The use of folic acid in dengue: Has it any value?

Folic acid is used in dengue patients. Our study aims to compare the duration of recovery of thrombocytopenia in patients with dengue infection who received folic acid and those who did not. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of adult patients admitted over six years with a diagnosis of dengue. Of 2216 patients, 1464 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Group A were those patients who received folic acid and group B were those who did not. A total of 1322 (90.3%) patients received folic acid. The mean time period required for platelets to double the nadir was 1.7 (±2.2) days in both groups A and B ( P = 0.89). In conclusion, there is no significant difference in the recovery of thrombocytopenia in patients with dengue fever who received folic and those who did not receive folic acid

Pattern of neurological diseases in adult outpatient neurology clinics in tertiary care hospital

Objectives: The burden of neurological diseases in developing countries is rising although little is known about the epidemiology and clinical pattern of neurological disorders. The objective of this study was to understand the burden of disease faced by neurologists a in tertiary care setting. Results: A prospective observational study was conducted of all presentations to neurology clinics at Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi over a period of 2 years. A total of 16,371 out-patients with neurological diseases were seen during the study period. The mean age of the study participants were 46.2 ± 18.3 years and 8508 (52%) were male. Headache disorders were present in 3058 (18.6%) of patients followed by vascular diseases 2842 (17.4%), nerve and root lesions 2311 (14.1%) and epilepsies 2055 (12.5%). Parkinson\u27s disease was more prevalent in male participants 564 (70.8%) as compared to female 257 (62.1%) (p = 0.002). Migraines and vertigo disease were more diagnosed in females as compared to males. Epilepsies were seen more in younger age groups. Parkinson\u27s disease was seen in 50.9% of participants between the ages of 45 and 65 years, and the frequency increased with age

Quality of life in individuals surgically treated for congenital hydrocephalus during infancy: A single-institution experience

Background: Congenital hydrocephalus (CH) is a frequently encountered birth anomaly that can hinder long-term neurologic maturity and social well-being of affected children. This study was undertaken to assess quality of life (QOL) 10-15 years after surgical treatment for primary CH during infancy at a tertiary care hospital in a developing country.Methods: This retrospective cohort study included individuals who presented to Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan, between 1995 and 2005 at QOL.Results: Of 118 patients, 90 patients participated in the study. Mean age at first admission was 6.2 months. Mean length of follow-up was 5.4 years. Of these, 28 patients had died after surgery. Shunt infection (P = 0.012) and delayed milestones (P = 0.003) were found to be statistically significant factors affecting mortality in the patients who died. The mean overall health score was 0.67 ± 0.30. Age (P = 0.039).Conclusions: In our analysis, we assessed the QOL associated with CH. We hope that these results will provide insight for future prospective work with the ultimate goal of improving long-term QOL in children with CH

Hyperpolarizability of plasmonic meta-atoms in metasurfaces

Plasmonic metasurfaces are promising as enablers of nanoscale nonlinear optics and flat nonlinear optical components. Nonlinear optical responses of such metasurfaces are determined by the nonlinear optical properties of individual nanostructured plasmonic meta-atoms, which are the building blocks of the metasurfaces. Unfortunately, no simple methods exist to determine the nonlinear coefficients (hyperpolarizabilities) of the meta-atoms hindering designing of nonlinear metasurfaces. Here, we develop the equivalent RLC circuit model of such meta-atoms to estimate their second-order nonlinear optical parameter i.e. the first-order hyperpolarizability in the optical spectral range. In parallel, we extract from second-harmonic generation experiments the spectrum of the 1st-order hyperpolarizabilities of individual meta-atoms consisting of asymmetrically shaped (elongated) plasmonic nanoprisms. Moreover, we verify our results using nonlinear hydrodynamic-FDTD and with calculations based on nonlinear scattering theory. All three approaches: analytical, experimental, and computational, yield results that agree very well. Our empirical RLC model can thus be used as a simple tool to enable efficient design of nonlinear plasmonic metasurfaces

A Hybrid Duo-Deep Learning and Best Features Based Framework for Action Recognition

