Global Health Epidemiology and Genomics最新文献

Purpose: This study aims to create a science map, provide structural analysis, investigate evolution, and identify new trends in Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) research articles.

Methods: All Helicobacter publications were gathered from the Web of Science (WoS) database from August 2010 to 2021. The data were required for bibliometric analysis. The bibliometric analysis was performed with Bibliometrix R Tool. Bibliometric data were analyzed using the Bibliometrix Biblioshiny R-package software.

Results: A total of 17,413 articles were reviewed and analyzed, with descriptive characteristics of the H. pylori literature included. In journals, 21,102 keywords plus and 20,490 author keywords were reported. These articles were also written by 56,106 different authors, with 262 being single-author articles. Most authors' abstracts, titles, and keywords included "Helicobacter-pylori." Since 2010, the total number of H. pylori-related publications has been decreasing. Gut, PLOS ONE, and Gastroenterology are the most influential H. pylori journals, according to source impact. China, the United States, and Japan are the countries with most affiliations and subjects. In addition, Seoul National University has published the most articles about H. pylori. According to the cloud word plot, the authors' most frequently used keywords are gastric cancer (GC), H. pylori, gastritis, eradication, and inflammation. "Helicobacter pylori" and "infection" have the steepest slopes in terms of the upward trend of words used in articles from 2010 to 2021. Subjects such as GC, intestinal metaplasia, epidemiology, peptic ulcer, eradication, and clarithromycin are included in the diagram's motor theme section, according to strategic diagrams. According to the thematic evolution map, topics such as Helicobacter pylori infection, B-cell lymphoma, CagA, Helicobacter pylori, and infection were largely discussed between 2010 and 2015. From 2016 to 2021, the top topics covered included Helicobacter pylori, H. pylori infection, and infection.

Background: The Global Burden of Disease Study in 2016 estimated that the global incident cases of meningitis have increased by 320,000 between 1990 and 2016. Current evidence suggests that diabetes may be a prime risk factor for meningitis among individuals, including older adults. However, findings of prior studies on this topic remain inconsistent, making a general conclusion relatively difficult. This study aimed to quantitatively synthesize the literature on the risk of meningitis associated with diabetes and compare the risk across different global regions.

Method: Literature search and study design protocol followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, African Journal Online, and Google Scholar using relevant MESH terms. A random effect model was used to pull effect sizes.

Results: Initial search yielded 772 papers but 756 studies were excluded due to duplicity and not meeting inclusion criteria. In all, 16 papers involving 16847 cases were used. The pulled effect size (ES) of the association between diabetes and meningitis was 2.240 (OR = 2.240, 95% CI = 1.716-2.924). Regional-base analysis showed that diabetes increased the risk of developing meningitis in Europe (OR = 1.737, 95% CI = 1.299-2.323), Asia (OR = 2.192, 95% CI = 1.233-3.898), and North America (OR = 2.819, 95% CI = 1.159-6.855). These associations remained significant in the study design and etiological classe-based subgroup analyses. However, we surprisingly found no studies in Africa or South America.

Conclusion: Diabetes is a risk factor for developing meningitis. Given that no research on this topic came from Africa and South America, our findings should be contextually interpreted. We, however, encourage studies on diabetes-meningitis linkages from all parts of the world, particularly in Africa and South America, to confirm the findings of the present study.

