Population acceptance of vaccination is a fundamental issue for health authorities, including in a department such as French Guiana, which is characterized by more precarious conditions and sometimes ...limited healthcare capacities. In order to study and monitor the extent of reluctance and to identify factors associated with vaccination intentions we set up a repeated online public survey. The purpose of the survey was to inform public decision-making, contribute to public debate, and provide useful data for research on the determinants associated with vaccine intentions
Four two-week survey waves, including between 1000 and 1400 people, were conducted between March and November 2021. Multifactor analyses characterized populations in terms of perceptions, intentions, and opinions regarding the management of the epidemic in and vaccination.
Vaccination intentions increased slightly from 45.5% in March 2021 to 55.2% of the population in October 2021. Significant geographic disparities were observed ranging from 29.6% to 78.8%. Vaccination intentions against COVID increased with age, socioeconomic level, and confidence in the government and local authorities. Uncertainty about the efficacý of the vaccine, fear of side effects, preference for using traditional remedies, and having been previously infected were among the most cited arguments by vaccine avoiders.
The study revealed a important reluctance to vaccinate, in a context of low perception of the risk associated with the infection, strong distrust of the health authorities and the government, and a lack of information on the side effects of the vaccine, which is perceived by the Guyanese population as an obstacle to vaccination. The study revealed significant difficulties in changing vaccination intentions over time in the most resistant population groups.
The results of these surveys were used to develop a typology of the population and to provide health authorities with useful information in real time to optimize the vaccination campaign.
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 was accompanied by great uncertainty regarding the main epidemiological characteristics of the transmission. In a context where epidemiological surveillance was mainly ...targeted on symptomatic patients, we assessed the extent of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in French Guiana conducting an intra-household transmission study and population-based seroprevalence surveys repeated over time.
Household monitoring included virological and clinical follow-up for all household members for the first 28 days after the date of confirmation of the index case and serological follow-up over a 12-month period. Three seroprevalence surveys were conducted in July and September 2020 and in September 2021.
A total of 57 dwellings including 245 individuals were included in the intra-household study. The average time between the date of onset of symptoms and the date of confirmation of diagnosis and inclusion in the study was 4.2 days and 7.2 days respectively. Secondary transmission was found in three quarters of households with a secondary infection rate of 35%. The highest transmission rate were observed in the most disadvantaged populations, within couples and from adults to children. Population-based seroprevalence studies have made it possible to monitor seroprevalence rates, which have varied from 15% at the time of the epidemic peak of the first epidemic wave to 65% of the population at the beginning of the fourth wave, despite the low impact of vaccination in French Guiana.
The results obtained highlighted a high transmission of the virus in French Guiana associated with a low severity rate linked to the structure of the particularly young population. The project has provided health authorities with useful data to support prevention and control strategies and has allowed to evaluate the impact of interventions implemented during the pandemic.
Purpose
Estimate the incidence of teething symptoms and investigate risk factors at three centers in different regions of Brazil.
Methods
A prospective cohort study enrolled children at birth in the ...cities of Manaus (northern region), Porto Alegre (southern region) and Salvador (northeast region). Sociodemographic and anthropometric variables were collected at baseline and 6 months. At 12 months, data were collected on the child's health through structured interviews and dental examinations, including the primary outcome: occurrence of signs and symptoms of tooth eruption reported by parents. Statistical analysis involved Poisson regression with robust variance, with calculation of relative risks (RR).
Results
The incidence of teething symptoms was 82.4% (238/289). The multivariate analysis revealed a higher occurrence of the outcome in the city of Salvador (RR = 1.39; 95% CI 1.23–1.58), when mother’s education was more than 11 years (RR = 1.31; 95% CI 1.04–1.65), when a larger number of individuals resided in the home (RR = 1.15; 95% CI 1.02–1.29), when a smoker resided in the home (RR = 1.16; 95% CI 1.03–1.31) and when the child presented flu or cold in the first year of life (RR = 1.23; 95% CI 1.09–1.38). The most reported symptoms were fever (50.5%), irritability (42.6%), itching (40.8%) and diarrhea (35.3%). Most parents (82%) took some action to alleviate symptoms, including unprescribed systemic medication, such as analgesic, anti-inflammatory and anti-diarrheic agents.
