The emergence of viruses and their variants has made virus taxonomy more important than ever before in controlling the spread of diseases. The creation of efficient treatments and cures that target ...particular virus properties can be aided by understanding virus taxonomy. Alignment-based methods are commonly used for this task, but are computationally expensive and time-consuming, especially when dealing with large datasets or when detecting new virus variants is time sensitive. An alternative approach, the encoded method, has been developed that does not require prior sequence alignment and provides faster results. However, each encoded method has its own claimed accuracy. Therefore, careful evaluation and comparison of the performance of different encoded methods are essential to identify the most accurate and reliable approach for virus taxonomy classification. This study aims to address this issue by providing a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the potential of encoded methods for virus classification and phylogenetics. We compared the vectors generated for each encoded method using distance metrics to determine their similarity to alignment-based methods. The results and their validation show that K-merNV followed by CgrDft encoded methods, perform similarly to state-of-the-art multi-sequence alignment methods. This is the first study to incorporate and compare encoded methods that will facilitate future research in making more informed decisions regarding selection of a suitable method for virus taxonomy.
Among the impacts of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the public health system in the United States has been a reevaluation of emergency response systems and procedures. This study ...uses publicly available literature from government, private sector, and academic sources to identify changes and lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic in specific aspects of emergency response, namely human resources, health service delivery, and logistics, determined based on the World Health Organization Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (WHO Health EDRM) Framework. Major themes of changes implemented include those intended to increase mobility and flexibility of workforce and resources, integration of various parts of the health system, and effective communication, and are anticipated to be incorporated into response systems going forward.
•There is limited available evidence on EMS providers’ exposure and infection.•COVID-19 is the most common infectious disease studied among EMS providers.•Few studies showed infection differences ...between age, race, gender, or work characteristics.
The emergency medical service (EMS) workforce is at high risk of occupationally-acquired infections. This review synthesized existing literature on the prevalence, incidence, and severity of infections in the EMS workforce.
We searched PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and SCOPUS from January 1, 2006 to March 15, 2022 for studies in the US that involved EMS clinician or firefighter populations and reported 1 or more health outcomes related to occupationally-acquired infections.
Of the 25 studies that met the inclusion criteria, most focused on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, with prevalence rates ranging from 1.1% to 36.2% (median 6.7%). The prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in 4 studies ranged from 1.9% to 6.4%, and the prevalence of Hepatitis C in 1 study was 1.3%. Few studies reported incidence rates. The prevalence or incidence of these infections generally did not differ by age or gender, but 4 studies reported differences by race or ethnicity. In the 4 studies that compared infection rates between EMS clinicians and firefighters, EMS clinicians had a higher chance of hospitalization or death from SAR-CoV-2 (odds ratio 4.23), a higher prevalence of Hepatitis C in another study (odds ratio 1.74), and no significant difference in MRSA colonization in a separate study.
More research is needed to better characterize the incidence and severity of occupationally-acquired infections in the EMS workforce.
Estimation of crowd size for large gatherings is an indispensable metric for event planners, local authorities, and emergency management. Currently, most crowd counting relies on dated methods such ...as people counters, entrance sensors, and ticket sales. Over the past decade, there has been rapid development in crowd counting techniques and related technology. Despite progress, theoretical advances in crowd counting technology have outpaced practical applications. The emergence of the vast array of crowd counting techniques has added to the challenge of determining those advances that can be most readily implemented. This article aims to provide an overview of promising crowd counting strategies and recent developments applied within the disaster medicine context along with the best use cases and limitations.
Effective preparedness, response, and recovery from disasters require a well-planned, integrated effort with experienced professionals who can apply specialized knowledge and skills in critical ...situations. While some professionals are trained for this, others may lack the critical knowledge and experience needed to effectively perform under stressful disaster conditions. A set of clear, concise, and precise training standards that may be used to ensure workforce competency in such situations has been developed. The competency set has been defined by a broad and diverse set of leaders in the field and like-minded professionals through a series of Web-based surveys and expert working group meetings. The results may provide a useful starting point for delineating expected competency levels of health professionals in disaster medicine and public health.
