Emergence Of Flu Research Articles

Clinical Profile of COVID-19 Illness in Children—Experience from Tertiary Care Hospitals

Objective: Assessing detailed clinical profile as well as outcome in severe acute respiratory infection coronavirus infectious disease 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infected children. Methods: This is a retrospective study undertaken at pediatric departments of tertiary care hospitals of Lahore, Rawalpindi and Mirpur AJK for the period of three months from July 2021 to September 2021. The clinical characteristics data as well as result of children under 18 years infected with COVID-19 were reviewed as well as analyzed. Results: In total 2919 children that were suspected to be COVID-19 infected were verified for COVID-19 virus in flu emergency (n = 1744), severe acute respiratory infection ward (n = 825) and non-COVID (n = 350). From these studies, 8.73% children tested positive for COVID-19 infection. Of the positive cases, 56.47% were managed for outpatients and 59% needed admission. Most children admitted had critical illness owing to malnutrition and other comorbidities. Conclusions: Children of any age group are vulnerable to COVID-19 with minor male preponderance. Amongst infected, 2/3rd were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and needed outpatient management as well as home isolation. The adverse consequences were commonly observed in infants as well as children under 10 years of age with undernourishment and comorbidity. Keywords: COVID-19, Pandemic, Comorbidities, Respiratory infection

Clinical Profile of COVID-19 Illness in Children-Experience from a Tertiary Care Hospital.

ObjectiveTo detail clinical profile and outcome in children infected with SARS-CoV-2.MethodsThis retrospective study was undertaken at a tertiary care pediatric teaching hospital in Northern India. The data on clinical characteristics and outcome of children (< 18 y) with COVID-19 illness from April 2020–October 2020 were reviewed and analyzed.ResultsA total of 2919 children with suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) illness were tested for novel COVID-19 virus in the flu emergency (n = 1744), severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) ward (n = 825), and non-COVID area (n = 350) of the hospital. 8.73% (255/2919) children tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Of the 255 positive cases, 144 (56.47%) were managed on an outpatient basis and 100 (59 boys) required admission in COVID ward. The mortality rate of patients with SARS-CoV-2 was 11.4% (29/255). Majority of children admitted with COVID-19 had severe to critical illness due to the presence of malnutrition and underlying comorbidities.ConclusionsChildren of all age groups were susceptible to COVID-19 illness with a slight male preponderance. Amongst infected, two-third were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms that required outpatient management and home isolation. The adverse outcomes were more commonly seen in infants and children > 10 y of age with malnutrition and comorbid illness.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12098-021-03822-5.

Legal and Ethical Issues Regarding Minors in the Italian Coronavirus Flu Emergency.

On February 21, 2020, Italy became one of the countries hit by an epidemic of the new coronavirus that causes “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” (SARS-CoV-2). Even a month before that, however, the Italian government began issuing a series of decrees and ordinances aimed at the containment of the virus in Italy, the first of them on January 25, 2020. The COVID 19 infection has been faced as an epidemic through measures to enforce a high degree of isolation. These regulations hold for minors, as well, with consequent difficulties for this age group. While at the moment young people appear to be the least vulnerable to the severe complications of COVID 19, the psychological problems that may be brought on by pandemic-related restrictions should be taken into serious consideration.

The Coronavirus Flu Emergency in Italy: Legal Issues Regarding Minors

The COVID 19 infection has been faced as an epidemic, through measures to enforce a high degree of isolation. These regulations hold for minors, as well, with consequent difficulties for this age group, which at the moment seems to be least vulnerable to the severe complications of COVID 19.

Information Dissemination of Public Health Emergency on Social Networks and Intelligent Computation.

