The epidemiology of Cholera in Zanzibar: implications for the Zanzibar comprehensive Cholera elimination plan

Background Cholera poses a public health and economic threat to Zanzibar. Detailed epidemiologic analyses are needed to inform a multisectoral cholera elimination plan currently under development. Methods We collated passive surveillance data from 1997 to 2017 and calculated the outbreak-specific and cumulative incidence of suspected cholera per shehia (neighborhood). We explored the variability in shehia-specific relative cholera risk and explored the predictive power of targeting intervention at shehias based on historical incidence. Using flexible regression models, we estimated cholera’s seasonality and the relationship between rainfall and cholera transmission. Results From 1997 and 2017, 11921 suspected cholera cases were reported across 87% of Zanzibar’s shehias, representing an average incidence rate of 4.4 per 10000/year. The geographic distribution of cases across outbreaks was variable, although a number of high-burden areas were identified. Outbreaks were highly seasonal with 2 high-risk periods corresponding to the annual rainy seasons. Conclusions Shehia-targeted interventions should be complemented with island-wide cholera prevention activities given the spatial variability in cholera risk from outbreak to outbreak. In-depth risk factor analyses should be conducted in the high-burden shehias. The seasonal nature of cholera provides annual windows of opportunity for cholera preparedness activities

The epidemiology of Cholera in Zanzibar: implications for the Zanzibar comprehensive Cholera elimination plan

Background Cholera poses a public health and economic threat to Zanzibar. Detailed epidemiologic analyses are needed to inform a multisectoral cholera elimination plan currently under development. Methods We collated passive surveillance data from 1997 to 2017 and calculated the outbreak-specific and cumulative incidence of suspected cholera per shehia (neighborhood). We explored the variability in shehia-specific relative cholera risk and explored the predictive power of targeting intervention at shehias based on historical incidence. Using flexible regression models, we estimated cholera’s seasonality and the relationship between rainfall and cholera transmission. Results From 1997 and 2017, 11921 suspected cholera cases were reported across 87% of Zanzibar’s shehias, representing an average incidence rate of 4.4 per 10000/year. The geographic distribution of cases across outbreaks was variable, although a number of high-burden areas were identified. Outbreaks were highly seasonal with 2 high-risk periods corresponding to the annual rainy seasons. Conclusions Shehia-targeted interventions should be complemented with island-wide cholera prevention activities given the spatial variability in cholera risk from outbreak to outbreak. In-depth risk factor analyses should be conducted in the high-burden shehias. The seasonal nature of cholera provides annual windows of opportunity for cholera preparedness activities

Pregabalin antagonizes copper-induced toxicity in the brain: in vitro and in vivo studies.

Copper plays key roles in brain metabolism. Disorders of copper metabolism impact on neural signaling. The intracellular and extracellular concentrations of copper are tightly regulated. Pregabalin is a drug with multiple modes of action and has a high-affinity binding site for the alpha2delta subunit of voltage-gated calcium channels.Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tSCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Corrosion inhibition effect and adsorption behaviour of nicotinamide derivatives on mild steel in hydrochloric acid solution

Background: A new class of nicotinamide derivatives viz., N-((1H-pyrrol-2-yl)methylene)nicotinamide, N-((methyl(phenyl)amino)methylene)nicotinamide, N-nicotinoylbenzimidothioic acid and N-(4-(methylthio)benzylidene)nicotinamide have been synthesized and their corrosion inhibition effect on mild steel in 0.5 M HCl was investigated by mass loss, Tafel polarization technique and AC impedance measurements. Results: The inhibition efficiency of the inhibitors on mild steel in 0.5 M HCl has been studied based on concentration, time interval and temperature. Potentiodynamic polarization studies showed that all the examined inhibitors suppress both anodic and cathodic process and behave as mixed type of corrosion inhibitors. Conclusions: The adsorption of all the inhibitors was found to obey Langmuir isotherm model. Electrochemical impedance data revealed that polarization resistance (RP) increases and double layer capacitance (Cdl) decreases as the concentration of the inhibitors increases. FTIR, EDX and SEM analyses were performed to study the film persistency of the inhibitors

The Expanded Diversity of Methylophilaceae from Lake Washington through Cultivation and Genomic Sequencing of Novel Ecotypes

We describe five novel Methylophilaceae ecotypes from a single ecological niche in Lake Washington, USA, and compare them to three previously described ecotypes, in terms of their phenotype and genome sequence divergence. Two of the ecotypes appear to represent novel genera within the Methylophilaceae. Genome-based metabolic reconstruction highlights metabolic versatility of Methylophilaceae with respect to methylotrophy and nitrogen metabolism, different ecotypes possessing different combinations of primary substrate oxidation systems (MxaFI-type methanol dehydrogenase versus XoxF-type methanol dehydrogenase; methylamine dehydrogenase versus N-methylglutamate pathway) and different potentials for denitrification (assimilatory versus respiratory nitrate reduction). By comparing pairs of closely related genomes, we uncover that site-specific recombination is the main means of genomic evolution and strain divergence, including lateral transfers of genes from both closely- and distantly related taxa. The new ecotypes and the new genomes contribute significantly to our understanding of the extent of genomic and metabolic diversity among organisms of the same family inhabiting the same ecological niche. These organisms also provide novel experimental models for studying the complexity and the function of the microbial communities active in methylotrophy

Incorporating progesterone receptor expression into the PREDICT breast prognostic model

BACKGROUND: Predict Breast (www.predict.nhs.uk) is an online prognostication and treatment benefit tool for early invasive breast cancer. The aim of this study was to incorporate the prognostic effect of progesterone receptor (PR) status into a new version of PREDICT and to compare its performance to the current version (2.2). METHOD: The prognostic effect of PR status was based on the analysis of data from 45,088 European patients with breast cancer from 49 studies in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the hazard ratio for PR status. Data from a New Zealand study of 11,365 patients with early invasive breast cancer were used for external validation. Model calibration and discrimination were used to test the model performance. RESULTS: Having a PR-positive tumour was associated with a 23% and 28% lower risk of dying from breast cancer for women with oestrogen receptor (ER)-negative and ER-positive breast cancer, respectively. The area under the ROC curve increased with the addition of PR status from 0.807 to 0.809 for patients with ER-negative tumours (p = 0.023) and from 0.898 to 0.902 for patients with ER-positive tumours (p = 2.3 × 10-6) in the New Zealand cohort. Model calibration was modest with 940 observed deaths compared to 1151 predicted. CONCLUSION: The inclusion of the prognostic effect of PR status to PREDICT Breast has led to an improvement of model performance and more accurate absolute treatment benefit predictions for individual patients. Further studies should determine whether the baseline hazard function requires recalibration