scholarly journals The COVID-19 Pandemic Situation in Malaysia: Lessons Learned from the Perspective of Population Density

Author(s):  
Siew Bee Aw ◽  
Bor Tsong Teh ◽  
Gabriel Hoh Teck Ling ◽  
Pau Chung Leng ◽  
Weng Howe Chan ◽  
...  

This paper attempts to ascertain the impacts of population density on the spread and severity of COVID-19 in Malaysia. Besides describing the spatio-temporal contagion risk of the virus, ultimately, it seeks to test the hypothesis that higher population density results in exacerbated COVID-19 virulence in the community. The population density of 143 districts in Malaysia, as per data from Malaysia’s 2010 population census, was plotted against cumulative COVID-19 cases and infection rates of COVID-19 cases, which were obtained from Malaysia’s Ministry of Health official website. The data of these three variables were collected between 19 January 2020 and 31 December 2020. Based on the observations, districts that have high population densities and are highly inter-connected with neighbouring districts, whether geographically, socio-economically, or infrastructurally, tend to experience spikes in COVID-19 cases within weeks of each other. Using a parametric approach of the Pearson correlation, population density was found to have a moderately strong relationship to cumulative COVID-19 cases (p-value of 0.000 and R2 of 0.415) and a weak relationship to COVID-19 infection rates (p-value of 0.005 and R2 of 0.047). Consequently, we provide several non-pharmaceutical lessons, including urban planning strategies, as passive containment measures that may better support disease interventions against future contagious diseases.

The pandemics of influenza in Nonthaburi province was investigated by using autoregression and found the influenza spread pattern by autocorrelation (Moran's I). Population density, temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall are the factors used in the analysis. The influenza quantitative cross-section retrospective research design was employed from 2003-2010. Three seasons are classified as: hot, rainy, and winter season. The study found that influenza outbreaks in the rainy season was R2=0.45 and population density apparently affected the spread of influenza incidence with statistical significance coefficient (p-value <0.05). From the distribution pattern, the highest Moran's I values were related with the highest population density in 4 sub-districts: Suenyai, Taladkhwun, Bangkhen, and Bangkruay sub-district.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 170391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kohei Tamura ◽  
Naoki Masuda

Spatio-temporal patterns of population changes within and across countries have various implications. Different geographical, demographic and econo-societal factors seem to contribute to migratory decisions made by individual inhabitants. Focusing on internal (i.e. domestic) migration, we ask whether individuals may take into account the information on the population density in distant locations to make migratory decisions. We analyse population census data in Japan recorded with a high spatial resolution (i.e. cells of size 500×500  m ) for the entirety of the country, and simulate demographic dynamics induced by the gravity model and its variants. We show that, in the census data, the population growth rate in a cell is positively correlated with the population density in nearby cells up to a distance of 20 km as well as that of the focal cell. The ordinary gravity model does not capture this empirical observation. We then show that the empirical observation is better accounted for by extensions of the gravity model such that individuals are assumed to perceive the attractiveness, approximated by the population density, of the source or destination cell of migration as the spatial average over a circle of radius ≈1 km.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-494
Author(s):  
Siska Monika Faridz ◽  
Syuhada Syuhada ◽  
Akhmad Kheru

