PCR-HRM for Genomic Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2: A Variant Detection Tool in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa

The rise of new viruses, like SARS-CoV-2 causing the COVID-19 outbreak, along with the return of antibiotic resistance in harmful bacteria, demands a swift and efficient reaction to safeguard the health and welfare of the global population. It is crucial to have effective measures for prevention, intervention, and monitoring in place to address these evolving and recurring risks, ensuring public health and international security. In countries with limited resources, utilizing recombinant mutation plasmid technology in conjunction with PCR-HRM could help differentiate the existence of novel variants. cDNA synthesis was carried out on 8 nasopharyngeal samples following viral RNA extraction. The P1 segment of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike S protein was amplified via conventional PCR. Subsequently, PCR products were ligated with the pGEM-T Easy vector to generate eight recombinant SARS-CoV-2 plasmids. Clones containing mutations were sequenced using Sanger sequencing and analyzed through PCR-HRM. The P1 segment of the S gene from SARS-CoV-2 was successfully amplified, resulting in 8 recombinant plasmids generated from the 231 bp fragment. PCR-HRM analysis of these recombinant plasmids differentiated three variations within the SARS-CoV-2 plasmid population, each displaying distinct melting temperatures. Sanger sequencing identified mutations A112C, G113T, A114G, G214T, and G216C on the P1 segment, validating the PCR-HRM findings of the variations. These mutations led to the detection of L452R or L452M and F486V protein mutations within the protein sequence of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. In summary, PCR-HRM is a vital and affordable tool for distinguishing SARS-CoV-2 variants utilizing recombinant plasmids as controls.

Epidemiology of Mpox Outbreaks and Implications for Surveillance in Imo State, Nigeria

Mpox disease is caused by a double-stranded DNA virus, genus Orthopoxvirus of the family Poxviridae. The incubation period is usually 6 to 13 days but can range from 5 to 21 days while symptoms and signs may persist for 2 to 5 weeks. Although, the clinical features are usually less severe when compared to the deadly smallpox, the disease can be fatal with case fatality rate between 1% and 10%. In Imo State, Nigeria, there has been a changing epidemiology of the disease in the last 6 years and the frequency and geographic distribution of cases have progressively increased. This study aims to conduct a review of the disease epidemiology between 2017 and 2023 and implications for surveillance in Imo State. Surveillance data from the Surveillance Outbreak Response and Management System (SORMAS) was extracted between January 2017 and December 2023 across the 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Imo State. A line list of 231 suspected cases was downloaded into an excel template and analyzed using SPSS® version 20 software. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics and associations were tested using Fischer’s exact at 0.05 level of significance. Of the 231 suspected cases, 57.1% (132) were males, 42.9% (99) were females and the modal age group was between the ages of 0 - 4 (32.5%). Eight (8) LGAs (districts) accounted for 71% (n = 164) of all the suspected cases. 21.2% (49) were confirmed positive, 27 males (55.1%) and 22 females (44.9%) (p > 0.05). Modal age group was 20 - 24 (22.4%, n = 11), 18% (9) were children under 14 years, p > 0.05. Case fatality rate was 8% (n = 4). There was no significant association between mortality and age group. Five (5) LGAs accounted for about 60% (29) of all confirmed cases. These LGAs contribute only 20% to the total population in the State. Only 5.6% and 4% of suspected and confirmed cases, respectively, had knowledge of contact with an infectious source. The study described the epidemiology of Mpox outbreaks between 2017 and 2023 and the findings have significant implications on detection and outbreak response activities.

An Efficient Attention-Based Strategy for Anomaly Detection in Surveillance Video

In the present technological world,surveillance cameras generate an immense amount of video data from various sources,making its scrutiny tough for computer vision specialists.It is difficult to search for anomalous events manually in thesemassive video records since they happen infrequently and with a low probability in real-world monitoring systems.Therefore,intelligent surveillance is a requirement of the modern day,as it enables the automatic identification of normal and aberrant behavior using artificial intelligence and computer vision technologies.In this article,we introduce an efficient Attention-based deep-learning approach for anomaly detection in surveillance video(ADSV).At the input of the ADSV,a shots boundary detection technique is used to segment prominent frames.Next,The Lightweight ConvolutionNeuralNetwork(LWCNN)model receives the segmented frames to extract spatial and temporal information from the intermediate layer.Following that,spatial and temporal features are learned using Long Short-Term Memory(LSTM)cells and Attention Network from a series of frames for each anomalous activity in a sample.To detect motion and action,the LWCNN received chronologically sorted frames.Finally,the anomaly activity in the video is identified using the proposed trained ADSV model.Extensive experiments are conducted on complex and challenging benchmark datasets.In addition,the experimental results have been compared to state-ofthe-artmethodologies,and a significant improvement is attained,demonstrating the efficiency of our ADSV method.