Human Action Recognition (HAR) is a current research topic in the field of computer vision that is based on an important application known as video surveillance. Researchers in computer vision have introduced various intelligent methods based on deep learning and machine learning, but they still face many challenges such as similarity in various actions and redundant features. We proposed a framework for accurate human action recognition (HAR) based on deep learning and an improved features optimization algorithm in this paper. From deep learning feature extraction to feature classification, the proposed framework includes several critical steps. Before training fine-tuned deep learning models – MobileNet-V2 and Darknet53 – the original video frames are normalized. For feature extraction, pre-trained deep models are used, which are fused using the canonical correlation approach. Following that, an improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO)-based algorithm is used to select the best features. Following that, the selected features were used to classify actions using various classifiers. The experimental process was performed on six publicly available datasets such as KTH, UT-Interaction, UCF Sports, Hollywood, IXMAS, and UCF YouTube, which attained an accuracy of 98.3%, 98.9%, 99.8%, 99.6%, 98.6%, and 100%, respectively. In comparison with existing techniques, it is observed that the proposed framework achieved improved accuracy

Global, regional, and national incidence of six major immune-mediated inflammatory diseases: findings from the global burden of disease study 2019

BACKGROUND: The causes for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) are diverse and the incidence trends of IMIDs from specific causes are rarely studied. The study aims to investigate the pattern and trend of IMIDs from 1990 to 2019. METHODS: We collected detailed information on six major causes of IMIDs, including asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis, between 1990 and 2019, derived from the Global Burden of Disease study in 2019. The average annual percent change (AAPC) in number of incidents and age standardized incidence rate (ASR) on IMIDs, by sex, age, region, and causes, were calculated to quantify the temporal trends. FINDINGS: In 2019, rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, asthma, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease accounted 1.59%, 36.17%, 54.71%, 0.09%, 6.84%, 0.60% of overall new IMIDs cases, respectively. The ASR of IMIDs showed substantial regional and global variation with the highest in High SDI region, High-income North America, and United States of America. Throughout human lifespan, the age distribution of incident cases from six IMIDs was quite different. Globally, incident cases of IMIDs increased with an AAPC of 0.68 and the ASR decreased with an AAPC of −0.34 from 1990 to 2019. The incident cases increased across six IMIDs, the ASR of rheumatoid arthritis increased (0.21, 95% CI 0.18, 0.25), while the ASR of asthma (AAPC = −0.41), inflammatory bowel disease (AAPC = −0.72), multiple sclerosis (AAPC = −0.26), psoriasis (AAPC = −0.77), and atopic dermatitis (AAPC = −0.15) decreased. The ASR of overall and six individual IMID increased with SDI at regional and global level. Countries with higher ASR in 1990 experienced a more rapid decrease in ASR. INTERPRETATION: The incidence patterns of IMIDs varied considerably across the world. Innovative prevention and integrative management strategy are urgently needed to mitigate the increasing ASR of rheumatoid arthritis and upsurging new cases of other five IMIDs, respectively. FUNDING: The Global Burden of Disease Study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project funded by Scientific Research Fund of Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences & Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital (2022QN38)

Tracking development assistance for health and for COVID-19 : a review of development assistance, government, out-of-pocket, and other private spending on health for 204 countries and territories, 1990-2050

Background The rapid spread of COVID-19 renewed the focus on how health systems across the globe are financed, especially during public health emergencies. Development assistance is an important source of health financing in many low-income countries, yet little is known about how much of this funding was disbursed for COVID-19. We aimed to put development assistance for health for COVID-19 in the context of broader trends in global health financing, and to estimate total health spending from 1995 to 2050 and development assistance for COVID-19 in 2020. Methods We estimated domestic health spending and development assistance for health to generate total health-sector spending estimates for 204 countries and territories. We leveraged data from the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database to produce estimates of domestic health spending. To generate estimates for development assistance for health, we relied on project-level disbursement data from the major international development agencies' online databases and annual financial statements and reports for information on income sources. To adjust our estimates for 2020 to include disbursements related to COVID-19, we extracted project data on commitments and disbursements from a broader set of databases (because not all of the data sources used to estimate the historical series extend to 2020), including the UN Office of Humanitarian Assistance Financial Tracking Service and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. We reported all the historic and future spending estimates in inflation-adjusted 2020 US$, 2020 US$ per capita, purchasing-power parity-adjusted US$per capita, and as a proportion of gross domestic product. We used various models to generate future health spending to 2050. Findings In 2019, health spending globally reached$8. 8 trillion (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 8.7-8.8) or $1132 (1119-1143) per person. Spending on health varied within and across income groups and geographical regions. Of this total,$40.4 billion (0.5%, 95% UI 0.5-0.5) was development assistance for health provided to low-income and middle-income countries, which made up 24.6% (UI 24.0-25.1) of total spending in low-income countries. We estimate that $54.8 billion in development assistance for health was disbursed in 2020. Of this,$13.7 billion was targeted toward the COVID-19 health response. $12.3 billion was newly committed and$1.4 billion was repurposed from existing health projects. $3.1 billion (22.4$2.4 billion (17.9%) was for supply chain and logistics. Only $714.4 million (7.7$1519 (1448-1591) per person in 2050, although spending across countries is expected to remain varied. Interpretation Global health spending is expected to continue to grow, but remain unequally distributed between countries. We estimate that development organisations substantially increased the amount of development assistance for health provided in 2020. Continued efforts are needed to raise sufficient resources to mitigate the pandemic for the most vulnerable, and to help curtail the pandemic for all. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Measuring routine childhood vaccination coverage in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, Release 1