Conclusion
Reports of teething symptoms were associated with the city investigated, socioeconomic factors of the families and characteristics of the child's health. A high rate of administering unprescribed medication was also found.
Ambient air pollution is recognised as one of the potential environmental risk factors causing health hazards to the exposed population, demonstrated in numerous previous studies. Several ...longitudinal, ecological and epidemiological studies have shown associations between outdoor levels of outdoor atmospheric pollutants and adverse health effects, especially associated with respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions. The aim of this work is to assess the influence of atmospheric pollutants over the hospital admissions in Lisbon, by Ordinary Least Squares Linear Regression. The pollutants (CO, NO, NO₂, SO₂, O₃, PM₁₀and PM₂.₅) were obtained from 13 monitoring stations of the Portuguese Environmental Agency, which provide hourly observations. Hospital admission data were collected from the Central Administration of the Health System and were compiled by age: <15, 15–64, >64 years old. The study period was 2006–2008. Results showed significant positive associations between the following: (1) the pollutants CO, NO, NO₂, SO₂, PM₁₀and PM₂.₅and circulatory diseases for ages between 15 and 64 years (0.5 % hospital admissions (HA) increase with 10 μg m⁻³NO increase) and above 64 years (1.0 % stroke admission increase with 10 μg m⁻³NO₂increase); (2) the pollutants CO, NO, NO₂, SO₂, PM₁₀and PM₂.₅and respiratory diseases for ages below 15 years (up to 1.9 % HA increase with 10 μg m⁻³pollutant increase); and (3) the pollutants NO, NO₂and SO₂and respiratory diseases for ages above 64 years (1.3 % HA increase with 10 μg m⁻³CO increase).
In French Guiana, the COVID-19 pandemic was marked by very high levels of transmission in the population, low rates of hospitalisations and deaths, and high vaccine hesitancy. The use of traditional ...herbal remedies is very common in the population and understanding its influence as part of the population’s healing strategy is important. We investigated the use of traditional remedies for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in French Guiana and its influence on vaccine hesitancy.
An online survey was conducted between April and May 2021 among 1 295 participants aged 18 years or older. Demographic characteristics, attitudes, and perceptions of the population about the pandemic, vaccination intentions and use of traditional remedies were collected through a standardised questionnaire.
The cited plants were collected and deposited at the Cayenne herbarium for identification.
For combating COVID-19, 31.7% of people used traditional remedies while 71.4% reported usually treating themselves with remedies unrelated to COVID-19. A total of 604 use reports were recorded as ‘anticoronavirus.’ Quassia amara (Simaroubaceae) was the most frequently used species (153/604), representing 25.3% of the citations. Preventive use was more prevalent than curative use. Vaccine hesitancy was more common among people using traditional remedies.
Several species commonly used in French Guiana such as Quassia amara, Neurolaena lobata, Alpinia zerumbet, and Tinospora crispa were found to be used in the context of COVID-19. Further studies would be useful to investigate qualitative and quantitative components of interest, mechanisms, and effects.
•French Guiana exhibits the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates among French territories.•Several herbal medicine species commonly used in French Guiana have been utilized in the context of COVID-19.•High trust in herbal medicine contrasts vaccine hesitancy, reflecting complex healthcare beliefs.•Promising antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties observed in common herbal remedies merit further investigation.•Despite potential benefits, caution is urged regarding unproven herbal remedies' efficacy against COVID-19.