Foodborne doping and supervision in sports

Cases of foodborne doping are frequently reported in sports events and can cause severe consequences for athletes.The foodborne doping can be divided into natural endogenous and artifi cially added foods according to the sources,including anabolic agents,stimulants,diuretics,β-blockers,β2 agonists and others.In order to control foodborne doping,chromatographic technique,immunoassay,nuclear magnetic resonance,biosensor technology,pyrolytic spectroscopy,comprehensive analysis and electrochemical analysis have usually used as analytical and inspection strategies.Meanwhile,the legislation of anti-doping,the improvement of testing standard and technology,and the prevention and control of food safety,as well as the improvement of risk perception of athletes are highly necessary for achieving the effective risk control and supervision of foodborne doping,which will be benefi cial for athletes,doctors and administrators to avoid the risks of foodborne doping test and reduce foodborne doping risks for the health of athletes.

Research on the intelligent supervision and operation platform of railway real estate

Railway real estate is the fundamental element of railway transportation production and operation.Effective management and rational utilization of railway real estate is essential for railway asset operation.Based on the investigation of the requirements of railway real estate management and operation,combined with Beidou positioning,GIS(Geographic Information System),multi-source data fusion and other cutting-edge technologies,this paper puts forward the multi-dimensional dynamic statistical method of real estate information,the identification method of railway land occupation and the comprehensive evaluation method of real estate development and utilization potential,and build the railway real estate supervision and operation platform,design the function of the platform,so as to provide intelligent solutions for the railway real estate operation.

ISHD:Intelligent Standing Human Detection of Video Surveillance for the Smart Examination Environment

In the environment of smart examination rooms, it is important to quickly and accurately detect abnormal behavior(human standing) for the construction of a smart campus. Based on deep learning, we propose an intelligentstanding human detection (ISHD) method based on an improved single shot multibox detector to detect thetarget of standing human posture in the scene frame of exam room video surveillance at a specific examinationstage. ISHD combines the MobileNet network in a single shot multibox detector network, improves the posturefeature extractor of a standing person, merges prior knowledge, and introduces transfer learning in the trainingstrategy, which greatly reduces the computation amount, improves the detection accuracy, and reduces the trainingdifficulty. The experiment proves that the model proposed in this paper has a better detection ability for the smalland medium-sized standing human body posture in video test scenes on the EMV-2 dataset.

Routine Supportive Supervision and Management of Medicines and Other Health Products and Technologies in Vihiga County, Kenya

Health Products and Technologies (HPTs) are pivotal for an efficient health system. Availability and accessibility to affordable health products are critical indicators towards achieving universal health coverage. Routine supportive supervision, performance monitoring, recognition of efforts and client feedback are vital activities toward health supply chain system strengthening. This is a descriptive paper that describes a model of integrated commodity supportive supervision, and mentorship and its impact on various outcomes of health commodity management. Data were abstracted from the standardized scored checklists used during integrated commodity supportive supervision and supply chain audit in public health facilities in Vihiga County. Scores for the period 2020 to 2022 were analyzed on the eight key areas of interest. The analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 26). Results are interpreted at 95% Confidence interval. This paper also shares findings from both quantitative and qualitative data from client exit and facility managers’ interviews. Six complete rounds of supervisions, three clients and service providers’ interviews, and three annual award events have been conducted. We observed trends across six data collections points and compared the results at first point or baseline (January-June 2020) to the results at the last point or end line (April-June 2022). Findings show significant improvements on the eight parameters in terms of mean scores as follows: resolution of issues from previous visits by 35.06% (46.75% - 81.81%);storage of HPTs by 17.41% (68.72% - 86.13%);inventory management by 28.16% (42.67% - 70.83%);availability and use of commodity data management information systems (MIS) tools by 22.39% (74.40% - 96.79%);verification of commodity data by 25.61% (65.56% - 91.17%);availability of guidelines and job aids for commodity management by 46.28% (36.65% - 82.93%). There was an improvement on the mean score on accountability by 20.22% (58.58% - 83.51%). The composite (final) score improved by 28.33% (56.19% - 84.52%). There was progressive narrowing of the standard deviations on all the indicators across the study period. This demonstrates that there is standardization of practices and positive competition among all the public health facilities. There were significant improvements on all the eight indicators. Routine integrated commodity supportive supervision has proven to be an effective high impact intervention in improving management of health products and technologies in Vihiga County, Kenya.