Due to the extensive social influence, public health emergency has attracted great attention in today's society. The booming social network is becoming a main information dissemination platform of those events and caused high concerns in emergency management, among which a good prediction of information dissemination in social networks is necessary for estimating the event's social impacts and making a proper strategy. However, information dissemination is largely affected by complex interactive activities and group behaviors in social network; the existing methods and models are limited to achieve a satisfactory prediction result due to the open changeable social connections and uncertain information processing behaviors. ACP (artificial societies, computational experiments, and parallel execution) provides an effective way to simulate the real situation. In order to obtain better information dissemination prediction in social networks, this paper proposes an intelligent computation method under the framework of TDF (Theory-Data-Feedback) based on ACP simulation system which was successfully applied to the analysis of A (H1N1) Flu emergency.

The Swine Flu Emergency Department: The Relationship Between Media Attention for the Swine Flu and Registrations in an Emergency Medicine Unit

When the world is faced with a new potential pandemic outbreak, the media report heavily about it. Media are an important disseminator of health threat information. This study examined potential media effects during the 2009 outbreak of A/H1N1 influenza. To examine the relationship between media reports of the swine flu and self-registrations in an emergency department (ED) of a tertiary hospital in Flanders, Belgium. All articles concerning swine flu published in seven Flemish newspapers were selected during the biggest flu peak in Belgium. This number was compared with the number of patients who presented themselves with a self-diagnosis of swine flu symptoms during the same time frame. The Pearson's correlation coefficient was selected to determine the relationship. The cross-correlation function determined the direction of this relationship. A strong correlation was found between the number of potential patients (n = 308) and the number of articles in the Flemish press (n = 1657). The number of patients was the leading indicator; increases in the volume of written press followed increases in the number of patients. Media reporting is extensive when a new infectious disease breaks out and intensifies when it is feared that pandemic levels are reached. This was also the case with the swine flu outbreak in Flanders. These findings suggest that a rise in the number of media reports follows a rise in the number of cases, rather than the reverse.

Evaluation on the risks of H5, H7 and H9 avian influenza infections in Guangzhou: using data from the 2006-2012 avian influenza surveillance program

To analyze the results of avian influenza surveillance program in Guangzhou from 2006 to 2012 and to evaluate the risk of infections with H5, H7 and H9 subtypes avian influenza viruses. Avian influenza surveillance system in Guangzhou consisted five components:serum surveillance on occupational population, environmental specimen surveillance of avian influenza virus, avian flu emergency surveillance, influenza viruses surveillance on ILI patient and surveillance on pneumonia of unknown causes. Hemagglutination inhibition test was conducted to detect the antibodies against H5, H7 and H9 while RT-PCR was used to test the nucleic acid of H5, H7 and H9 viruses. From 2006 to 2012, 4103 serum specimens were collected from occupational populations and the overall positive rate of H5/H7/H9 antibodies was 3.82% . The antibody positive rates for H5, H7 and H9 were 0.22% ,0.00% and 3.70% respectively. 4 serum specimens for H5 and H9 simultaneously showed antibody positive. The positive rate of H9 among occupational populations(4.21%)appeared higher than that from the control population(2.16%). 2028 specimens were collected from poultry sites and 55 samples found positive for H5 nucleic acid (positive rate:2.71%), 14 samples positive for H9 nucleic acid (positive rate:0.69%), 5 specimens, simultaneously positive for H5 and H9 nucleic acids. However, none of the samples showing H7 nucleic acid positive. From 2006 to 2012, all the tested H5/H7/H9 virus were negative from the respiratory/serum specimens among those close contacts of patients or high risk groups through the avian flu emergency surveillance program,ILI patient influenza virus surveillance programs or pneumonia of unknown causes surveillance program. Contamination of H5/H9 avian influenza virus did exist in the poultry sites in Guangzhou, especially in the wet Markets. The H5/H9 avian influenza virus caused asymptomatic infection was proved to be existed within the population exposed to the poultry, suggesting that the poultry occupational population in Guangzhou was under the risk of avian influenza virus infection.

