Frequency and type of adverse analytical findings in athletics: Differences among disciplines.

Athletics is a highly diverse sport that contains a set of disciplines grouped into jumps, throws, races of varying distances, and combined events. From a physiological standpoint, the physical capabilities linked to success are quite different among disciplines, with varying involvements of muscle strength, muscle power, and endurance. Thus, the use of banned substances in athletics might be dictated by physical dimensions of each discipline. Thus, the aim of this investigation was to analyse the number and distribution of adverse analytical findings per drug class in athletic disciplines. The data included in this investigation were gathered from the Anti-Doping Testing Figure Report made available by the World Anti-Doping Agency (from 2016 to 2018). Interestingly, there were no differences in the frequency of adverse findings (overall, 0.95%, range from 0.77 to 1.70%) among disciplines despite long distance runners having the highest number of samples analysed per year ( 9812 samples/year). Sprinters and throwers presented abnormally high proportions of adverse analytical findings within the group of anabolic agents (p < 0.01); middle- and long-distance runners presented atypically high proportions of findings related to peptide hormones and growth factors (p < 0.01); racewalkers presented atypically high proportions of banned diuretics and masking agents (p = 0.05). These results suggest that the proportion of athletes that are using banned substances is similar among the different disciplines of athletics. However, there are substantial differences in the class of drugs more commonly used in each discipline. This information can be used to effectively enhance anti-doping testing protocols in athletics.post-print1.911 K

Logistics of community smallpox control through contact tracing and ring vaccination: a stochastic network model

BACKGROUND: Previous smallpox ring vaccination models based on contact tracing over a network suggest that ring vaccination would be effective, but have not explicitly included response logistics and limited numbers of vaccinators. METHODS: We developed a continuous-time stochastic simulation of smallpox transmission, including network structure, post-exposure vaccination, vaccination of contacts of contacts, limited response capacity, heterogeneity in symptoms and infectiousness, vaccination prior to the discontinuation of routine vaccination, more rapid diagnosis due to public awareness, surveillance of asymptomatic contacts, and isolation of cases. RESULTS: We found that even in cases of very rapidly spreading smallpox, ring vaccination (when coupled with surveillance) is sufficient in most cases to eliminate smallpox quickly, assuming that 95% of household contacts are traced, 80% of workplace or social contacts are traced, and no casual contacts are traced, and that in most cases the ability to trace 1–5 individuals per day per index case is sufficient. If smallpox is assumed to be transmitted very quickly to contacts, it may at times escape containment by ring vaccination, but could be controlled in these circumstances by mass vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: Small introductions of smallpox are likely to be easily contained by ring vaccination, provided contact tracing is feasible. Uncertainties in the nature of bioterrorist smallpox (infectiousness, vaccine efficacy) support continued planning for ring vaccination as well as mass vaccination. If initiated, ring vaccination should be conducted without delays in vaccination, should include contacts of contacts (whenever there is sufficient capacity) and should be accompanied by increased public awareness and surveillance