Model-constrained and data-driven double-supervision acoustic impedance inversion

Seismic impedance inversion is an important technique for structure identification and reservoir prediction.Model-based and data-driven impedance inversion are the commonly used inversion methods.In practice,the geophysical inversion problem is essentially an ill-posedness problem,which means that there are many solutions corresponding to the same seismic data.Therefore,regularization schemes,which can provide stable and unique inversion results to some extent,have been introduced into the objective function as constrain terms.Among them,given a low-frequency initial impedance model is the most commonly used regularization method,which can provide a smooth and stable solution.However,this model-based inversion method relies heavily on the initial model and the inversion result is band limited to the effective frequency bandwidth of seismic data,which cannot effectively improve the seismic vertical resolution and is difficult to be applied to complex structural regions.Therefore,we propose a data-driven approach for high-resolution impedance inversion based on the bidirectional long short-term memory recurrent neural network,which regards seismic data as time-series rather than image-like patches.Compared with the model-based inversion method,the data-driven approach provides higher resolution inversion results,which demonstrates the effectiveness of the data-driven method for recovering the high-frequency components.However,judging from the inversion results for characterization the spatial distribution of thin-layer sands,the accuracy of high-frequency components is difficult to guarantee.Therefore,we add the model constraint to the objective function to overcome the shortages of relying only on the data-driven schemes.First,constructing the supervisor1 based on the bidirectional long short-term memory recurrent neural network,which provides the predicted impedance with higher resolution.Then,convolution constraint as supervisor2 is introduced into the objective function to guarantee the reliability and accuracy of the inversion results,which makes the synthetic seismic data obtained from the inversion result consistent with the input data.Finally,we test the proposed scheme based on the synthetic and field seismic data.Compared to model-based and purely data-driven impedance inversion methods,the proposed approach provides more accurate and reliable inversion results while with higher vertical resolution and better spatial continuity.The inversion results accurately characterize the spatial distribution relationship of thin sands.The model tests demonstrate that the model-constrained and data-driven impedance inversion scheme can effectively improve the thin-layer structure characterization based on the seismic data.Moreover,tests on the oil field data indicate the practicality and adaptability of the proposed method.

Intelligent Traffic Surveillance through Multi-Label Semantic Segmentation and Filter-Based Tracking

Road congestion,air pollution,and accident rates have all increased as a result of rising traffic density andworldwide population growth.Over the past ten years,the total number of automobiles has increased significantly over the world.In this paper,a novel method for intelligent traffic surveillance is presented.The proposed model is based on multilabel semantic segmentation using a random forest classifier which classifies the images into five classes.To improve the results,mean-shift clustering was applied to the segmented images.Afterward,the pixels given the label for the vehicle were extracted and blob detection was applied to mark each vehicle.For the validation of each detection,a vehicle verification method based on the structural similarity index is proposed.The tracking of vehicles across the image frames is done using the Identifier(ID)assignment technique and particle filter.Also,vehicle counting in each frame along with trajectory estimation was done for each object.Our proposed system demonstrated a remarkable vehicle detection rate of 0.83 over Vehicle Aerial Imaging from Drone(VAID),0.86 over AU-AIR,and 0.75 over the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Benchmark Object Detection and Tracking(UAVDT)dataset during the experimental evaluation.The proposed system can be used for several purposes,such as vehicle identification in traffic,traffic density estimation at intersections,and traffic congestion sensing on a road.