Autochthonous hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection has been increasingly reported in Europe and the United States, mostly arising from genotype 3 and less frequently genotype 4. We report here on a ...patient with HEV genotype 3a infection complicated by Guillain-Barré syndrome in Portugal in December 2012. We draw attention to the diagnosis of autochthonous HEV infection and to its rare, but important, neurological complications.
Consumers nowadays are playing an active role in their health-care. A special case is the increasing number of women, who are reluctant to use exogenous hormone therapy for the treatment of ...menopausal symptoms and are looking for complementary therapies. However, food supplements are not clearly regulated in Europe. The EFSA has only recently begun to address the issues of botanical safety and purity regulation, leading to a variability of content, standardization, dosage, and purity of available products. In this study, isoflavones (puerarin, daidzin, genistin, daidzein, glycitein, genistein, formononetin, prunetin, and biochanin A) from food supplements (
n
= 15) for menopausal symptoms relief are evaluated and compared with the labelled information. Only four supplements complied with the recommendations made by the EC on the tolerable thresholds. The intestinal bioavailability of these compounds was investigated using Caco-2 cells. The apparent permeability coefficients of the selected isoflavonoids across the Caco-2 cells were affected by the isoflavone concentration and product matrix.
Consumers nowadays are playing an active role in their health-care.
Steroidal alkaloids, flavonoids and their glycosides occurring in numerous species of Solanum genus are known to possess a variety of biological activities. The flavonoid tiriloside (1), a rich in ...glycoalkaloids total fraction named GB and the glycoalkaloid solasonine (2) isolated from thricomes of young branches and fruits from Solanum crinitum Lam, and the aglycone solasodine (3) isolated from Solanum jabrense Agra & M. Nee, were assayed against murine Ehrlich carcinoma and human K562 leukaemia cultured cells. The exposure in vitro of these cancer cells to these products resulted in a dose-dependent growth inhibition evaluated by the MTT method. The results indicated significant cytotoxic activities with IC50 = 69.50 mM, 19.5 mg mL-1, and 74.20 mM for 1, GB and 2, respectively, against Ehrlich carcinoma, and IC50 = 186.50 mM, 13.65 mg mL-1 and 76.92 mM, for 1, GB, 2 and 2a, respectively, against K562 leukaemia cells. The low activity of the aglycone 3 indicates that the role of the sugar moiety is very important in the cytotoxic activity of glycoalkaloid solsonine. The cytotoxic activity revealed by the GB fraction may be attributed to the presence of 2. Additionally, these results show the viability of the MTT assay for monitoring phytochemical bioactive compounds.
•Coffee silverskin extracts were tested for skin and ocular irritation.•EpiSkin™ and SkinEthic™ HCE models were used.•In vivo evaluation was performed through patch test.•Coffee silverskin extracts ...are safe for topical use.
Recent changes in regulatory requirements and social views on animal testing have incremented the development of reliable alternative tests for predicting skin and ocular irritation potential of products based on new raw materials. In this regard, botanical ingredients used in cosmetic products are among those materials, and should be carefully reviewed concerning the potential presence of irritant constituents. In particular, cosmetic products used on the face, in vicinity of the eyes or that may come in contact with mucous membranes, should avoid botanical ingredients that contain, or are suspected to contain, such ingredients. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of a new cosmetic ingredient, namely, coffee silverskin (CS), with an in vitro skin and ocular irritation assay using reconstructed human epidermis, EpiSkin™, and human corneal epithelial model, SkinEthics™ HCE, and an in vivo assay. Three different extracts of CS were evaluated. The histology of the models after extracts applications was analysed. The in vitro results demonstrated that extracts were not classified as irritant and the histological analyses proved that extracts did not affect both models structure. The content of caffeine, 5-hydroxymethyl furfural and chlorogenic acid was quantified after the epidermal assay. The in vivo test carried out with the most promising extract (hydroalcoholic) showed that, with respect to irritant effects, these extracts can be regarded as safe for topical application.
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