Background: Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. // Methods: For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific, vaccine-specific, and dose-specific observations of routine childhood vaccination coverage between 1980 and 2019. Using spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, we produced location-specific and year-specific estimates of 11 routine childhood vaccine coverage indicators for 204 countries and territories from 1980 to 2019, adjusting for biases in country-reported data and reflecting reported stockouts and supply disruptions. We analysed global and regional trends in coverage and numbers of zero-dose children (defined as those who never received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] vaccine dose), progress towards GVAP targets, and the relationship between vaccine coverage and sociodemographic development. // Findings: By 2019, global coverage of third-dose DTP (DTP3; 81·6% [95% uncertainty interval 80·4–82·7]) more than doubled from levels estimated in 1980 (39·9% [37·5–42·1]), as did global coverage of the first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1; from 38·5% [35·4–41·3] in 1980 to 83·6% [82·3–84·8] in 2019). Third-dose polio vaccine (Pol3) coverage also increased, from 42·6% (41·4–44·1) in 1980 to 79·8% (78·4–81·1) in 2019, and global coverage of newer vaccines increased rapidly between 2000 and 2019. The global number of zero-dose children fell by nearly 75% between 1980 and 2019, from 56·8 million (52·6–60·9) to 14·5 million (13·4–15·9). However, over the past decade, global vaccine coverage broadly plateaued; 94 countries and territories recorded decreasing DTP3 coverage since 2010. Only 11 countries and territories were estimated to have reached the national GVAP target of at least 90% coverage for all assessed vaccines in 2019. // Interpretation: After achieving large gains in childhood vaccine coverage worldwide, in much of the world this progress was stalled or reversed from 2010 to 2019. These findings underscore the importance of revisiting routine immunisation strategies and programmatic approaches, recentring service delivery around equity and underserved populations. Strengthening vaccine data and monitoring systems is crucial to these pursuits, now and through to 2030, to ensure that all children have access to, and can benefit from, lifesaving vaccines

Measuring routine childhood vaccination coverage in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, Release 1

Background Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. Methods For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific, vaccine-specific, and dosespecific observations of routine childhood vaccination coverage between 1980 and 2019. Using spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, we produced location-specific and year-specific estimates of 11 routine childhood vaccine coverage indicators for 204 countries and territories from 1980 to 2019, adjusting for biases in countryreported data and reflecting reported stockouts and supply disruptions. We analysed global and regional trends in coverage and numbers of zero-dose children (defined as those who never received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] vaccine dose), progress towards GVAP targets, and the relationship between vaccine coverage and sociodemographic development. Findings By 2019, global coverage of third-dose DTP (DTP3; 81.6% [95% uncertainty interval 80.4-82 .7]) more than doubled from levels estimated in 1980 (39.9% [37.5-42.1]), as did global coverage of the first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1; from 38.5% [35.4-41.3] in 1980 to 83.6% [82.3-84.8] in 2019). Third- dose polio vaccine (Pol3) coverage also increased, from 42.6% (41.4-44.1) in 1980 to 79.8% (78.4-81.1) in 2019, and global coverage of newer vaccines increased rapidly between 2000 and 2019. The global number of zero-dose children fell by nearly 75% between 1980 and 2019, from 56.8 million (52.6-60. 9) to 14.5 million (13.4-15.9). However, over the past decade, global vaccine coverage broadly plateaued; 94 countries and territories recorded decreasing DTP3 coverage since 2010. Only 11 countries and territories were estimated to have reached the national GVAP target of at least 90% coverage for all assessed vaccines in 2019. Interpretation After achieving large gains in childhood vaccine coverage worldwide, in much of the world this progress was stalled or reversed from 2010 to 2019. These findings underscore the importance of revisiting routine immunisation strategies and programmatic approaches, recentring service delivery around equity and underserved populations. Strengthening vaccine data and monitoring systems is crucial to these pursuits, now and through to 2030, to ensure that all children have access to, and can benefit from, lifesaving vaccines. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe