Introduction:
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rapidly initiated COVID-19 surveillance by leveraging existing hospital networks to assess disease ...burden among hospitalized inpatients and inform prevention efforts.
Materials and Methods:
The Surveillance Platform for Enteric and Respiratory Infectious Organisms at Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (SUPERNOVA) is a network of five United States Veterans Affairs Medical Centers which serves nearly 400,000 Veterans annually and conducts laboratory-based passive and active monitoring for pathogens associated with acute gastroenteritis and acute respiratory illness among hospitalized Veterans. This paper presents surveillance methods for adapting the SUPERNOVA surveillance platform to prospectively evaluate COVID-19 epidemiology during a public health emergency, including detecting, characterizing, and monitoring patients with and without COVID-19 beginning in March 2020. To allow for case-control analyses, patients with COVID-19 and patients with non-COVID-19 acute respiratory illness were included.
Results:
SUPERNOVA included 1,235 participants with COVID-19 and 707 participants with other acute respiratory illnesses hospitalized during February through December 2020. Most participants were male (93.1%), with a median age of 70 years, and 45.8% non-Hispanic Black and 32.6% non-Hispanic White. Among those with COVID-19, 28.2% were transferred to an intensive care unit, 9.4% received invasive mechanical ventilation, and 13.9% died. Compared with controls, after adjusting for age, sex, and race/ethnicity, COVID-19 case-patients had significantly higher risk of mortality, respiratory failure, and invasive mechanical ventilation, and longer hospital stays.
Discussion:
Strengths of the SUPERNOVA platform for COVID-19 surveillance include the ability to collect and integrate multiple types of data, including clinical and illness outcome information, and SARS-CoV-2 laboratory test results from respiratory and serum specimens. Analysis of data from this platform also enables formal comparisons of participants with and without COVID-19. Surveillance data collected during a public health emergency from this key U.S. population of Veterans will be useful for epidemiologic investigations of COVID-19 spectrum of disease, underlying medical conditions, virus variants, and vaccine effectiveness, according to public health priorities and needs.
El trabajo expone cómo los consumidores valoran la calidad de los alimentos orgánicos de origen local. La información fue obtenida mediante un cuestionario aplicado a 50 consumidores asiduos a la red ...Comida Sana y Cercana en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, y mediante la realización de dos talleres. Los resultados indican que la calidad se define desde aspectos organolépticos, que los consumidores están interesados en el modelo de certificación participativa, y que depositan su confianza en la relación de cercanía entre productores y consumidores.
Intestinal parasitic infections, especially due to helminths, increase anemia in pregnant women. The results of this are low pregnancy weight gain and IUGR, followed by LBW, with its associated ...greater risks of infection and higher perinatal mortality rates. For these reasons, in the setting of no large previous studies in Venezuela about this problem, a national multicentric study was conducted.
Pregnant women from nine states were studied, a prenatal evaluation with a coproparasitological study. Univariated and multivariated analyses were made to determine risk factors for intestinal parasitosis and related anemia.
During 19 months, 1038 pregnant women were included and evaluated. Intestinal parasitosis was evidenced in 73.9%: A lumbricoides 57.0%, T trichiura 36.0%, G lamblia 14.1%, E hystolitica 12.0%, N americanus 8.1%, E vermicularis 6.3%, S stercoralis 3.3%. Relative risk for anemia in those women with intestinal parasitosis was 2.56 (P < .01).
Intestinal parasitoses could be associated with conditions for development of anemia at pregnancy. These features reflect the need of routine coproparasitological study among pregnant women in rural and endemic zones for intestinal parasites. Further therapeutic and prophylactic protocols are needed. Additional research on pregnant intestinal parasitic infection impact on newborn health is also considered.
Ante un modelo intensivo en el uso de agroquímicos y sus consecuencias en la salud y en el medio ambiente, los alimentos orgánicos emergen como una opción de producción sustentable y saludable para ...los consumidores. Este artículo expone los resultados de un estudio sobre los factores generales que organizan la representación social de los alimentos frescos orgánicos en tres grupos de consumidores en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. El estudio se realizó con dispositivos cuantitativos y cualitativos con 250 consumidores en tres espacios de venta. Los resultados muestran similitudes y diferencias según grupo social estudiado. Los tres casos comparten preocupaciones por la salud las cuales se enmarcan en diversos factores de riesgo. Las diferencias se muestran en cuanto a sus posicionamientos políticos e ideológicos así como por su oportunidad de acceso a los alimentos orgánicos. La escolaridad no fue determinante para diferenciar las representaciones sociales emitidas.
Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease of unknown etiology. Genetic factors implied on its onset and severity may include genes located within the class II major histocompatibility ...complex (MHC) region. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1 alleles with the clinical disease patterns of UC in Mexican Mestizo patients. High-resolution HLA typing was performed by polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific oligonucleotide (PCR)-SSO reverse dot blot and PCR-single-strand polymorphism in 67 patients with UC and 99 ethnically matched healthy controls. UC patients overall showed an increased frequency of HLA-DR1 as compared with healthy controls (17.1% versus 5%,
pC = 0.003, OR = 3.9). Patients with extensive colitis showed increased frequencies of HLA-DR1 (
pC = 1 × 10
−10, OR = 13.9), HLA-DRB1*0103 (
pC = 1 × 10
−3, OR = 21.7), HLA-DRB1*0102 (
pC = 0.007, OR = undetermined), and HLA-DR15 (
pC = 1 × 10
−3, OR = 8.5) when compared with healthy controls. We also found a statistically increased frequency of HLA-DR15 in UC patients with extensive colitis compared with UC patients with only distal colitis (18.7% versus 1.8%,
pC = 0.03; OR = 12.2). When patients who underwent proctocolectomy were compared with those who did not, an increased frequency of HLA-DRB1*0103 was observed (21.8% versus 4.9%;
pC = 0.03; OR = 5.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.39–21.93). Also, patients with proctocolectomy showed increased frequencies of HLA-DR1 (
pC = 1 × 10
−3, OR = 24.2) and HLA-DRB1*0103 (
pC = 1 × 10
−3, OR = 50.6) when compared with healthy controls. We concluded that HLA-DR1 is associated with genetic susceptibility to UC in the Mexican Mestizo population. HLA-DR15 distinguishes a subgroup of patients with extensive colitis and the HLA-DRB1*0103 allele distinguishes a subgroup of severe form of disease that might require surgical management.
Central ossifying fibroma is a benign, slow-growing tumor of mesenchymal origin with a predilection for the mandibular premolar and molar areas. The immunophenotype of T cells involved in the ...antitumor response against this benign tumor is unknown. In this case report, we described a case of a 48-year-old woman presenting with a very large recurrent ossifying fibroma in the mandible, which was successfully treated with hemimaxillectomy. In addition, we evaluated the expression of programmed cell death 1 receptor (PD-1), lymphocyte activation gene-3 (LAG-3), T cell immunoglobulin and mucin-domain containing-3 (TIM-3), cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4), CD69 (activation inducer molecule), and CD25 (α chain of the high-affinity IL-2 receptor) in T cell populations from the tumor and peripheral blood of this uncommon lesion. The patient presented recurrent ossifying fibroma, and the tumor-infiltrating and peripheral blood T cells showed expression of PD-1, LAG-3, and TIM-3, suggesting an exhausted T cell response.
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