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has demonstrated the importance of predicting, identifying, and tracking mutations throughout a pandemic event. As the COVID-19 global pandemic surpassed one year, several variants had emerged resulting in increased severity and transmissibility. Here, we used PCR as a surrogate for viral load and consequent severity to evaluate the real-world capabilities of a genome-based clinical severity predictive algorithm. Using a previously published algorithm, we compared the viral genome-based severity predictions to clinically derived PCR-based viral load of 716 viral genomes. For those samples predicted to be "severe" (probability of severe illness >0.5), we observed an average cycle threshold (Ct) of 18.3, whereas those in in the "mild" category (severity probability <0.5) had an average Ct of 20.4 (P=0.0017). We also found a nontrivial correlation between predicted severity probability and cycle threshold (r = -0.199). Finally, when divided into severity probability quartiles, the group most likely to experience severe illness (≥75% probability) had a Ct of 16.6 (n = 10), whereas the group least likely to experience severe illness (<25% probability) had a Ct of 21.4 (n = 350) (P=0.0045). Taken together, our results suggest that the severity predicted by a genome-based algorithm can be related to clinical diagnostic tests and that relative severity may be inferred from diagnostic values.

Since the zoonotic event from which SARS-CoV-2 started infecting humans late in 2019, the virus has caused more than 5 million deaths and has infected over 500 million people around the world. The pandemic has had a severe impact on social and economic activities, with greater repercussions in low-income countries. South America, with almost 5% of the world's population, has reckoned with almost a fifth of the total people infected and more than 26% (>1/4) of the deceased. Fortunately, the full genome structure and sequence of SARS-CoV-2 have been rapidly obtained and studied thanks to all the scientific efforts and data sharing around the world. Such molecular analysis of SARS-CoV-2 dynamics showed that rates of mutation, similar to other members of the Coronaviridae family, along with natural selection forces, could result in the emergence of new variants; few of them might be of high consequence. However, this is a serious threat to controlling the pandemic and, of course, enduring the process of returning to normalization with the implicit monetary cost of such a contingency. The lack of updated knowledge in South America justifies the need to develop a structured genomic surveillance program of current and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. The modeling of the molecular events and microevolution of the virus will contribute to making better decisions on public health management of the pandemic and developing accurate treatments and more efficient vaccines.

Since December 2019, the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread rapidly from Wuhan (China) across the globe, affecting more than 200 countries by mid-2021, with over 190 M reported cases and around 4 M fatalities. During the first year of the pandemic, affected countries implemented a variety of nonpharmaceutical interventions to control virus transmission. In December 2020, countries started administering several authorised vaccines under a limited supply scenario. In this context, the aim of this study was to develop a SEIR-type continuous-time deterministic disease model, to determine the impact of interaction between different vaccination scenarios and levels of protection measures on disease incidence. For this, the model incorporates (i) a protection measure including low (self-protection), medium (mobility limitation), high (closure of indoor facilities), and very high (lockdown) protection levels, (ii) quarantine for confirmed cases, and (iii) vaccination rate and efficacy of four types of vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca, and Janssen). The model was verified and evaluated using the response timeline and vaccination strategies and rates in the Basque Country (N. Spain). Once the model performance was validated, different initial phase (when 30% of the population is vaccinated) vaccination scenarios were simulated, including (i) a realistic vaccine limited supply scenario and (ii) four potential full vaccine supply scenarios where a unique vaccine type is administered. Significant differences in disease prevalence and cumulative mortality were found between vaccination scenarios for low and medium-level protection measures. For high-level protection measures, any vaccine scenario is effective at limiting the virus transmission and disease mortality. The results obtained here may vary in further studies since there may be some unpredictable factors/covariates. With this in mind, the model here could be easily applied to other regions or countries, modifying the strategies implemented and initial conditions.

Background: The Human Health and Heredity (H3Africa) Consortium continues to generate large amounts of genomic data leading to new insights into health and disease among African populations. This has however generated debate among stakeholders involved in developing, implementing, and applying ethical standards and policies for the return of individual genetic research results. The key questions are about when results must, should, may, or must not be returned and by whom. This study aimed to explore the views on the feedback of individual pertinent and incidental genetic research results of researchers, ethics committee members, and policymakers in Botswana.

Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 key stakeholders from academic, research institutions, and regulatory bodies in Botswana. An analysis of the coded data was done through an iterative process of analytic induction to document and interpret themes and patterns.

