scholarly journals Flu pandemics: homeopathic prophylaxis and definition of the epidemic genius

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (28) ◽  
pp. 100-109
Author(s):  
Renan Marino
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Viral Genetics ◽  
Clinical Evolution ◽  
Common Etiology ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Do So

Recent studies on viral genetics establish swine-H1N1 – responsible for the ongoing pandemics – as a remainder or continuation of the agent causing the flu epidemics of 1918. This study aimed at analyzing whether this common etiology also result in significant correlations of clinical manifestations. To do so, data were collected to compare the clinical evolution of cases in the 1918 and 2009 epidemics.  This historical revision was the ground for evaluating the response to treatment including homeopathy in the former epidemics. It is discussed the convenience of including homeopathic prophylaxis grounded on the diagnosis of the epidemic genius among public health actions.

Peri-urban water, sanitation and hygiene in Lusaka, Zambia: photovoice empowering local assessment via ecological theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 175797592199571
Author(s):  
Sikopo Nyambe ◽  
Taro Yamauchi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Ecological Theory ◽  
Urban Slum ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Definition Of

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) factors are responsible for 11.4% of deaths in Zambia, making WASH a key public health concern. Despite annual waterborne disease outbreaks in the nation’s peri-urban (slum) settlements being linked to poor WASH, few studies have proactively analysed and conceptualised peri-urban WASH and its maintaining factors. Our study aimed to (a) establish residents’ definition of peri-urban WASH and their WASH priorities; and (b) use ecological theory to analyse the peri-urban WASH ecosystem, highlighting maintaining factors. Our study incorporated 16 young people (aged 17–24) residing in peri-urban Lusaka, Zambia in a photovoice exercise. Participants took photographs answering the framing question, ‘What is WASH in your community?’ Then, through contextualisation and basic codifying, participants told the stories of their photographs and made posters to summarise problems and WASH priorities. Participant contextualisation and codifying further underwent theoretical thematic analysis to pinpoint causal factors alongside key players, dissecting the peri-urban WASH ecosystem via the five-tier ecological theory ranging from intrapersonal to public policy levels. Via ecological theory, peri-urban WASH was defined as: (a) poor practice (intrapersonal, interpersonal); (b) a health hazard (community norm); (c) substandard and unregulated (public policy, organisational); and (d) offering hope for change (intrapersonal, interpersonal). Linked to these themes, participant findings revealed a community level gap, with public policy level standards, regulations and implementation having minimal impact on overall peri-urban WASH and public health due to shallow community engagement and poor acknowledgement of the WASH realities of high-density locations. Rather than a top-down approach, participants recommended increased government–resident collaboration, offering residents more ownership and empowerment for intervention, implementation and defending of preferred peri-urban WASH standards.

Development and Validation of a New Scoring Tool to Evaluate the Clinical Evolution of Adult Patients with Nonsegmental Vitiligo

Dermatology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
María Luisa Peralta-Pedrero ◽  
Denisse Herrera-Bringas ◽  
Karla Samantha Torres-González ◽  
Martha Alejandra Morales-Sánchez ◽  
Fermín Jurado Santa-Cruz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Surface ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Intraclass Correlation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Similar Response ◽  
Clinical Evolution ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Patient Reported ◽  
Extreme Groups

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Vitiligo has an unpredictable course and a variable response to treatment. Furthermore, the improvement of some vitiligo lesions cannot be considered a guarantee of a similar response to the other lesions. Instruments for patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) can be an alternative to measure complex constructions such as clinical evolution. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> The aim of this study was to validate a PROM that allows to measure the clinical evolution of patients with nonsegmental vitiligo in a simple but standardized way that serves to gather information for a better understanding of the disease. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> The instrument was created through expert consensus and patient participation. For the validation study, a prospective cohort design was performed. The body surface area affected was measured with the Vitiligo Extension Score (VES), the extension, the stage, and the spread by the evaluation of the Vitiligo European Task Force assessment (VETFa). Reliability was determined with test-retest, construct validity through hypothesis testing, discriminative capacity with extreme groups, and response capacity by comparing initial and final measurements. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Eighteen semi-structured interviews and 7 cognitive interviews were conducted, and 4 dermatologists were consulted. The instrument Clinical Evolution-Vitiligo (CV-6) was answered by 119 patients with a minimum of primary schooling. A wide range was observed in the affected body surface; incident and prevalent cases were included. The average time to answer the CV-6 was 3.08 ± 0.58 min. In the test-retest (<i>n</i> = 53), an intraclass correlation coefficient was obtained: 0.896 (95% CI 0.82–0.94; <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001). In extreme groups, the mean score was 2 (2–3) and 5 (4–6); <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.001. The initial CV-6 score was different from the final one and the change was verified with VES and VETFa (<i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.05, <i>n</i> = 92). <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> The CV-6 instrument allows patient collaboration, it is simple and brief, and it makes it easier for the doctor to focus attention on injuries that present changes at the time of medical consultation.

