Health personnel and community workers are at the front line of the COVID-19 emergency response and need to be equipped with adequate knowledge related to epidemics for an effective response. This ...study aimed to identify the coverage of COVID-19 health information via different sources accessed by health workers and community workers in Vietnam. A cross-sectional study using a web-based survey was carried out from January to February 2020 in Vietnam. Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) was used for recruiting participants. We utilized the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the construct validity of the questionnaire. A higher percentage of participants knew about "Clinical and pathogen characteristics of COVID-19", compared to "Regulations and policies related to COVID-19". The percentage of participants accessing the information on "Guidelines and policies on prevention and control of COVID-19" was the lowest, especially among medical students. "Mass media and peer-educators" channels had a higher score of accessing COVID-19 information, compared to "Organizations/ agencies/ associations" sources. Participants consumed most of their COVID-19 information via "Internet, online newspapers, social networks". Our findings indicate an urgency to re-design training programs and communication activities for a more effective dissemination of information related to the COVID-19 epidemic or epidemics in general.
In this work, an environmentally friendly and cost-effective synthetic method of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was successfully performed using aqueous extract of
...Phlogacanthus turgidus
(PT) leaves. The biosynthesis of nanoparticles was optimized for reaction conditions including concentration of metallic ions, temperature, and time using the measurement of UV–Vis spectroscopy. The nanoparticles were well characterized by analytic techniques such as Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HR-TEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The morphological data showed that PT-AgNPs possessed the spherical shape with the size distribution ranging from 5 to 15 nm with a mean size of 10 nm while PT-AuNPs existed in the multiple shape with the size distribution ranging from 5 to 20 nm with a mean size of 12 nm. The antibacterial behavior showed that PT-AgNPs possessed high bioactivity against four bacterial strains including
Bacillus subtilis
,
Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi
, and
Escherichia coli.
Moreover, the catalytic activity of the biogenic nanoparticles was investigated for catalytic reduction of 2-nitrophenol, 3-nitrophenol, and rhodamine B. The kinetic data showed that the nanoparticles were excellent catalysts with potential applications for environmental treatment.
Graphical abstract
The occurrence of arsenic (As) in groundwater (drilled well water) that were used for drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene and its risks to human health in Long An and Tien Giang provinces (Mekong ...delta, Vietnam) were evaluated in this study. The average As concentrations were 15.92 ± 11.4 μg/L (
n
= 24, Long An) and 4.95 ± 4.7 μg/L (
n
= 24, Tien Giang). The average concentrations of As in Long An had not reached the WHO and QCVN 01: 2009/BYT healthy drinking water standard (10 μg/L). When used as a source of water for drinking and daily activities, arsenic-contaminated groundwater may have a direct impact on human health. The risk assessment from groundwater established by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) was conducted. The risk assessment showed that the average cancer risk (CR) values were 8.68 × 10
−4
(adults) and 2.39 × 10
−3
(children) for Long An, and 2.70 × 10
−4
(adults) and 7.43 × 10
−4
(children) for Tien Giang. These results were significantly higher than the CR (1 × 10
−4
) proposed by the USEPA. The adverse health effect was therefore specifically warned by the use of arsenic-contaminated groundwater. This research offers valuable knowledge for efficient water management approaches to guarantee local communities’ health protection.
To demonstrate the prevalence of maternal mosaic monosomy X (MMXO) in a cohort of pregnant women in Vietnam.
All 105,594 singleton pregnant women undergoing noninvasive prenatal screening (NIPS) ...between January 2019 and February 2021 in Vietnam were analyzed by measuring discordance between size- and count-based z-scores for chromosome X (ChrX) to identify suspected cases of MMXO and validated by fluorescence
hybridization (FISH) on maternal blood.
We identified 295 (0.279%) suspected MMXO cases. After FISH analysis, MMXO was confirmed in 125 cases (42.37%), revealing the MMXO prevalence of 0.118% (95% CI: 0.097-0.139%) in this cohort.
We found a relatively high prevalence of MMXO in Vietnamese pregnant women and demonstrated a strong influence of MMXO on the ChrX z-score using a count-based method, resulting in false positives. The size-based method is not sensitive to MMXO and therefore achieves higher PPV.
Plasmid-Mediated Colistin Resistance 1 (mcr-1) was first reported in 2015 and is a great concern to human health. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of mcr-1 and mcr-1-positive Escherichia ...coli (MCRPEC) and the association in infection status among various reservoirs connected to livestock. The study was conducted in 70 poultry and swine farms in a commune in Ha Nam province, northern Vietnam. Samples were collected from farmers, food animals, domestic animals, and farm environments (flies and wastewater) for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening for mcr-1 gene and species identification of PCR positive isolates. Among 379 obtained mcr-1 positives isolates, Escherichia coli was the major identified, varying from 50% (2/4) in dog feces to 100% (31/31) in humans feces isolates. The prevalence of MCRPEC was 14.4% (20/139), 49.7% (96/193), 31.3% (25/80), 36.7% (40/109), 26.9% (18/67), and 3.9% (2/51) in humans, chickens, pigs, flies, wastewater, and dogs, respectively. The study identified association between MCRPEC infection status in humans and flies (OR = 3.4), between flies and chickens (OR = 5.3), and between flies and pigs (OR = 9.0). Farmers' age and farm livestock unit were also associated factors of MCRPEC infection status in humans (OR = 5.1 and 1.05, respectively). These findings bring new knowledge on antibiotic resistance in livestock setting and important suggestions on potential role of flies in the transmission of mcr-1 resistance gene.
