Oct 9th, 2021 - Hemophilia A (HA) is an inherited X-linked bleeding disease with costly treatment, especially for high titer inhibitory patients. Emicizumab, a new humanized bispecific antibody, has been approved for use to prevent or reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes in HA patients with inhibitors. This study evaluated the cost-utility of emicizumab prophylaxis (EP) in comparison with recombinant fact...

Oct 1st, 2021 - Most universities that re-open in the United States (US) for in-person instruction have implemented the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) guidelines. The value of additional interventions to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is unclear. We calculated the cost-effectiveness and cases averted of each intervention in combination with implementing the CDC guidelines. We built a ...

Sep 29th, 2021 - COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus, has disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic communities in the US, which can be attributed to social factors including inconsistent public health messaging and suboptimal adoption of prevention efforts. To identify behaviors and evaluate trends in COVID-19-mitigating practices in a predominantly Black and Hispanic population, to identify differences ...

Sep 24th, 2021 - The following protocol describes our workflow for processing wastewater with the goal of detecting the genetic signal of SARS-CoV-2. The steps include pasteurization, virus concentration, RNA extraction, and quantification by RT-qPCR. We include auxiliary steps that provide new users with tools and strategies that will help troubleshoot key steps in the process. This protocol is one of the safe...

Sep 22nd, 2021 - During the first year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic, COVAX has been the world's most prominent effort to ensure equitable access to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Launched as part of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (Act-A) in June 2020, COVAX suggested to serve as a vaccine buyers' and distribution club for countries around the world. It also aimed to support the pharmaceutical industry in...

Sep 15th, 2021 - Malaria: a problem to be solved and a time to be bold.|2021|Alonso PL,|economics,economics,epidemiology,parasitology,prevention & control,economics,economics,

Sep 14th, 2021 - Australia has maintained low rates of SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) infection, due to geographic location and strict public health restrictions. However, the financial and social impacts of these restrictions can negatively affect parents' and children's mental health. In an existing cohort of mothers recruited for their experience of adversity, this study examined: 1) families' experiences of the COVI...

Sep 9th, 2021 - Global containment of COVID-19 still requires accessible and affordable vaccines for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Recently approved vaccines provide needed interventions, albeit at prices that may limit their global access. Subunit vaccines based on recombinant proteins are suited for large-volume microbial manufacturing to yield billions of doses annually, minimizing their manufac...

Sep 7th, 2021 - The tuberculosis targets for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for a 90% reduction in tuberculosis deaths by 2030, compared with 2015, but meeting this target now seems highly improbable. To assess the economic impact of not meeting the target until 2045, we estimated full-income losses in 120 countries, including those due to excess deaths resulting from COVID-19-related disrupt...

Sep 3rd, 2021 - Starting a highly effective treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) soon after diagnosis is superior to starting an older, first-line agent and then escalating treatment, new research suggests. An examination of data from two national registries showed that, compared with treatment escalation, initiation of a highly effective agent was associated with a 29% reduction in rate o...

Sep 1st, 2021 - The GeneXpert diagnostic platform from the US based company Cepheid is an automated molecular diagnostic device that performs sample preparation and pathogen detection within a single cartridge-based assay. GeneXpert devices can enable diagnosis at the district level without the need for fully equipped clinical laboratories, are simple to use, and offer rapid results. Due to these characteristi...

Aug 27th, 2021 - Family income is known to affect child health, but this relationship can be bidirectional. We sought to characterize this relationship by quantifying forgone family employment (FFE) due to a child's health condition in families of children with special health care needs (CSHCN) with updated figures. We conducted a secondary data analysis from the 2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health. ...

Aug 19th, 2021 - The use of saliva for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 has shown to be a good alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS), since it permits self-collection, avoids the exposure of healthy persons to infected patients, reduces waiting times, eliminates the need of personal protective equipment and is non-invasive. Yet current saliva testing is still expensive due to the need of specialized tubes contai...

Aug 15th, 2021 - Part of tuberculosis (TB) patients were missed if symptomatic screening was based on the main TB likely symptoms. This study conducted to compare the yield and relative costs of different TB screening algorithms in active case-finding in the whole population in China. The study population was screened based on the TB likely symptoms through a face-to-face interview in selected 27 communities fr...

Aug 13th, 2021 - Potential Implications of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant Surges for Rural Areas and Hospitals.|2021|Kadri SS,Simpson SQ,|epidemiology,statistics & numerical data,economics,

Aug 6th, 2021 - Social and ecological differences in early SARS-CoV-2 pandemic screening and outcomes have been documented, but the means by which these differences have arisen are not well understood. To characterize socioeconomic and chronic disease-related mechanisms underlying these differences. Observational cohort study. Outpatient and emergency care. 12900 Cleveland Clinic Health System patients referre...

Aug 5th, 2021 - A recent study published in Nature's Scientific Reports suggests that the size of dams in Africa is an important and overlooked factor in malaria transmission. The report's major finding was that between 0.9 million and 1.7 million malaria cases each year were attributable to dams, and more than 75% of these were due to small dams. The incidence of malaria per kilometer of shoreline was 2-7 tim...

Jul 27th, 2021 - The Genetic Counselor SARS-CoV-2 Impact Survey (GCSIS) describes the impact of the pandemic on genetic counselors and genetic counseling services. With this information, the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) can better: (1) support advocacy and access efforts for genetic counseling services at both federal- and state-level; (2) promote effective billing and reimbursement for genetic...

Jul 26th, 2021 - Cost-effectiveness data for cancer treatment are needed from sub-Saharan Africa, where diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is a common, curable cancer. In high-income countries, the standard of care for DLBCL is R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) chemoimmunotherapy. Rituximab is often not available in sub-Saharan Africa due to perceived unaffordabil...

Jul 16th, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic exposed difficulties in scaling current quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based diagnostic methodologies for large-scale infectious disease testing. Bottlenecks include lengthy multi-step processes for nucleic acid extraction followed by qPCR readouts, which require costly instrumentation and infrastructure, as well as reagent and plastic consumable shortages stemming from supply ch...