Human-pose estimation based on weak supervision

Background In computer vision,simultaneously estimating human pose,shape,and clothing is a practical issue in real life,but remains a challenging task owing to the variety of clothing,complexity of de-formation,shortage of large-scale datasets,and difficulty in estimating clothing style.Methods We propose a multistage weakly supervised method that makes full use of data with less labeled information for learning to estimate human body shape,pose,and clothing deformation.In the first stage,the SMPL human-body model parameters were regressed using the multi-view 2D key points of the human body.Using multi-view information as weakly supervised information can avoid the deep ambiguity problem of a single view,obtain a more accurate human posture,and access supervisory information easily.In the second stage,clothing is represented by a PCA-based model that uses two-dimensional key points of clothing as supervised information to regress the parameters.In the third stage,we predefine an embedding graph for each type of clothing to describe the deformation.Then,the mask information of the clothing is used to further adjust the deformation of the clothing.To facilitate training,we constructed a multi-view synthetic dataset that included BCNet and SURREAL.Results The Experiments show that the accuracy of our method reaches the same level as that of SOTA methods using strong supervision information while only using weakly supervised information.Because this study uses only weakly supervised information,which is much easier to obtain,it has the advantage of utilizing existing data as training data.Experiments on the DeepFashion2 dataset show that our method can make full use of the existing weak supervision information for fine-tuning on a dataset with little supervision information,compared with the strong supervision information that cannot be trained or adjusted owing to the lack of exact annotation information.Conclusions Our weak supervision method can accurately estimate human body size,pose,and several common types of clothing and overcome the issues of the current shortage of clothing data.

Strategic interaction between institutional investors and supervision department:a theoretical analysis of low‑price collusion in SBIC

We introduce evolutionary game method to analyze low-price collusion in inquiry market of Sci-Tech Innovation Board of China(SIBC)from the perspective of strategic interaction between large institutional investors(LIIs),small and medium-sized institutional investors(SMIIs),and supervision department(SD).The results show that supervision behaviors of SD,and quotation behaviors of institutional investors,are subject to supervision conditions.Under the condition that benefits of tough supervision are lower a lot than minimum benefits of light supervision(light supervision condition),SD will choose light supervision and institutional investors will turn to illegal quotation in response.Finally,a steady-state equilibrium with low-price collusion will form in SIBC’s inquiry market even with a large supervision penalty for illegal quotation.On the contrary,under the condition that benefits of tough supervision are higher a lot than maximum benefits of light supervision(tough supervision condition)and with a large penalty for illegal quotation,SD and institutional investors will choose tough supervision and legal quotation.Further numerical simulations under light supervision condition show that:(1)High-price culling rule will become a booster for low-price collusion and accelerate SMIIs’evolutionary process to imitative quotation.(2)Blindly increasing penalties for illegal quotation or reducing the culling rate is not an appropriate approach to solve the problem of low-price collusion since it cannot shift supervision condition from light into tough and make SD supervise toughly.(3)Institutional investors’choices of quotation strategies are more volatile and highly susceptible to supervision behaviors of SD when facing exogenous uncertainty.Therefore,the keys to solving the problem of low-price collusion are shifting supervision condition from light into tough through increasing incremental benefits of tough supervision,and providing institutional investors with a stable and predictable supervision policy.In conclusion,the creation of a fair inquiry market doesn’t only depend on restraint and punishment to institutional investors,but also requires the establishment of supervision mechanism those are compatible with market-based inquiry.

Quantum Computing Based Neural Networks for Anomaly Classification in Real-Time Surveillance Videos