Background. Dengue endangers billions of people in the tropical world, yet no therapeutic is currently available. In part, the severe manifestations of dengue reflect inflammatory processes affecting ...the vascular endothelium. In addition to lipid lowering, statins have pleiotropic effects that improve endothelial function, and epidemiological studies suggest that outcomes from a range of acute inflammatory syndromes are improved in patients already on statin therapy. Methods. Following satisfactory review of a short pilot phase (40 mg lovastatin vs placebo in 30 cases), we performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 5 days of 80 mg lovastatin vs placebo in 300 Vietnamese adults with a positive dengue NS1 rapid test presenting within 72 hours of fever onset. The primary outcome was safety. Secondary outcomes included comparisons of disease progression rates, fever clearance times, and measures of plasma viremia and quality of life between the treatment arms. Results. Adverse events occurred with similar frequency in both groups (97/151 64% placebo vs 82/149 55% lovastatin; P = .13), and were in keeping with the characteristic clinical and laboratory features of acute dengue. We also observed no difference in serious adverse events or any of the secondary outcome measures. Conclusions. We found lovastatin to be safe and well tolerated in adults with dengue. However, although the study was not powered to address efficacy, we found no evidence of a beneficial effect on any of the clinical manifestations or on dengue viremia. Continuing established statin therapy in patients who develop dengue is safe. Clinical Trials Registration. ISRCTN03147572.
Flexible bronchoscopy has revolutionized respiratory disease diagnosis. It offers direct visualization and detection of airway abnormalities, including lung cancer lesions. Accurate identification of ...airway lesions during flexible bronchoscopy plays an important role in the lung cancer diagnosis. The application of artificial intelligence (AI) aims to support physicians in recognizing anatomical landmarks and lung cancer lesions within bronchoscopic imagery. This work described the development of BM-BronchoLC, a rich bronchoscopy dataset encompassing 106 lung cancer and 102 non-lung cancer patients. The dataset incorporates detailed localization and categorical annotations for both anatomical landmarks and lesions, meticulously conducted by senior doctors at Bach Mai Hospital, Vietnam. To assess the dataset's quality, we evaluate two prevalent AI backbone models, namely UNet++ and ESFPNet, on the image segmentation and classification tasks with single-task and multi-task learning paradigms. We present BM-BronchoLC as a reference dataset in developing AI models to assist diagnostic accuracy for anatomical landmarks and lung cancer lesions in bronchoscopy data.
The sampling-based exploration strategy is the most effective for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Micro Aerial Vehicles, and other three-dimensional outdoor robots. Its objective is to send robots to cover ...new unexplored areas by planning an optimal destination and path using an optimal utility function. Sampling-based Frontier Detection and Next Best View theories are the most powerful among the existing strategies for autonomous exploring and mapping techniques. This study proposes an improved sampling-based method for indoor robot exploration. The base algorithm's sampling task is adjusted to generate samples until the Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRTs) endpoints become frontiers. These samples are then evaluated using the enhanced utility function. The information obtained from the environments is estimated using occupied and uncertain probability. The initial results indicate that our modified NBV approach achieves a significantly larger explored area while reducing distance and time on Gazebo platform-simulated environments. These findings show our proposed approach's promising autonomous exploration potential in 2D environments.
Herein, Cu was incorporated into ZnO lattice to reduce its band gap as well as to extend its visible radiation response. The obtained Cu-ZnO was continuously integrated with g-C3N4 to create ...Cu-ZnO/g-C3N4Z-direct scheme photocatalyst for advanced atrazine removal. Radical scavenging experiments have been also conducted to clearly figure out photocatalytic mechanism for degradation of atrazine by the synthesized photocatalyst. The synthesized Cu-ZnO only utilized the generated h+ for atrazine degradation (direct and indirect via formation hydroxyl radicals (•OH)) and the g-C3N4 only utilized the generated e− for atrazine degradation (indirect via reaction with O2 to form superoxide anion, which needed to continuously react with H2O to form •OH). Therefore, the photocatalytic atrazine degradation by synthesized Cu-ZnO material was greater than that by synthesized g-C3N4 material. Cu-ZnO/g-C3N4 utilized both generated e− and h+ for degradation of atrazine. Thus, the photocatalytic atrazine degradation by the synthesized Cu-ZnO/g-C3N4 was greater than those of single g-C3N4 or Cu-ZnO materials. Finally, the conducted recycling experiments indicated great stability of synthesized Cu-ZnO/g-C3N4 during long-term atrazine degradation process opening new era for application of the material in practical systems.
Display omitted
•Cu doped into ZnO lattice to reduce its band gap and to extend its visible radiation response.•Cu-ZnO was successfully combined with g-C3N4 to establish Z direct scheme system.•Z-scheme prevented fast recombination of e− and h+ and maintained their re-dox potential.•The Cu-ZnO/g-C3N4 utilized both generated e− and h+ for degradation of atrazine.•The Cu-ZnO/g-C3N4 showed excellent activity and stability during long-term photocatalysis.
PDF
