scholarly journals Creation and Worldwide Utilisation of New COVID-19 Online Information Hub for Genetics Health Professionals, Patients and Families

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam P. Tobias ◽  
Jonathan Berg ◽  
Roseanne Cetnarskyj ◽  
Zosia Miedzybrodzka ◽  
Mary E. Porteous ◽  
...  

The current COVID-19 pandemic has unfortunately resulted in many significant concerns for individuals with genetic disorders and their relatives, regarding the viral infection and, particularly, its specific implications and additional advisable precautions for individuals affected by genetic disorders. To address this, the resulting requirement for guidance and information for the public and for genetics professionals was discussed among colleagues nationally, on the ScotGEN Steering Committee, and internationally on the Education Committee of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG). It was agreed that the creation of an online hub of genetics-related COVID-19 information resources would be particularly helpful. The proposed content, divided into a web page for professionals and a page for patients, was discussed with, and approved by, genetics professionals. The hub was created and provided online at www.scotgen.org.uk and linked from the ESHG’s educational website for genetics and genomics, at www.eurogems.org. The new hub provides links, summary information and representative illustrations for a wide range of selected international resources. The resources for professionals include: COVID-19 research related hubs provided by Nature, Science, Frontiers, and PubMed; clinical guidelines; the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control; the World Health Organisation; and molecular data sources including coronavirus 3D protein structures. The resources for patients and families include links to many accessible sources of support and relevant information. Since the launch of the pages, the website has received visits from over 50 countries worldwide. Several genetics consultants have commented on usefulness, clarity, readability, and ease of navigation. Visits have originated most frequently in the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Moldova, United States, Philippines, France, and Qatar. More links have been added since the launch of the hub to include additional international public health and academic resources. In conclusion, an up-to-date online hub has been created and made freely available for healthcare professionals, patients, relatives and the public, providing categorised easily navigated links to a range of worldwide resources related to COVID-19. These pages are receiving a rapidly growing number of return visits and the authors continue to maintain and update the pages’ content, incorporating new developments in this field of enormous worldwide importance.

Author(s):  
Alok Tiwari

ABSTRACTCOVID-19 epidemic is declared as the public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation in the second week of March 2020. This disease originated from China in December 2019 has already caused havoc around the world, including India. The first case in India was reported on 30th January 2020, with the cases crossing 6000 on the day paper was written. Complete lockdown of the nation for 21 days and immediate isolation of infected cases are the proactive steps taken by the authorities. For a better understanding of the evolution of COVID-19 in the country, Susceptible-Infectious-Quarantined-Recovered (SIQR) model is used in this paper. It is predicted that actual infectious population is ten times the reported positive case (quarantined) in the country. Also, a single case can infect 1.55 more individuals of the population. Epidemic doubling time is estimated to be around 4.1 days. All indicators are compared with Brazil and Italy as well. SIQR model has also predicted that India will see the peak with 22,000 active cases during the last week of April followed by reduction in active cases. It may take complete July for India to get over with COVID-19.


Author(s):  
C. Scerri

In 2017, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched the global action plan on the public health response to dementia. Among its many aims, the plan recommends the need to create a knowledge-based healthcare profession that delivers evidence-based, culturally-appropriate and human rights-orientated health and social care, including long-term services for individuals with dementia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (S2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Burgess ◽  
Christie van Diggele ◽  
Chris Roberts ◽  
Craig Mellis

