Plos One
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One Health approach for elimination of human anthrax in a tribal district of Odisha: Study protocol.
Anthrax is a major but neglected zoonotic disease of public health concern in India with Odisha contributing a major share to the disease burden. Bacillus anthracis spores can be found naturally in soil and commonly affect both animals and humans around the world. Domestic and wild animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and deer can become infected when they inhale or ingest spores from contaminated soil, plants, or water. Anthrax can be fatal if patients are not treated promptly with antibiotics. This protocol aims to describe the implementation and evaluation of the 'One Health' intervention model based on the principles of Theory of Change (ToC) to eliminate human anthrax from a tribal district in Odisha, India. ⋯ This would be a first study applying One Health concept for the elimination of human anthrax in India. The findings from this study will offer important insights for policy-making and further replication in other endemic regions of the state and country.
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The lockdown of sports infrastructure due to the COVID-19 pandemic has substantially shifted people's physical activity towards public green spaces. With Germany's lockdown as one of the more severe governmentally imposed epidemic-control-decisions, we tested to what extent the frequency of outdoor cycling activities changed from March to June 2020. ⋯ Fitness App data, e.g. from Strava, can be used to monitor visitor behaviour and frequency. The increase in outdoor cycling activities during epidemic control decisions likely reflects a shift of sport activities from indoor and team sports to outdoor and individual sports. This highlights the importance of accessible green space for maintaining physical fitness and health. Beyond this shift, it is likely that outdoor activities may be of particularly importance for stress relief in times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.
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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted the economy, livelihood, and physical and mental well-being of people worldwide. This study aimed to compare the mental health status during the pandemic in the general population of seven middle income countries (MICs) in Asia (China, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam). All the countries used the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) to measure mental health. ⋯ The risk factors for adverse mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic include age <30 years, high education background, single and separated status, discrimination by other countries and contact with people with COVID-19 (p<0.05). The protective factors for mental health include male gender, staying with children or more than 6 people in the same household, employment, confidence in doctors, high perceived likelihood of survival, and spending less time on health information (p<0.05). This comparative study among 7 MICs enhanced the understanding of metal health in the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is an emergent disease that initially had no historical data to guide scientists on predicting/ forecasting its global or national impact over time. The ability to predict the progress of this pandemic has been crucial for decision making aimed at fighting this pandemic and controlling its spread. In this work we considered four different statistical/time series models that are readily available from the 'forecast' package in R. ⋯ However, for the majority of the analyses, the time series model with autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and cubic smoothing spline models both had smaller prediction errors and narrower prediction intervals, compared to the Holt and Trigonometric Exponential smoothing state space model with Box-Cox transformation (TBATS) models. Therefore, the former two models were preferable to the latter models. Given similarities in performance of the models in the USA and Italy, the corresponding prediction tools can be applied to other countries grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, and to any pandemics that can occur in future.
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Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious acute respiratory disease, which caused by a novel coronavirus. The disease disrupts health systems and resulting in social, political, and economic crises. Health professionals are in front of this pandemic and always work in a high-risk environment. The best prevention for COVID-19 is avoiding exposure to the virus. Some studies reported health professional's practice of precautionary measures for COVID-19. Nevertheless, a few have identified factors affecting. As such, this study aimed to fill those research gaps in the study setting. ⋯ The magnitude of good practice of precautionary measures for the COVID-19 pandemic among health professionals was low. As such, different interventions to improve the knowledge and attitude of health professionals in the health care system are highly needed to boost the practice and to advance service delivery.