6,603 research outputs found
A systematic review of emerging respiratory viruses at the Hajj and possible coinfection with Streptococcus pneumoniae
This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Background
The annual Hajj to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia attracts millions of pilgrims from around the world. International health community's attention goes towards this mass gathering and the possibility of the development of any respiratory tract infections due to the high risk of acquisition of respiratory viruses.
Method
We searched MEDLINE/PubMed and Scopus databases for relevant papers describing the prevalence of respiratory viruses among Hajj pilgrims.
Results
The retrieved articles were summarized based on the methodology of testing for these viruses. A total of 31 studies were included in the quantitative/qualitative analyses. The main methods used for the diagnosis of most common respiratory viruses were polymerase chain reaction (PCR), culture and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Influenza, rhinovirus and parainfluenza were the most common viruses detected among pilgrims. Coronaviruses other than MERS-CoV were also detected among pilgrims. The acquisition of MERS-CoV remains very limited and systematic screening of pilgrims showed no infections.
Conclusions
Well conducted multinational follow-up studies using the same methodology of testing are necessary for accurate surveillance of respiratory viral infections among Hajj pilgrims. Post-Hajj cohort studies would further evaluate the impact of the Hajj on the acquisition of respiratory viruses
Sgr A* ``Visual Binaries'': A Direct Measurement of the Galactocentric Distance
We present a new geometrical method for measuring the distance to the
Galactic center (R_0) by solving for the Keplerian orbit of individual stars
bound to the black hole associated with the Sgr A* from radial velocity and
proper motion measurements. We identify three stars to which the method may be
applied, and show that 1-5 % accuracy of R_0 can be expected after 15 years of
observing, and 0.5-2 % after 30 years of observing, depending on what the
orbital parameters of these three stars turn out to be. Combining the
measurements of the three stars with favorable orbital parameters leads to even
more precise values. In the example that we present, such combined solution
yields 4 % accuracy already by the year 2002. All these estimates assume that
annual position measurements will continue to be made with the 2 mas precision
recently reported by Ghez et al. The precision of the distance measurement is
relatively insensitive to the radial velocity errors, provided that the latter
are less than 50 km/s. Besides potentially giving an estimate of R_0 that is
better than any currently in use, the greatest advantage of this method is that
it is free from systematic errors.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 14 pages, 8 figure
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