For intelligent surveillance videos,anomaly detection is extremely important.Deep learning algorithms have been popular for evaluating realtime surveillance recordings,like traffic accidents,and criminal or unlawful incidents such as suicide attempts.Nevertheless,Deep learning methods for classification,like convolutional neural networks,necessitate a lot of computing power.Quantum computing is a branch of technology that solves abnormal and complex problems using quantum mechanics.As a result,the focus of this research is on developing a hybrid quantum computing model which is based on deep learning.This research develops a Quantum Computing-based Convolutional Neural Network(QC-CNN)to extract features and classify anomalies from surveillance footage.A Quantum-based Circuit,such as the real amplitude circuit,is utilized to improve the performance of the model.As far as my research,this is the first work to employ quantum deep learning techniques to classify anomalous events in video surveillance applications.There are 13 anomalies classified from the UCF-crime dataset.Based on experimental results,the proposed model is capable of efficiently classifying data concerning confusion matrix,Receiver Operating Characteristic(ROC),accuracy,Area Under Curve(AUC),precision,recall as well as F1-score.The proposed QC-CNN has attained the best accuracy of 95.65 percent which is 5.37%greater when compared to other existing models.To measure the efficiency of the proposed work,QC-CNN is also evaluated with classical and quantum models.

A Personalized Video Synopsis Framework for Spherical Surveillance Video

Video synopsis is an effective way to easily summarize long-recorded surveillance videos.The omnidirectional view allows the observer to select the desired fields of view(FoV)from the different FoVavailable for spherical surveillance video.By choosing to watch one portion,the observer misses out on the events occurring somewhere else in the spherical scene.This causes the observer to experience fear of missing out(FOMO).Hence,a novel personalized video synopsis approach for the generation of non-spherical videos has been introduced to address this issue.It also includes an action recognition module that makes it easy to display necessary actions by prioritizing them.This work minimizes and maximizes multiple goals such as loss of activity,collision,temporal consistency,length,show,and important action cost respectively.The performance of the proposed framework is evaluated through extensive simulation and compared with the state-of-art video synopsis optimization algorithms.Experimental results suggest that some constraints are better optimized by using the latest metaheuristic optimization algorithms to generate compact personalized synopsis videos from spherical surveillance videos.

On the Expansion and Realization of the Right to Environmental Information in Environmental Protection Supervision

As an innovation in the environmental governance system that breaks the traditional hierarchical structure,environmental protection supervision has not only played a significant role in protecting tangible environmental rights but also expanded the basic scope of the right to environmental information—part of procedural environmental rights.In the supervision of environmental protection,the objects of the right to environmental information and the subjects of the obligation to provide environmental information have been both expanded,with the focus shifting from government information to Party information and from administrative organs to Party organs.This vividly demonstrates the Communist Party of China’s concrete efforts to protect human rights in the field of the endeavor to build an ecological civilization.At present,the realization of the right to environmental information in environmental protection supervision still faces problems such as insufficient standards and norms,disordered practice and operation,and lack of liability guarantee.In this context,based on renewing relevant subjects’cognition of the right to know in environmental protection supervision,we should further improve and specify the rule for disclosing information about environmental protection supervision,rationally distribute the obligations for information disclosure in environmental protection supervision,and clarify the accountability rules for violating relevant requirements for information disclosure,so as to promote the overall development of the environmental protection supervision system while guaranteeing the realization of the right to environmental information.

Supervision of Public Opinion under the Background of Social Co-governance-Take the Changsheng Vaccine Incident as an Example

Objective To provide reference for the news media to give play to the role of public opinion supervision in time based on the background of drug safety and social co-governance.Methods The method of case analysis was used to make a retrospective study on the Changsheng vaccine incident in 2018.Then the role of mainstream media,pharmaceutical media,and self-media in the supervision of public opinion was investigated.Results and Conclusion Both mainstream and pharmaceutical media played an excellent role in supervising the Changchun Changsheng vaccine incident.However,the content published by some pharmaceutical media was hard to understand by ordinary people.Besides,the role of self-media in public opinion supervision was polarized.Some self-media closely kept pace with mainstream media in public opinion supervision.Other self-media unilaterally pursued the click rate,publishing false information to guide wrong public opinion.The news media should optimize the supervision efficiency of drug safety.On the one hand,pharmaceutical media should pay attention to the fact that readers may not understand the difficult terms because they are not professional.On the other hand,self-media practitioners should improve their professional quality so that they will not publish some fake news to mislead public opinion.