Background Chronic kidney disease was one of the 18 causes of death in 2010. Anemia is a complication of CKD that often occurs even earlier than other complications. Renal dysfunction results in reduced creatinine filtration ability and an increase in serum creatinine.Purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between hemoglobin levels and glomerular filtration rate in patients with stage 3 and 4 chronic kidney failure at Abdul Moeloek Hospital in Bandar Lampung in 2020.Methods  This type of research is quantitative with retrospective analytical methods. The research was conducted at the Medical Records section of the Abdul Moeloek Hospital Bandar Lampung from December 2020 to completion. The number of samples as many as 36 people using the person correlation statistical test. Result Based on the results of the Pearson correlation analysis between hemoglobin levels and glomerular filtration rate in patients with stage 3 and 4 chronic kidney failure at Abdul Moeloek Hospital, Bandar Lampung, 2020 shows a relationship with r (correlation coefficient) of, 688. This data shows that there is a positive relationship between hemoglobin levels and glomerular filtration rate in patients with stage 3 and 4 chronic renal failure at Abdul Moeloek Hospital, Bandar Lampung in 2020, the relationship is categorized as a strong relationship (0.61-0.80). . The P-value = 0,000 indicates a significant relationship between hemoglobin levels and glomerular filtration rate in patients with stage 3 and 4 chronic renal failure at Abdul Moeloek Hospital Bandar Lampung in 2020. Conclusion There is a correlation between hemoglobin levels and glomerular filtration rate in patients with stage chronic renal failure. 3 and 4 at Abdul Moeloek Hospital in Bandar Lampung in 2020Suggestions for the Community The community is expected to seek information regarding the prevention of kidney failure and then start living a healthy lifestyle to avoid kidney failure. For patients with kidney failure, they should regularly check themselves to the nearest health facility and check creatinine and hemoglobin levels. Keywords: Chronic renal failure, Creatinine, Hemoglobin, Glumerular Filtration Rate ABSTRAK Latar Belakang Penyakit ginjal kronik salah satu penyebab kematian ke-18 pada tahun 2010. Anemia merupakan salah satu komplikasi PGK yang sering terjadi bahkan terjadi lebih awal dari komplikasi lainnya. Disfungsi ginjal mengakibatkan kemampuan filtrasi kreatinin akan berkurang dan akan terjadi peningkatan pada kreatinin serum.Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui korelasi antara kadar hemoglobin dengan laju filtrasi glomerulus pada pasien gagal ginjal kronik stadium 3 dan 4 di Rumah Sakit Abdul Moeloek Bandar Lampung Tahun 2020.Metode Jenis penelitian ini adalah kuantitatif dengan metode analitik retrospektif. Penelitian dilakukan di bagian Rekam Medik Rumah Sakit Abdul Moeloek Bandar Lampung pada bulan Desember 2020 hingga selesai. jumlah sampel sebanyak 36 orang menggunakan uji statistic korelasi person. Berdasarkan hasil analisi korelasi Pearson antara kadar hemoglobin dengan laju filtrasi glomerulus pada pasien gagal ginjal kronik stadium 3 dan 4 di Rumah Sakit Abdul Moeloek Bandar Lampung Tahun 2020 menunjukan adanya hubungan dengan r (koefisien korelasi) sebesar ,688.Hasil Data ini menunjukan bahwa terdapat hubungan positif antara kadar hemoglobin dengan laju filtrasi glomerulus pada pasien gagal ginjal kronik stadium 3 dan 4 di Rumah Sakit Abdul Moeloek Bandar Lampung Tahun 2020 hubunganya dikategorikan sebagai hubungan yang kuat (strong) (0,61-0,80). Nilai P-value = 0,000 menunjukan hubungan signifikan antara kadar hemoglobin dengan laju filtrasi glomerulus pada pasien gagal ginjal kronik stadium 3 dan 4 di Rumah Sakit Abdul Moeloek Bandar Lampung Tahun 2020.Kesimpulan Terdapat korelasi antara kadar hemoglobin dengan laju filtrasi glomerulus pada pasien gagal ginjal kronik stadium 3 dan 4 di Rumah Sakit Abdul Moeloek Bandar Lampung Tahun 2020.Saran Bagi Masyarakat Masyarakat diharapkan mencari informasi terkait penegahan penyakit gagal ginjal kemudian mulai menjalani gaya hidup sehat agar terhindar dari penyakit gagal ginjal. Bagi penderita gagal ginjal agar rutin memeriksanakn diri ke fasilitas kesehatan terdekat dan memeriksakan kadar kreatinin serta hemoglobin. Kata Kunci : Gagal ginjal kronik, Kreatinin, Hemoglobin, Laju Filtrasi Glumerulus


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haider S Al-Hadad ◽  
Aqeel Abbas Matrood ◽  
Maha Abdalrasool Almukhtar ◽  
Haider Jabur Kehiosh ◽  
Riyadh Muhi Al-Saegh

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease. Few biomarkers for SLE have been validated and widely accepted for the laboratory follow-up of inflammatory activity. In SLE patients, with lupus nephritis (LN), complement activation leads to fluctuation of serum C3 and C4 that are frequently used as clinicalm biomarker of disease activity in SLE. Patients and Methods: In this study the number of patients were 37, seven patients were excluded for incomplete data collection, 28 were females ,2 were males. The duration of the study is two years from 2015 to 2017. Patients were considered to have SLE and LN according to American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria, and International Society of Nephrology/ Renal Pathology Society (ISN/RPS). All patients were evaluated withm clinical presentation, laboratory investigations. Our patients underwent kidney biopsy according to standard procedure by Kerstin Amann, and their tissue specimens were studied in the laboratory with light microscope (LM) and immunofluorescence microscope reagents. The relationship between the serological markers and immunofluorescence deposits in kidney biopsy of all patients were studied using the statistical analysis of Pearson correlation and single table student's T test. A P value 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The granular pattern of IF deposits was present in all LN patients, and in more than two third of patients these IF deposits presented in glomerular, tubular, and mesangium sites. While less than one third of patients had IF deposits in the mesangium only. There was no statistically significant correlation between serum ANA, anti-dsDNA, and IF deposits of different types. There was significant correlation between serum C3 and C4 hypocomplementemia and IgG immune deposits in kidney biopsy, and there was significant relationship between serum C3 hypocomplementemia and full house immunofluorescence (FHIF) deposits inm kidney biopsy.Conclusions:Immunofluorescence deposits is mainly granular pattern in LN patients. There was no significant association between serum ANA, anti-dsDNA, and immune deposits in kidney tissue. Immunofluorescence deposits of IgG type correlates significantly with serum C3 and C4 hypocomplemetemia, and these immune deposits in association with low complement levels correlates with LN flare. There was significant correlation between C3 hypocomplementemia and FHIF.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-7
Author(s):  
Tanka Prasad Bohara ◽  
Dimindra Karki ◽  
Anuj Parajuli ◽  
Shail Rupakheti ◽  
Mukund Raj Joshi

Background: Acute pancreatitis is usually a mild and self-limiting disease. About 25 % of patients have severe episode with mortality up to 30%. Early identification of these patients has potential advantages of aggressive treatment at intensive care unit or transfer to higher centre. Several scoring systems are available to predict severity of acute pancreatitis but are cumbersome, take 24 to 48 hours and are dependent on tests that are not universally available. Haematocrit has been used as a predictor of severity of acute pancreatitis but some have doubted its role.Objectives: To study the significance of haematocrit in prediction of severity of acute pancreatitis.Methods: Patients admitted with first episode of acute pancreatitis from February 2014 to July 2014 were included. Haematocrit at admission and 24 hours of admission were compared with severity of acute pancreatitis. Mean, analysis of variance, chi square, pearson correlation and receiver operator characteristic curve were used for statistical analysis.Results: Thirty one patients were included in the study with 16 (51.61%) male and 15 (48.4%) female. Haematocrit at 24 hours of admission was higher in severe acute pancreatitis (P value 0.003). Both haematocrit at admission and at 24 hours had positive correlation with severity of acute pancreatitis (r: 0.387; P value 0.031 and r: 0.584; P value 0.001) respectively.Area under receiver operator characteristic curve for haematocrit at admission and 24 hours were 0.713 (P value 0.175, 95% CI 0.536 - 0.889) and 0.917 (P value 0.008, 95% CI 0.813 – 1.00) respectively.Conclusion: Haematocrit is a simple, cost effective and widely available test and can predict severity of acute pancreatitis.Journal of Kathmandu Medical College, Vol. 4(1) 2015, 3-7