AbstractClinical handover is one of the most critical steps in a patient’s journey and is a core skill that needs to be taught to health professional students and junior clinicians. Performed well, clinical handover should ensure that lapses in continuity of patient care, errors and harm are reduced in the hospital or community setting. Handover, however, is often poorly performed, with critical detail being omitted and irrelevant detail included. Evidence suggests that the use of a structured, standardised framework for handover, such as ISBAR, improves patient outcomes. The ISBAR (Introduction, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) framework, endorsed by the World Health Organisation, provides a standardised approach to communication which can be used in any situation. In the complex clinical environment of healthcare today, ISBAR is suited to a wide range of clinical contexts, and works best when all parties are trained in using the same framework. It is essential that healthcare leaders and professionals from across the health disciplines work together to ensure good clinical handover practices are developed and maintained. Organisations, including universities and hospitals, need to invest in the education and training of health professional students and health professionals to ensure good quality handover practice. Using ISBAR as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to highlight key elements of effective clinical handover, and to explore teaching techniques that aim to ensure the framework is embedded in practice effectively.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyi Xu ◽  
Xiaodong Zou ◽  
Martin Högbom ◽  
Hugo Lebrette

Microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) has the potential to considerably impact the field of structural biology. Indeed, the method can solve atomic structures of a wide range of molecules, beyond the reach of single particle cryo-electron microscopy, exploiting crystals too small for X-ray diffraction (XRD) even using X-ray free-electron lasers. However, until the first unknown protein structure – a R2-like ligand binding oxidase from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius (SaR2lox) – was recently solved at 3.0 Å resolution, MicroED had only been used to study known protein structures previously obtained by XRD. Here, after adapting sample preparation protocols, the structure of the SaR2lox protein originally solved by MicroED was redetermined by XRD at 2.1 Å resolution. In light of the higher resolution XRD data and taking into account experimental differences of the methods, the quality of the MicroED structure is examined. The analysis demonstrates that MicroED provided an overall accurate model, revealing biologically relevant information specific to SaR2lox, such as the absence of an ether cross-link, but did not allow to detect the presence of a ligand visible by XRD in the protein binding pocket. Furthermore, strengths and weaknesses of MicroED compared to XRD are discussed in the perspective of this real-life protein example. The study provides fundaments to help MicroED become a method of choice for solving novel protein structures.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
Author(s):  
Collective Editorial team

On 4 May 2007, the Clinical Trial Search Portal (http://www.who.int/trialsearch) was launched. An international initiative led by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the portal aims to ease the rapid search for information about clinical trials worldwide. It is open to the public, but its target audience is health practitioners and researchers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 165-170
Author(s):  
Rajni Kamlakar Gurmule

Today the whole world is suffering from the most dreadful disease that is Covid 19. The Causative factor for COVID 19 is SARS-COV2. It was ϑirst noticed in Wuhan city of China. World Health Organisation declared the fatality of this disease as a pandemic. This disease has become a problem of great concern globally. This virus targets the respiratory system of human beings. There is a high incidence of person to person transmission of this disease through contact. However, there is also a signiϑicant role in innate immunity in pathogenesis and management of this disease. The whole world is seeking for ϑlawless control of this viral disease. Ayurveda is a holistic science. Its aim is not only on the cure of diseases but also on its prevention. It emphasises mainly on healthy life of an individual. There is a wide range of principles described in Ayurveda which are used to combat disease from its root. Rasayana Chikista is a useful principle of Ayurveda, beneϑicial for management and prevention of many diseases. It is always said that “prevention is better than cure”. Chyavanprash is one of the well known Rasayana. Contents of Chyavanprash shows a wide range of actions on respiratory diseases as well as on boosting immunity. These properties of it provoke us to review the role of Chyavanprash in the prevention of Covid 19, thereby increasing one’s immune response. This Chyavanaprash can be a boon in the prevention of Covid 19 by improving immunity against it.


Author(s):  
Eduardo Cintra Torres

In the first year of the 21st century, the World Health Organisation added itsweight toWorld Mental Health Day, with a view to stimulating interest in mentaldisorders, particularly through media coverage. This paper presents the resultsof a quantitative study on representations of types of dementia in threePortuguese daily newspapers between 2001 and 2010. The author did not wantto limit the study to the articles in the health sections and therefore looked at thewhole of the newspapers. This revealed a regular coverage of the topic in every section of the papers, especially with regard to Alzheimer’s disease, and with alarge variety of sources, protagonists and specific subjects. It also demonstratedthe existence of an inclusive attitude that is concomitant with an objective handlingof the topic. As a whole, Portuguese printed media news about dementias isfree of negative stereotypes and tends to give readers enough information andto include dementia among the themes that are both consensual in and importantto the public space.