Treatment and surveillance for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer:a clinical practice guideline(2021 edition)

Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer(NMIBC)is a major type of bladder cancer with a high incidence worldwide,resulting in a great disease burden.Treatment and surveillance are the most important part of NIMBC management.In 2018,we issued“Treatment and surveillance for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer in China:an evidencebased clinical practice guideline”.Since then,various studies on the treatment and surveillance of NMIBC have been published.There is a need to incorporate these materials and also to take into account the relatively limited medical resources in primary medical institutions in China.Developing a version of guideline which takes these two issues into account to promote the management of NMIBC is therefore indicated.We formed a working group of clinical experts and methodologists.Through questionnaire investigation of clinicians including primary medical institutions,24 clinically concerned issues,involving transurethral resection of bladder tumor(TURBT),intravesical chemotherapy and intravesical immunotherapy of NMIBC,and follow-up and surveillance of the NMIBC patients,were determined for this guideline.Researches and recommendations on the management of NMIBC in databases,guideline development professional societies and monographs were referred to,and the European Association of Urology was used to assess the certainty of generated recommendations.Finally,we issued 29 statements,among which 22 were strong recommendations,and 7 were weak recommendations.These recommendations cover the topics of TURBT,postoperative chemotherapy after TURBT,Bacillus Calmette–Guérin(BCG)immunotherapy after TURBT,combination treatment of BCG and chemotherapy after TURBT,treatment of carcinoma in situ,radical cystectomy,treatment of NMIBC recurrence,and follow-up and surveillance.We hope these recommendations can help promote the treatment and surveillance of NMIBC in China,especially for the primary medical institutions.

Treatment trends of muscle invasive bladder cancer: Evidence from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database, 1988 to 2013

Objective:Guidelines for muscle-invasive bladder cancer(MIBC)recommend that patients receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy with radical cystectomy as treatment over radical cystectomy alone.Though trends and practice patterns of MIBC have been defined using the National Cancer Database,data using the Surveillance,Epidemiology,and End Results(SEER)program have been poorly described.Methods:Using the SEER database,we collected data of MIBC according to the American Joint Commission on Cancer.We considered differences in patient demographics and tumor charac-teristics based on three treatment groups:chemotherapy(both adjuvant and neoadjuvant)with radical cystectomy,radical cystectomy,and chemoradiotherapy.Multinomial logistic regression was performed to compare likelihood ratios.Temporal trends were included for each treatment group.Kaplan-Meier curves were performed to compare cause-specific sur-vival.A Cox proportional-hazards model was utilized to describe predictors of survival.Results:Of 16728 patients,10468 patients received radical cystectomy alone,3236 received chemotherapy with radical cystectomy,and 3024 received chemoradiotherapy.Patients who received chemoradiotherapy over radical cystectomy were older and more likely to be African American;stage III patients tended to be divorced.Patients who received chemotherapy with radical cystectomy tended to be males;stage II patients were less likely to be Asian than Caucasian.Stage III patients were less likely to receive chemoradiotherapy as a treatment op-tion than stage II.Chemotherapy with radical cystectomy and chemoradiotherapy are both un-derutilized treatment options,though increasingly utilized.Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed significant differences between stage II and III tumors at each interval.A Cox proportional-hazards model showed differences in gender,tumor stage,treatment modality,age,andmarital status.Conclusion:Radical cystectomy alone is still the most commonly used treatment for muscle-invasive bladder cancer based on temporal trends.Significant disparities exist in those who receive radical cystectomy over chemoradiotherapy for treatment.

The Contribution of the Xpert® MTB/RIF Assay to the Surveillance of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in the Central African Republic

Introduction: The Central African Republic is one of the 30 high Tuberculosis burden countries in the world, with an incidence of 540 cases per 100,000 population and a mortality of 91 deaths per 100,000 population. Since 2020, following WHO recommendations, the National Reference Laboratory for Tuberculosis has been using the Xpert® MTB/RIF assay as a first-line diagnostic test for the early detection of Drug Resistance Tuberculosis. The goal of this study was to evaluate the contribution of the Xpert® MTB/RIF assay to the surveillance of rifampicin resistance in new and previously treated tuberculosis cases. Materials and Methods: The data relative to the Xpert® MTB/RIF assay carried out on various categories of tuberculosis patients registered at the National Reference Laboratory for Tuberculosis in 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. The categories of tuberculosis patients were new cases, failed treatment cases, relapse cases, lost-to-follow-up cases and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis contact cases. Results: A total of 1404 tuberculosis patients were registered at the NRL-TB in 2020;the mean age was 39.2 years (2 - 90 years) and the male-to-female sex ratio was 1.16:1. Overall, 32.7% (454/1404) proved infected with tuberculosis, of which 22.5% (102/454) cases showed resistance to rifampicin. The primary resistance rate was 9.1% (27/298) and the secondary resistance rate was 46.6% (75/161). Treatment failures and relapsed cases were significantly associated with rifampicin resistance (p 0.005). Conclusion: Large-scale use of Xpert® MTB/RIF, especially in the provinces of the Central African Republic, will help the Ministry of Health to better control Drug Resistance Tuberculosis in the country.

