Public health
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In December 2019, a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan city, China, which has subsequently led to a global pandemic. At the time of writing, COVID-19 in Wuhan appears to be in the final phase and under control. However, many other countries, especially the US, Italy and Spain, are still in the early phases and dealing with increasing cases every day. Therefore, this article aims to summarise and share the experience of controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Wuhan and provide effective suggestions to enable other countries to save lives. ⋯ The four-stage SEIR model was effective in capturing the evolution trajectory of COVID-19. Based on the model analysis, several effective suggestions are proposed to prevent and control the pandemic for countries that are still in the initial phases.
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Comparative Study
A review of the current public health practice for contact tracing in relation to laryngeal TB in England 2012-2016.
Contact tracing following identification of tuberculosis (TB) is well established. However, evaluation of this activity, particularly for laryngeal TB, is limited. We compare contact tracing and outcomes in response to laryngeal TB with sputum-smear-positive pulmonary TB (ss + pTB) and consider the public health response in light of our findings. ⋯ We observed a small difference, between case and control groups, in number of contacts identified but not number screened, indicative of a broadly similar approach to contact tracing. Conversely, the difference in screening outcomes between the groups was significant. These findings highlight a potential need to further understand infectivity of laryngeal TB; and consider possible implications for public health practice.
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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Although a significant proportion of CRC cases and deaths are preventable by screening, the morbidity and mortality from CRC remains high and is attributed to suboptimal screening rates. Low levels of population CRC screening uptake may be due to reluctance toward invasiveness of some screening tests, embarrassment, exposure to anesthesia, and grueling preparation, especially for the invasive screening tests. Noninvasive tests overcome many of these barriers because they are more convenient and potentially more attractive to patients compared to invasive tests. This study uses Markov cohort simulation model developed with the help of TreeAge pro software to compare two noninvasive fecal CRC screens, fecal immunohistochemical test (FIT) and multitarget stool DNA test (Mt-sDNA) with no screening in order to identify the more effective noninvasive fecal test to screen for colorectal cancer in average-risk adults. ⋯ Both the noninvasive screens were effective compared to no screening. Additionally, annual FIT as a first step noninvasive screening test for CRC appears to be more effective compared to three-yearly Mt-sDNA.
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With the progress of aging, fall injuries have become a global public health issue. This research was conducted to describe in detail situations of injury occurrence among the elderly by distinguishing between falls from heights and ground-level falls. We assume that different fall mechanisms occur in different situations and result in a wide range of consequences. ⋯ Our study showed different patterns between falls from heights and ground-level falls, whereas previous studies rarely distinguished between these two fall mechanisms.