Encyclopedia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 781-791
Author(s):  
Hing-Wah Chau ◽  
Elmira Jamei

Age-friendly built environments have been promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland) under the Global Age-friendly Cities (AFC) movement in which three domains are related to the built environment. These are: housing, transportation, outdoor spaces and public buildings. The aim is to foster active ageing by optimising opportunities for older adults to maximise their independent living ability and participate in their communities to enhance their quality of life and wellbeing. An age-friendly built environment is inclusive, accessible, respects individual needs and addresses the wide range of capacities across the course of life. Age-friendly housing promotes ageing in familiar surroundings and maintains social connections at the neighbourhood and community levels. Both age-friendly housing and buildings provide barrier-free provisions to minimise the needs for subsequent adaptations. Age-friendly public and outdoor spaces encourage older adults to spend time outside and engage with others against isolation and loneliness. Age-friendly public transport enables older adults to get around and enhances their mobility. For achieving an age-friendly living environment, a holistic approach is required to enable independent living, inclusion and active participation of older adults in society. The eight domains of the AFC movement are not mutually exclusive but overlap and support with one another.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaarin J. Anstey ◽  
Lidan Zheng ◽  
Ruth Peters ◽  
Scherazad Kootar ◽  
Mariagnese Barbera ◽  
...  

Dementia prevention is a global health priority. In 2019, the World Health Organisation published its first evidence-based guidelines on dementia risk reduction. We are now at the stage where we need effective tools and resources to assess dementia risk and implement these guidelines into policy and practice. In this paper we review dementia risk scores as a means to facilitate this process. Specifically, we (a) discuss the rationale for dementia risk assessment, (b) outline some conceptual and methodological issues to consider when reviewing risk scores, (c) evaluate some dementia risk scores that are currently in use, and (d) provide some comments about future directions. A dementia risk score is a weighted composite of risk factors that reflects the likelihood of an individual developing dementia. In general, dementia risks scores have a wide range of implementations and benefits including providing early identification of individuals at high risk, improving risk perception for patients and physicians, and helping health professionals recommend targeted interventions to improve lifestyle habits to decrease dementia risk. A number of risk scores for dementia have been published, and some are widely used in research and clinical trials e.g., CAIDE, ANU-ADRI, and LIBRA. However, there are some methodological concerns and limitations associated with the use of these risk scores and more research is needed to increase their effectiveness and applicability. Overall, we conclude that, while further refinement of risk scores is underway, there is adequate evidence to use these assessments to implement guidelines on dementia risk reduction.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariah Fowler ◽  
Mojtaba Sadegh

<p>Wildfire smoke presents a growing threat in the Western U.S.; and human health, transportation, and economic systems in growing western communities suffer due to increasingly severe and widespread fires. While modelling wildfire activity and associated wildfire smoke distributions have substantially improved, understanding how people perceive and respond to emerging smoke hazards has received little attention. Understanding and incorporating human perceptions of threats from wildfire smoke is critical, as decision-makers need such information to mitigate smoke-related hazards. We surveyed 614 randomly selected people (in-person) across the Boise Metropolitan Area in Idaho and 1,623 Boise State University affiliates (online), collecting information about their level of outside activity during smoke event(s), knowledge about the source of air quality information and effective messaging preference, perception of wildfire smoke as a hazard, and smoke-related health experiences. This relatively large dataset provides a novel perspective of people’s perception of smoke hazards and provides crucial policy-relevant information to decision-makers. Dataset is available to the public and can be used to address a wide range of research questions.</p>


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