Knowledge-centered design of decision support systems for emergency management

This paper focuses on the design of decision support systems for emergency managers in charge of planning, coordinating and controlling the actions carried out to respond to a critical situation. A novel knowledge-centered design methodology is proposed and demonstrated through the application in a concrete case study in the field of pandemic flu emergency management. Knowledge-centered design is based on a rational and structured approach to the elicitation and modeling of the knowledge concerning the target environment, the application domain, the intended users, their tasks, and the specific activities that the decision support system is expected to provide. Our proposal aims at overcoming some of the limitations of user-centered and activity-centered design in the specific context of decision support systems. Knowledge-centered design is based on an iterative process that goes through four main phases, namely: target environment identification, domain understanding, user characterization, and functional analysis. The paper illustrates each phase in detail and discusses the application in the proposed case study.

Packaging and Shipping Capabilities of New York State Hospital Laboratories: A 3-year Drill Assessment

In a previous publication, we discussed the results of the 2006-2007 New York State (NYS) Hospital Laboratory Drill Series which emphasized the need for ongoing testing and evaluation of laboratory preparedness capabilities, particularly those required to support hospital functions during a public health emergency. In this paper, we will discuss how a followup drill series in 2007-2008 was implemented in an effort to re-assess the ability of NYS acute care hospital facilities to recognize and respond to a suspected bioterrorism, chemical terrorism or pandemic flu emergency specimen submission event. We will explain how the results of the follow-up drill series, when compared to those of the original exercise, warranted a statewide hospital laboratory preparedness drill held in 2009, focused solely on addressing the overarching deficiency of chemical terrorism (CT) specimen submission capabilities. Although drill results conclude that NYS acute care hospital facilities are much better prepared than 3 years ago to support hospital functions during a CT public health emergency event, they also highlight the continued need to improve competency.

Assessment of Local Public Health Workers' Willingness to Respond to Pandemic Influenza through Application of the Extended Parallel Process Model

BackgroundLocal public health agencies play a central role in response to an influenza pandemic, and understanding the willingness of their employees to report to work is therefore a critically relevant concern for pandemic influenza planning efforts. Witte's Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) has been found useful for understanding adaptive behavior in the face of unknown risk, and thus offers a framework for examining scenario-specific willingness to respond among local public health workers. We thus aim to use the EPPM as a lens for examining the influences of perceived threat and efficacy on local public health workers' response willingness to pandemic influenza.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe administered an online, EPPM-based survey about attitudes/beliefs toward emergency response (Johns Hopkins∼Public Health Infrastructure Response Survey Tool), to local public health employees in three states between November 2006 – December 2007. A total of 1835 responses were collected for an overall response rate of 83%. With some regional variation, overall 16% of the workers in 2006-7 were not willing to “respond to a pandemic flu emergency regardless of its severity”. Local health department employees with a perception of high threat and high efficacy – i.e., those fitting a ‘concerned and confident’ profile in the EPPM analysis – had the highest declared rates of willingness to respond to an influenza pandemic if required by their agency, which was 31.7 times higher than those fitting a ‘low threat/low efficacy’ EPPM profile.Conclusions/SignificanceIn the context of pandemic influenza planning, the EPPM provides a useful framework to inform nuanced understanding of baseline levels of – and gaps in – local public health workers' response willingness. Within local health departments, ‘concerned and confident’ employees are most likely to be willing to respond. This finding may allow public health agencies to design, implement, and evaluate training programs focused on emergency response attitudes in health departments.

Food safety and risk communication: cases history and best practice (in avian flu)

The paper discusses the role of institutional communication in the case of health risks and emergencies. The article is divided in three sections. The first section examines the most recent theories on risk and on its communicational aspect; the second analyses a recent state of emergency crisis, specifically the panic which stemmed from the perceived danger of an avian flu pandemic in Italy; and finally an example of best practice in the form of a food safety handbook designed and edited by the Italian Ministry of Rural Affairs, which was based on the skills and knowledge acquired during the avian flu emergency.