2013 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 001-003
Author(s):  
Aruna Singh ◽  
Nymphea Pandit ◽  
Monica Sharma

Abstract Aim- 1. The aim of this study was to investigate the average maximum range of inter-incisal mouth opening in a representative sample of the adult subjects of Haryana. 2. To see any correlation between maximal inter-incisal opening with age. Methods- Maximum mouth opening was studied in 756 adult subjects with age range of 20-50 years in Yamunanagar, Haryana. Age limit was further divided into three groups (20-30, 31-40, 41-50). Those with clinical history of TMJ involvement, OSMF, any trauma, odontogenic and non-odontogenic infections, dental prosthesis on the anterior teeth, congenital anomalies in the maxillofacial region were excluded from this study. The measurements were recorded twice and mean of the two values were taken. Statistical Analysis- Independent sample t-test was calculated to compare age and mouth opening in both male and females respectively. Bivariate pearson correlation was used to see any relationship between age and mouth opening. P-value ≤ 0.05 and CI (confidence interval) at 95% were considered statistically significant. The Results- The average mouth opening of males (45.36±6.70 mm) subjects was higher as compared to female (41.27 ± 6.75 mm) with significant, p-value 0.000. The mean mouth opening ± SD for both sexes combined was 43.39 ± 7.02 mm. The corresponding values for mean inter-incisal opening in male population aged 20-30, 31-40, 41-50 were 45.52 ± 7.15, 46.16 ± 5.47, 42.96 ± 6.82 mm and in female population aged 20-30, 31-40, 41-50 were 41.40 ± 7.08, 41.60 ± 6.29 and 40.03 ± 6.38 mm respectively. Conclusion- Maximal mouth opening differ significantly with gender. There is a decrease in MMO with older age group.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1848.2-1849
Author(s):  
M. A. Mortada ◽  
H. Eitta ◽  
R. Elmallah ◽  
A. Radwan ◽  
A. Elsaman

Background:Musculoskeletal Ultrasonography (MSUS) is now a widely used tool for monitoring of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Although there are many proposed sets of composite scores, a fixed set of joints may not be an ideal tool to assess a disease like RA, which affects many joints and tendons in different presentations. In previous study (1) U9 score was proven to be correlated with disease activity parameters.Objectives:To determine whether US assessment using U9 score is useful for monitoring response to treatment for RA or not?Methods:A prospective, multicenter study were conducted in period from July 2019 to December 2019. All recruited RA patients were subjected to: Disease activity assessment by clinical disease activity indices (CDAI and DAS28 ESR). Functional status assessment by (HAQ) and ultrasonographic assessment using U9 score which include 8 joints (bilateral wrists,2ndMCP,3RDMCP and knees) plus most clinically affected joint or tendon (one joint or one tendon). Most clinically affected joints from 48 joints. Any affected tendons could be choosing. All targeted joints were evaluated according to EULAR guidlines and by EULAR/ OMERACT combined score (0-3). Targeted tendons were scored (0-3).All patients received their treatment (biologic and non biologic DMARDs) according to the decision of the treating physicians. No specific therapy is needed. CDAI and DAS28 ESR, HAQ and U9 score were repeated after 3 months to detect the response to change after receiving the therapy.Results:One hundred and forty patients (23.6% were male) with mean age 39.26±11.30 were recruited from 4 tertiary referral university hospitals.There was a significant difference (<0.001) between the first and second visits as regards clinical, laboratory and ultrasonographic parameters. DAS 28 decreased form (5.29±1.21) to (3.95±0.99), ESR decreased from (42.12±15.24) to (26.84±12.32), HAQ2 improved from (0.652±0.350) to (0.510±0.237) and U9 total US score decreased from (13.56±5.18) to (8.02±4.28).There was significant correlation between U9 ultrasonographic score and clinical parameters at both visits (table 1).Table 1.correlation between U9 ultrasonographic score and clinical parameters.U9 at 1stvisitU9 at 2ndvisitDAS-28Pearson Correlation(P value)0.806<0.0010.790<0.001CDAIPearson Correlation(P value)0.787<0.0010.773<0.001HAQPearson Correlation(P value)0.431<0.0010.317<0.001We found that the most suitable cut-off value of U9 score to predict high disease activity was 11.5 (sensitivity 85.7% and specificity 80.6%), cut off value for moderate disease activity was 5.5(sensitivity 83.2% and specificity 88%) and cut off value for low disease activity was 3.5 (sensitivity of 83.3% and specificity 57.1%). These results are summarized in the following table:Conclusion:U9 ultrasonographic score is very useful method for evaluating the monitoring the response of treatment.References:[1]Mortada, et al. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2019;78:1009.Disclosure of Interests:None declared


