07%) used eye protection. In the bivariate analysis, CPR and N95/FFP2 were significantly associated (OR = 1.80 95%CI = 1.60/2.82 and OR = 5.20 95%CI = 1.44/18.80, respectively), while Gross-National-Income was not statistically associated with CPR (OR = 1.09 95%CI = 0.97/1.60). The same significant associations were observed in the multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Oral health service provision has not been significantly affected by COVID-19, although access to routine dental care was reduced due to country-specific temporary lockdown periods. While the dental profession has been identified at high-risk, the reported rates of COVID-19 for dental professionals were not significantly different to those reported for the general population in each country. These findings may help to better plan oral health care for future pandemic events. ispartof: JOURNAL OF DENTISTRY vol:114 ispartof: location:England status: published