Knowledge,perceptions,and practice towards adverse events following immunization surveillance among vaccination workers in Zhejiang province,China

Objective:To access the level of knowledge,perceptions,and practice towards adverse events following immunization(AEFI)surveillance among vaccination workers in Zhejiang province,China.Methods:This was a cross-sectional survey involving 768 vaccination workers.Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires and analyzed by using SAS 9.3 software.Knowledge,perceptions,and practice on AEFI surveillance were summarized using frequency tables.The mean±SD value was used as the cut-off for defining good(values≥mean)and poor(values<mean)knowledge,perceptions or practice.Binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine sociodemographic variables associated with knowledge,perceptions,and practice towards AEFI.Results:The proportions of good knowledge,perceptions and practice on AEFI surveillance were 78.13%,57.81%and 66.15%,respectively.Having a higher education background,longer years of experience,previous training on AEFI and≥30 years of age were factors associated with good knowledge,perceptions and practice on AEFI surveillance among vaccination workers.Conclusions:Over half of the respondents had good knowledge,perceptions and practice on AEFI surveillance work.Interventions on improving the vaccination workers’knowledge,perceptions and practice on AEFI surveillance should be considered in order to develop a more effective surveillance system.

Safety and effectiveness of lurasidone in the treatment of Chinese schizophrenia patients:An interim analysis of post-marketing surveillance

BACKGROUND Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder characterized by chronic or recurrent symptoms.Lurasidone was licensed in China in 2019 for the treatment of adult schizophrenia in adults with a maximum dose of 80 mg/d.However,post-market surveillance(PMS)with an adequate sample size is required for further validation of the drug’s safety profile and effectiveness.AIM To conduct PMS in real-world clinical settings and evaluate the safety and effectiveness of lurasidone in the Chinese population.METHODS A prospective,multicenter,open-label,12-wk surveillance was conducted in China's Mainland.All patients with schizophrenia from 10 sites who had begun medication with lurasidone between September 2019 and August 2022 were eligible for enrollment.Safety assessments included adverse events(AEs),adverse drug reactions(ADRs),extrapyramidal symptoms(EPS),akathisia,use of EPS drugs,weight gain,and laboratory values as metabolic parameters and the QTc interval.The effectiveness was assessed using the brief psychiatric rating scale(BPRS)from baseline to the end of treatment.RESULTS A total of 965 patients were enrolled in the full analysis set and 894 in the safety set in this interim analysis.The average daily dose was 61.7±19.08 mg(mean±SD)during the treatment.AEs and ADRs were experienced by 101 patients(11.3%)and 78 patients(8.7%),respectively,which were mostly mild.EPS occurred in 25 individuals with a 2.8%incidence,including akathisia in 20 individuals(2.2%).Moreover,59 patients received drugs for treating EPS during the treatment,with an incidence of 6.6%which dropped to 5.4%at the end of the treatment.The average weight change was 0.20±2.36 kg(P=0.01687)with 0.8%of patients showing a weight gain of≥7%at week 12 compared with that at the baseline.The mean values of metabolic parameters and the QTc interval at baseline and week 12 were within normal ranges.The mean changes in total BPRS scores were-8.9±9.76(n=959),-13.5±12.29(n=959),and-16.8±13.97(n=959)after 2/4,6/8,and 12 wk,respectively(P<0.001 for each visit compared with the baseline)using the last-observation-carried-forward method.CONCLUSION The interim analysis of the PMS of adult patients with schizophrenia demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of lurasidone in the Chinese population.No new safety or efficacy concerns were identified.