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micha Eisele ◽  
Maximilian Graf ◽  
Abbas El Hachem ◽  
Jochen Seidel ◽  
Christian Chwala ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Precipitation - highly variable in space and time - is the most important input for many hydrological models. As these models become more and more detailed in space and time, high-resolution input data are required. Especially for modeling and prediction in fast reacting catchments, such as urban catchment areas, a higher space-time resolution is needed than the current ground measurement networks operated by national weather services usually provide. With the increasing number and availability of opportunistic sensors such as commercial microwave links (CMLs) and personal weather stations (PWS) in recent years, new opportunities for measuring meteorological data are emerging.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We developed a geostatistical interpolation framework which allows a combination of different opportunistic sensors and their specific features and geometric properties, e.g. point and line information. In this framework, a combined kriging approach is introduced, taking into account not only the point information of a reliable primary network, e.g., from national weather services, but also the higher uncertainty of the PWS- and CML-based precipitation. The path-averaged information of the CMLs is included through a block kriging-type approach.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The methodology was applied for two 7-months periods in Germany using an hourly temporal and a 1x1 km spatial resolution. By incorporating CMLs and PWS, the Pearson correlation could be increased from 0.56 to 0.73 compared to using only primary network for interpolation. The resulting precipitation maps also provided good agreement compared to gauge adjusted radar products.&lt;/p&gt;


2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit J Arsenault ◽  
Mathieu R Brodeur ◽  
David Rhainds ◽  
Anne-Elen Kernaleguen ◽  
Véronique Lavoie ◽  
...  

Background: Studies have shown that low HDL-cholesterol levels may be associated with the progression of aortic valvular calcium and aortic valvular stenosis (AVS), but whether patients with AVS have impaired cholesterol efflux capacities is unknown. Methods and results: We have measured four parameters of cholesterol efflux capacity in apolipoprotein B-depleted serum samples from 48 patients with (aortic jet velocity ≥2.5 m/s, mean age = 72 ± 7 years and 72.7% men) and 51 patients without AVS (aortic jet velocity ≤ 1.7 m/s, mean age 71 ± 7 years and 70.6% men). Cholesterol efflux capacity was measured using J774 macrophages with and without stimulation of ABCA1 expression by cAMP (non-stimulated efflux, total efflux and ABCA1-mediated efflux), and HepG2 hepatocytes to measure SR-BI-mediated efflux. Mean HDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein A-I levels as well as efflux are shown in the table for patients with vs. without AVS. The Pearson correlation coefficient between HDL-cholesterol levels and SR-B1-dependent efflux was 0.39 (p=0.007) in patients with AVS and 0.68 (<0.0001) in controls (P-value for the difference between the correlation coefficients obtained with Fisher’s test = 0.04). Conclusions: This study provides evidence that serum from patients with AVS may have impaired cholesterol efflux capacities, especially through the SR-B1 pathway. Table. Mean HDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein A-I levels as well as non-stimulated-, total-, ABCA1-, and SR-B1-dependent cholesterol efflux obtained from patients’ serum with vs. without AVS. Data is shown as mean ± SD. Differences between categories were assessed using a Student unpaired t-test.


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