Results: Overall, the study indicated that researchers have at least a partial obligation to return individual genetic research results to research participants. Respondents placed emphasis on the ethical principle of autonomy. They felt that it was inappropriate for researchers to make decisions about the return of results on participants' behalf except in situations of avoiding participant self-harm or harm to society.

Conclusion: Findings helped to highlight the importance of considering participants' autonomy in the development of sustainable and credible guidelines for feedback of findings from genomics research in Botswana, which can be explained during community engagement and consent processes. Such guidelines would ultimately be used to develop policies, guide African genomics research, and promote participant autonomy, transparency, and possibly participant trust in research.

Aim: The current study aimed to investigate the trend changes of stomach cancer incidence amongst African countries and identify the main patterns.

Methods: The annual reports of stomach cancer incidence rate (per 100,000 people) for males and females in 53 African countries from 1990 to 2016 were maintained from the World Health Organization archive. The growth mixture model was used for fitting the models in Mplus 7.4. The estimated linear trend in each pattern was characterized by intercept (the rate at 1990) and slope (the observed biennial trend changes), and finally, each country was grouped into a cluster with the most similar pattern.

Results: Three main patterns for males and two main patterns for females were determined. For males, the first cluster, containing Cape Verde, Central African Republic, and Mauritius, showed a sharp fall, while countries in the second pattern including Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Gambia, Libya, Malawi, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, and Tunisia were categorized in a pattern with a slight decrease, and other 43 countries were in the third pattern with a moderate falling trend. For females, 19 countries including Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe were categorized in the moderate-to-high falling pattern, but the other 34 countries had a gentle downward pattern.

Conclusion: Although most of the observed trends of stomach cancer were falling, only a few countries had experienced a favorable decreasing trend (three countries in male incidence and nineteen countries in female incidence). Therefore, taking effective actions to accelerate the observed falling trends seems necessary.

Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) is a form of micro health insurance targeted at low-income groups that permits for grouping of assets to tackle the expenses of future, uncertain, health-related circumstances. According to the International Labour Organisation, more than 80% of India's employed nonagricultural population is in the informal sector, implying that they are possibly excluded from receiving health insurance benefits. This is where CBHI comes into play, wherein groups of people belonging to a community define the demand and benefits and pool their resources to provide financial protection to all their members. This study aims to scrutinize the package prices sanctioned by these schemes and compare them with the cost incurred by the hospital. The expense pattern of three surgeries in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology was analysed under three insurance schemes: Arogya Bhagya Yojana, Arogya Karnataka, and Employees' State Insurance Scheme. Methodology. A retrospective study was conducted in a 2,032-bedded tertiary care hospital in South India. Patients of abdominal hysterectomy, vaginal hysterectomy, and caesarean section surgeries covered by any of the insurance schemes mentioned above were a part of the inclusion criteria. The patient records were examined from the hospital's Medical Records Department (MRD). The patients' bills were assembled from the inpatient billing department to scrutinize all the expenses associated with each surgery. The variable costs include consumables, medicine, electricity and AC, diagnostics, blood bank materials, doctor's fee, package differences, and others. In contrast, fixed costs include bed cost, equipment cost (purchase + annual maintenance cost), manpower cost-OT, manpower cost-nursing, and allocated indirect costs associated with the medical treatment. These were computed and compared with the package price of respective insurance schemes to determine if the schemes are profit-yielding schemes or loss-yielding schemes, using the data from the finance department. Results and Conclusion. It has been observed that the operating loss of the hospital for abdominal hysterectomy, vaginal hysterectomy, and caesarean section under CBHI schemes ranges between 7% and 36%. The highest loss was observed in Arogya Karnataka Scheme for caesarean section surgery (BPL patients). The amount received through these schemes is insufficient to cover the costs acquired by the hospital, let alone make a profit. However, under Arogya Bhagya and ESI Schemes, the hospital has made a profit in covering the variable costs for these surgeries. The study concludes that the hospital is running under loss due to the three Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) schemes.