In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report concerning planning and actions to provide quality of care in fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable areas. South Sudan, the world's ...newest country, has encountered both natural and man-made disasters in recent years that have posed marked challenges to delivery of care. The Southern Sudan Healthcare Organization (SSHCO) operates as a non-governmental organization (NGO) in this setting, delivering and improving healthcare through war, flooding, and infectious outbreaks.
The goal of this paper is to highlight the challenges faced in providing care in South Sudan from an NGO perspective and apply the recent WHO guidelines on quality of care to optimize practical implementation.
Each of the WHO's eight elements for quality of care in South Sudan were examined in relation to the experience of SSHCO from 2013-2021. Analysis included: 1. summary of the WHO element; 2. examples of successful implementation; 3. barriers to implementation; and 4. recommendations to improve implementation.
The team found that communication and coordination were the most important aspects of improving quality of care in South Sudan. These should be prioritized and include intergovernmental partners, the local and national Ministry of Health (MOH), NGOs, and community stakeholders. Communication and coordination should foster community engagement, improved data collecting and reporting, and sharing of publicly accessible information. Better clinical staff training and governance are also required to ensure the most effective use of limited resources.
South Sudan faces many barriers to quality of care with communication and coordination identified among the foremost issues. Practical application of the WHO elements of quality of care can assist NGOs in effectively identifying areas for improvement to deliver better quality essential health services.
The advent of technologically-based approaches to disaster response training through Virtual Reality (VR) environments appears promising in its ability to bridge the gaps of other commonly ...established training formats. Specifically, the immersive and participatory nature of VR training offers a unique realistic quality that is not generally present in classroom-based or web-based training, yet retains considerable cost advantages over large-scale real-life exercises and other modalities and is gaining increasing acceptance. Currently, numerous government departments and agencies including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as academic institutions are exploring the unique advantages of VR-based training for disaster preparedness and response. Growing implementation of VR-based training for disaster preparedness and response, conducted either independently or combined with other training formats, is anticipated. This paper reviews several applications of VR-based training in the United States, and reveals advantages as well as potential drawbacks and challenges associated with the implementation of such training platform.
Hospital-based providers' willingness to report to work during an influenza pandemic is a critical yet under-studied phenomenon. Witte's Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) has been shown to be ...useful for understanding adaptive behavior of public health workers to an unknown risk, and thus offers a framework for examining scenario-specific willingness to respond among hospital staff.
We administered an anonymous online EPPM-based survey about attitudes/beliefs toward emergency response, to all 18,612 employees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital from January to March 2009. Surveys were completed by 3426 employees (18.4%), approximately one third of whom were health professionals.
Demographic and professional distribution of respondents was similar to all hospital staff. Overall, more than one-in-four (28%) hospital workers indicated they were not willing to respond to an influenza pandemic scenario if asked but not required to do so. Only an additional 10% were willing if required. One-third (32%) of participants reported they would be unwilling to respond in the event of a more severe pandemic influenza scenario. These response rates were consistent across different departments, and were one-third lower among nurses as compared with physicians. Respondents who were hesitant to agree to work additional hours when required were 17 times less likely to respond during a pandemic if asked. Sixty percent of the workers perceived their peers as likely to report to work in such an emergency, and were ten times more likely than others to do so themselves. Hospital employees with a perception of high efficacy had 5.8 times higher declared rates of willingness to respond to an influenza pandemic.
Significant gaps exist in hospital workers' willingness to respond, and the EPPM is a useful framework to assess these gaps. Several attitudinal indicators can help to identify hospital employees unlikely to respond. The findings point to certain hospital-based communication and training strategies to boost employees' response willingness, including promoting pre-event plans for home-based dependents; ensuring adequate supplies of personal protective equipment, vaccines and antiviral drugs for all hospital employees; and establishing a subjective norm of awareness and preparedness.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Despite this prevailing mindset, it is important to point out that, since the implementation of traffic and safety rules, advanced planning, structural changes, and extensive crowd-control ...precautions during the Hajj, Saudi Arabia has been spared the tragic stampedes that once marred these mass gatherings.4,5 Global disaster databases, such as EM-DAT maintained by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, currently do not independently track human-stampede events.6 In the aftermath of recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, fear, panic, and looting contributed to substantially increased security concerns.
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