23,698 research outputs found

    Injecting equipment schemes for injecting drug users : qualitative evidence review

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    This review of the qualitative literature about needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) for injecting drug users (IDUs) complements the review of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. It aims to provide a more situated narrative perspective on the overall guidance questions

    One-way trip: Influenza virus' adaptation to gallinaceous poultry may limit its pandemic potential

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    We hypothesise that some influenza virus adaptations to poultry may explain why the barrier for human-to-human transmission is not easily overcome once the virus has crossed from wild birds to chickens. Since the cluster of human infections with H5N1 influenza in Hong Kong in 1997, chickens have been recognized as the major source of avian influenza virus infection in humans. Although often severe, these infections have been limited in their subsequent human-to-human transmission, and the feared H5N1 pandemic has not yet occurred. Here we examine virus adaptations selected for during replication in chickens and other gallinaceous poultry. These include altered receptor binding and increased pH of fusion of the haemagglutinin as well as stalk deletions of the neuraminidase protein. This knowledge could aid the delivery of vaccines and increase our ability to prioritize research efforts on those viruses from the diverse array of avian influenza viruses that have greatest human pandemic potential

    COVID-19: a turning point for the EU? EPC Discussion Paper 16 April 2020

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    What long-term lessons can we draw from the corona crisis? Which ones must we draw? Many say that our way of life has changed so much that there will be a time before and a time after this crisis. For me, there is a distinction between values and behaviours. There is, undoubtedly, a kind of togetherness between people, grown out of the feeling that we are all in the same boat. A lot of creative energy has been released. Digitisation has prevented us from becoming alienated from each other. Social media have shown that they don’t just polarise. Their positive uses have made the new media truly social. We have also learned that we can meet remotely, collaborate and be productive

    Patient and Provider Perspectives on How Trust Influences Maternal Vaccine Acceptance Among Pregnant Women in Kenya

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    Background Pregnant women and newborns are at high risk for infectious diseases. Altered immunity status during pregnancy and challenges fully vaccinating newborns contribute to this medical reality. Maternal immunization is a strategy to protect pregnant women and their newborns. This study aimed to find out how patient-provider relationships affect maternal vaccine uptake, particularly in the context of a lower middle- income country where limited research in this area exists. Methods We conducted semi-structured, in-depth narrative interviews of both providers and pregnant women from four sites in Kenya: Siaya, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Marsabit. Interviews were conducted in either English or one of the local regional languages. Results We found that patient trust in health care providers (HCPs) is integral to vaccine acceptance among pregnant women in Kenya. The HCP-patient relationship is a fiduciary one, whereby the patients’ trusts is primarily rooted in the provider’s social position as a person who is highly educated in matters of health. Furthermore, patient health education and provider attitudes are crucial for reinstating and fostering that trust, especially in cases where trust was impeded by rumors, community myths and misperceptions, and religious and cultural factors. Conclusion Patient trust in providers is a strong facilitator contributing to vaccine acceptance among pregnant women in Kenya. To maintain and increase immunization trust, providers have a critical role in cultivating a positive environment that allows for favorable interactions and patient health education. This includes educating providers on maternal immunizations and enhancing knowledge of effective risk communication tactics in clinical encounters

    The Advocate

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    Headlines include: Fordham Workers Go On Strikehttps://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/student_the_advocate/1110/thumbnail.jp

    Patterns of Natural and Human-Caused Mortality Factors of a Rare Forest Carnivore, the Fisher (Pekania pennanti) in California.

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    Wildlife populations of conservation concern are limited in distribution, population size and persistence by various factors, including mortality. The fisher (Pekania pennanti), a North American mid-sized carnivore whose range in the western Pacific United States has retracted considerably in the past century, was proposed for threatened status protection in late 2014 under the United States Endangered Species Act by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in its West Coast Distinct Population Segment. We investigated mortality in 167 fishers from two genetically and geographically distinct sub-populations in California within this West Coast Distinct Population Segment using a combination of gross necropsy, histology, toxicology and molecular methods. Overall, predation (70%), natural disease (16%), toxicant poisoning (10%) and, less commonly, vehicular strike (2%) and other anthropogenic causes (2%) were causes of mortality observed. We documented both an increase in mortality to (57% increase) and exposure (6%) from pesticides in fishers in just the past three years, highlighting further that toxicants from marijuana cultivation still pose a threat. Additionally, exposure to multiple rodenticides significantly increased the likelihood of mortality from rodenticide poisoning. Poisoning was significantly more common in male than female fishers and was 7 times more likely than disease to kill males. Based on necropsy findings, suspected causes of mortality based on field evidence alone tended to underestimate the frequency of disease-related mortalities. This study is the first comprehensive investigation of mortality causes of fishers and provides essential information to assist in the conservation of this species

    Playing with the future: social irrealism and the politics of aesthetics

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    In this paper we wish to explore the political possibilities of video games. Numerous scholars now take seriously the place of popular culture in the remaking of our geographies, but video games still lag behind. For us, this tendency reflects a general response to them as imaginary spaces that are separate from everyday life and 'real' politics. It is this disconnect between abstraction and lived experience that we complicate by defining play as an event of what Brian Massumi calls lived abstraction. We wish to short-circuit the barriers that prevent the aesthetic resonating with the political and argue that through their enactment, video games can animate fantastical futures that require the player to make, and reflect upon, profound ethical decisions that can be antagonistic to prevailing political imaginations. We refer to this as social irrealism to demonstrate that reality can be understood through the impossible and the imagined

    RECENT ADVANCES IN VETERINARY ENTOMOLOGY1

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    The advances during the last 15 years in our knowledge of the biology and control of arthropod pests of livestock and vectors of animal disease agents exceed those made in any similar period in past history. Before 1942 we relied mainly on rotenone, pyrethrum, the thiocyanates, and the arseni­cals for control of lice, ticks, mites, biting flies, and cattle grubs. While ef­fective against some pests under certain conditions, these materials were not practical for wide-scale use and did not meet the public demand for better insecticides. Today we have highly effective and low-cost insecticides such as DDT, lindane, TDE, toxaphene, methoxychlor, chlordane, and syner­gized pyrethrum for control of livestock insects. Their use has saved the live­ stock grower many millions of dollars annually and has benefited the con­ sumer by making more and better animal products available. Of almost equal importance to the development of the new insecticides are the contributions made to our knowledge of the biology and habits of several livestock insects and their transmission of agents of animal diseases. Many new ideas and approaches to studies on insect biology and control have been developed during the last few years. A good example of this is the unique method for the control of screw-worms by release of sterilized male flies over an area. The sterile males mate with the native females, but the eggs are infertile and thus reduce the numbers of screw-worms. Another ex­ ample of new trends is the promising research with insecticides that can be given internally to livestock for destruction of external pests. These studies will be discussed in detail in the following pages. Although great progress has been made in the use of insecticides, two disturbing factors have arisen to cause worry as to the future efficiency of chemical means of control. The first is the increasing and widespread de­velopment of resistance of insects to insecticides, particularly to the chlo­rinated hydrocarbons. House flies have developed such a high degree of re­sistance to DDT and related materials that satisfactory control is impossible in most areas. Organic phosphorus insecticides have so far performed in a creditable manner in controlling house flies, but there are indications that these chemicals may eventually fail. As yet no reports on resistance of horn flies, horse flies, deer flies, stable flies, sheep keds, or lice of livestock have appeared
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