scholarly journals Implementing Personalized Medicine in COVID-19 in Andalusia: An Opportunity to Transform the Healthcare System

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 475
Author(s):  
Joaquín Dopazo ◽  
Douglas Maya-Miles ◽  
Federico García ◽  
Nicola Lorusso ◽  
Miguel Ángel Calleja ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Personalized Medicine ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Response To Therapy ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Specific Patient

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented opportunity to exploit the advantages of personalized medicine for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, surveillance and management of a new challenge in public health. COVID-19 infection is highly variable, ranging from asymptomatic infections to severe, life-threatening manifestations. Personalized medicine can play a key role in elucidating individual susceptibility to the infection as well as inter-individual variability in clinical course, prognosis and response to treatment. Integrating personalized medicine into clinical practice can also transform health care by enabling the design of preventive and therapeutic strategies tailored to individual profiles, improving the detection of outbreaks or defining transmission patterns at an increasingly local level. SARS-CoV2 genome sequencing, together with the assessment of specific patient genetic variants, will support clinical decision-makers and ultimately better ways to fight this disease. Additionally, it would facilitate a better stratification and selection of patients for clinical trials, thus increasing the likelihood of obtaining positive results. Lastly, defining a national strategy to implement in clinical practice all available tools of personalized medicine in COVID-19 could be challenging but linked to a positive transformation of the health care system. In this review, we provide an update of the achievements, promises, and challenges of personalized medicine in the fight against COVID-19 from susceptibility to natural history and response to therapy, as well as from surveillance to control measures and vaccination. We also discuss strategies to facilitate the adoption of this new paradigm for medical and public health measures during and after the pandemic in health care systems.

scholarly journals Leveraging artificial intelligence for pandemic preparedness and response: a scoping review to identify key use cases

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ania Syrowatka ◽  
Masha Kuznetsova ◽  
Ava Alsubai ◽  
Adam L. Beckman ◽  
Paul A. Bain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Use Cases ◽  
Outbreak Detection ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Pandemic Preparedness ◽  
Modeling Approaches

AbstractArtificial intelligence (AI) represents a valuable tool that could be widely used to inform clinical and public health decision-making to effectively manage the impacts of a pandemic. The objective of this scoping review was to identify the key use cases for involving AI for pandemic preparedness and response from the peer-reviewed, preprint, and grey literature. The data synthesis had two parts: an in-depth review of studies that leveraged machine learning (ML) techniques and a limited review of studies that applied traditional modeling approaches. ML applications from the in-depth review were categorized into use cases related to public health and clinical practice, and narratively synthesized. One hundred eighty-three articles met the inclusion criteria for the in-depth review. Six key use cases were identified: forecasting infectious disease dynamics and effects of interventions; surveillance and outbreak detection; real-time monitoring of adherence to public health recommendations; real-time detection of influenza-like illness; triage and timely diagnosis of infections; and prognosis of illness and response to treatment. Data sources and types of ML that were useful varied by use case. The search identified 1167 articles that reported on traditional modeling approaches, which highlighted additional areas where ML could be leveraged for improving the accuracy of estimations or projections. Important ML-based solutions have been developed in response to pandemics, and particularly for COVID-19 but few were optimized for practical application early in the pandemic. These findings can support policymakers, clinicians, and other stakeholders in prioritizing research and development to support operationalization of AI for future pandemics.

scholarly journals How the Heart Was Involved in COVID-19 during the First Pandemic Phase: A Review

Epidemiologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-139
Author(s):  
Andrea Canalella ◽  
Ermanno Vitale ◽  
Francesca Vella ◽  
Paola Senia ◽  
Emanuele Cannizzaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Respiratory Virus ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
Hubei Province ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
Converting Enzyme ◽  
Pathophysiological Mechanisms ◽  
Cardiovascular Involvement

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first observed in Wuhan, Hubei Province (China) in December 2019, resulting in an acute respiratory syndrome. Only later was COVID-19 considered a public health emergency of international concern and, on 11 March 2020, the WHO classified it as pandemic. Despite being a respiratory virus, the clinical manifestations are also characterized by cardiological involvement, especially in patients suffering from previous comorbidities such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus, its complications being potentially serious or fatal. Despite the efforts made by the scientific community to identify pathophysiological mechanisms, they still remain unclear. A fundamental role is played by the angiotensin 2 converting enzyme, known for its effects at the cardiovascular level and for its involvement in COVID-19 pathogenesis. The goal of this paper was to highlight the mechanisms and knowledge related to cardiovascular involvement during the first pandemic phase, as well as to emphasize the main cardiological complications in infected patients.

