Factors associated with whole carcass condemnation rates in provincially-inspected abattoirs in Ontario 2001-2007: implications for food animal syndromic surveillance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ontario provincial abattoirs have the potential to be important sources of syndromic surveillance data for emerging diseases of concern to animal health, public health and food safety. The objectives of this study were to: (1) describe provincially inspected abattoirs processing cattle in Ontario in terms of the number of abattoirs, the number of weeks abattoirs process cattle, geographical distribution, types of whole carcass condemnations reported, and the distance animals are shipped for slaughter; and (2) identify various seasonal, secular, disease and non-disease factors that might bias the results of quantitative methods, such as cluster detection methods, used for food animal syndromic surveillance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Data were collected from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ontario Cattlemen's Association regarding whole carcass condemnation rates for cattle animal classes, abattoir compliance ratings, and the monthly sales-yard price for various cattle classes from 2001-2007. To analyze the association between condemnation rates and potential explanatory variables including abattoir characteristics, season, year and commodity price, as well as animal class, negative binomial regression models were fit using generalized estimating equations (GEE) to account for autocorrelation among observations from the same abattoir. Results of the fitted model found animal class, year, season, price, and audit rating are associated with condemnation rates in Ontario abattoirs. In addition, a subset of data was used to estimate the average distance cattle are shipped to Ontario provincial abattoirs. The median distance from the farm to the abattoir was approximately 82 km, and 75% of cattle were shipped less than 100 km.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results suggest that secular and seasonal trends, as well as some non-disease factors will need to be corrected for when applying quantitative methods for syndromic surveillance involving these data. This study also demonstrated that animals shipped to Ontario provincial abattoirs come from relatively local farms, which is important when considering the use of spatial surveillance methods for these data.</p

Risk of preterm birth, small for gestational age at birth, and stillbirth after covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy: population based retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the risk of preterm birth, small for gestational age at birth, and stillbirth after covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy. DESIGN: Population based retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Ontario, Canada, 1 May to 31 December 2021. PARTICIPANTS: All liveborn and stillborn infants from pregnancies conceived at least 42 weeks before the end of the study period and with gestational age ≥20 weeks or birth weight ≥500 g. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Using Cox regression, hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated for preterm birth before 37 weeks (overall and spontaneous preterm birth), very preterm birth (<32 weeks), small for gestational age at birth (<10th centile), and stillbirth. Vaccination against covid-19 was treated as a time varying exposure in the outcome specific risk window, and propensity score weighting was used to adjust hazard ratios for potential confounding. RESULTS: Among 85 162 births, 43 099 (50.6%) occurred in individuals who received one dose or more of a covid-19 vaccine during pregnancy-42 979 (99.7%) received an mRNA vaccine. Vaccination during pregnancy was not associated with any increased risk of overall preterm birth (6.5% among vaccinated v 6.9% among unvaccinated; adjusted hazard ratio 1.02, 95% confidence interval 0.96 to 1.08), spontaneous preterm birth (3.7% v 4.4%; 0.96, 0.90 to 1.03), or very preterm birth (0.59% v 0.89%; 0.80, 0.67 to 0.95). No increase was found in risk of small for gestational age at birth (9.1% v 9.2%; 0.98, 0.93 to 1.03) or stillbirth (0.25% v 0.44%; 0.65, 0.51 to 0.84). Findings were similar by trimester of vaccination, mRNA vaccine product, and number of doses received during pregnancy. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that vaccination against covid-19 during pregnancy is not associated with a higher risk of preterm birth, small for gestational age at birth, or stillbirth

Temporal trends and determinants of COVID-19 vaccine series initiation after recent pregnancy

During the rapid deployment of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, safety concerns may have led some pregnant individuals to postpone vaccination until after giving birth. This study aimed to describe temporal patterns and factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine series initiation after recent pregnancy in Ontario, Canada. Using the provincial birth registry linked with the COVID-19 vaccine database, we identified all individuals who gave birth between January 1 and December 31, 2021, and had not yet been vaccinated by the end of pregnancy, and followed them to June 30, 2022 (follow-up ranged from 6 to 18 months). We used cumulative incidence curves to describe COVID-19 vaccine initiation after pregnancy and assessed associations with sociodemographic, pregnancy-related, and health behavioral factors using Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Among 137,198 individuals who gave birth in 2021, 87,376 (63.7%) remained unvaccinated at the end of pregnancy; of these, 65.0% initiated COVID-19 vaccination by June 30, 2022. Lower maternal age (<25 vs. 30–34 y aHR: 0.73, 95%CI: 0.70–0.77), smoking during pregnancy (vs. nonsmoking aHR: 0.68, 95%CI: 0.65–0.72), lower neighborhood income (lowest quintile vs. highest aHR: 0.79, 95%CI: 0.76–0.83), higher material deprivation (highest quintile vs. lowest aHR: 0.74, 95%CI: 0.70–0.79), and exclusive breastfeeding (vs. other feeding aHR: 0.81, 95%CI: 0.79–0.84) were associated with lower likelihood of vaccine initiation. Among unvaccinated individuals who gave birth in 2021, COVID-19 vaccine initiation after pregnancy reached 65% by June 30, 2022, suggesting persistent issues with vaccine hesitancy and/or access to vaccination in this population

Mannose impairs tumour growth and enhances chemotherapy

It is now well established that tumours undergo changes in cellular metabolism1. As this can reveal tumour cell vulnerabilities and because many tumours exhibit enhanced glucose uptake2, we have been interested in how tumour cells respond to different forms of sugar. Here we report that the monosaccharide mannose causes growth retardation in several tumour types in vitro, and enhances cell death in response to major forms of chemotherapy. We then show that these effects also occur in vivo in mice following the oral administration of mannose, without significantly affecting the weight and health of the animals. Mechanistically, mannose is taken up by the same transporter(s) as glucose3 but accumulates as mannose-6-phosphate in cells, and this impairs the further metabolism of glucose in glycolysis, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the pentose phosphate pathway and glycan synthesis. As a result, the administration of mannose in combination with conventional chemotherapy affects levels of anti-apoptotic proteins of the Bcl-2 family, leading to sensitization to cell death. Finally we show that susceptibility to mannose is dependent on the levels of phosphomannose isomerase (PMI). Cells with low levels of PMI are sensitive to mannose, whereas cells with high levels are resistant, but can be made sensitive by RNA-interference-mediated depletion of the enzyme. In addition, we use tissue microarrays to show that PMI levels also vary greatly between different patients and different tumour types, indicating that PMI levels could be used as a biomarker to direct the successful administration of mannose. We consider that the administration of mannose could be a simple, safe and selective therapy in the treatment of cancer, and could be applicable to multiple tumour types