Clinical outcomes of syphilis in HIV-negative and HIV-positive MSM: occurrence of repeat syphilis episodes and non-treponemal serology responses

2021 ◽  
pp. sextrans-2020-054887
Author(s):  
Silvia Achia Nieuwenburg ◽  
Ricardo Jamie Sprenger ◽  
Maarten Franciscus Schim van der Loeff ◽  
Henry John Christiaan de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Hiv Infection ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
Response To Treatment ◽  
Disease Stage ◽  
Hiv Positive ◽  
Sexual Risk Behaviour ◽  
Serological Response ◽  
History Of ◽  
Hiv Negative

ObjectivesHIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) may be at a higher risk of repeat syphilis, have different clinical manifestations and have a different serological response to treatment compared with HIV-negative MSM. The objective of this study was to assess whether HIV-negative and HIV-positive MSM with infectious syphilis (primary, secondary or early latent) differed in history of previous syphilis episodes, disease stage and non-treponemal titre of initial and repeat episodes, and the titre response 6 and 12 months after treatment. Furthermore, determinants associated with an inadequate titre response after treatment were explored.MethodsThis retrospective analysis used data of five longitudinal studies (four cohorts; one randomised controlled trial) conducted at the STI clinic in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Participants were tested for syphilis and completed questionnaires on sexual risk behaviour every 3–6 months. We included data of participants with ≥1 syphilis diagnosis in 2014–2019. Pearson’s χ² test was used to compare HIV-negative and HIV-positive MSM in occurrence of previous syphilis episodes, disease stage of initial and repeat syphilis episode and non-treponemal titre treatment responses.ResultsWe included 355 participants with total 459 syphilis episodes. HIV-positive MSM were more likely to have a history of previous syphilis episodes compared with HIV-negative MSM (68/90 (75.6%) vs 96/265 (36.2%); p<0.001). Moreover, HIV-positive MSM with repeat syphilis were less often diagnosed with primary syphilis (7/73 (9.6%) vs 36/126 (28.6%)) and more often diagnosed with secondary syphilis (16/73 (21.9%) vs 17/126 (13.5%)) and early latent syphilis (50/73 (68.5%) vs 73/126 (57.9%)) (p=0.005). While not significantly different at 12 months, HIV-negative MSM were more likely to have an adequate titre response after 6 months compared with HIV-positive MSM (138/143 (96.5%) vs 66/74 (89.2%); p=0.032).ConclusionsIn repeat syphilis, HIV infection is associated with advanced syphilis stages and with higher non-treponemal titres. HIV infection affects the serological outcome after treatment, as an adequate titre response was observed earlier in HIV-negative MSM.

scholarly journals Accountability as a Virtue

2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110097
Author(s):  
Andrew Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Definition Of ◽  
Do So

This opening article will offer a brief introduction to what it means to understand accountability as a virtue. To do so, I first propose a definition of the condition of accountability, which I go on to distinguish from responsibility. Based on this definition, I then present an account of the corresponding virtue of accountability.

scholarly journals Indistinguishability and Negative Probabilities

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 829
Author(s):  
J. Acacio de Barros ◽  
Federico Holik
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Systems ◽  
Quantum Contextuality ◽  
No Signaling ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Do So

In this paper, we examined the connection between quantum systems’ indistinguishability and signed (or negative) probabilities. We do so by first introducing a measure-theoretic definition of signed probabilities inspired by research in quantum contextuality. We then argue that ontological indistinguishability leads to the no-signaling condition and negative probabilities.

New code for the protection of civilian population and property during armed conflict

1980 ◽  
Vol 20 (219) ◽  
pp. 287-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ionel Gloşcă
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
State Activity ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Do So

One of the principles underlying international law applicable in armed conflicts is that no act of war is permitted against the civilian population, consisting, by definition, of persons who take no part in the hostilities.Until the holocaust of 1939–45, international law gave practically no real protection to the civilian population in the event of war, and was not even intended to do so since up to that time war was considered to be a State activity from which civilians remained aloof. There were, nonetheless, general principles and rules in various international treaties which, in one way or another, related also to the civilian population.

The Opioid Crisis: How Counselors Can and Should Respond

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-124
Author(s):  
Kevin S. Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
Scope Of Practice ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Specialty Area ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
Overdose Deaths ◽  
Do So

Drug overdose deaths in the United States have reached unprecedented levels in recent years and continue to rise. Counselors are uniquely positioned to respond to this crisis but may be reluctant or not equipped to do so due to a variety of factors, including scope of practice concerns. Responding to this crisis, however, is a clinical necessity and an ethical imperative for all practicing counselors, regardless of specialty area. A review of proposed responses at the macro/systemic, professional, and personal levels is presented, with concrete examples within each level, to assist counselors in identifying and implementing professional activity, advocacy, and engagement to address the unprecedented national public health emergency. Specific considerations for advocacy and for clinical practice are proposed to further assist counselors and motivate action.

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