A step-wise approach to a national hepatitis C screening strategy in Malaysia to meet the WHO 2030 targets: proposed strategy, coverage, and costs

In Malaysia, more than 330 000 individuals are estimated to be chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), but less than 2% have been treated to date. To estimate the required coverage and costs of a national screening strategy to inform the launch of an HCV elimination program. We designed an HCV screening strategy based on a "stepwise" approach. This approach relied on targeting of people who inject drugs in the early years, with delayed onset of widespread general population screening. Annual coverage requirements and associated costs were estimated to ensure that the World Health Organization elimination treatment targets were met. In total, 6 million individuals would have to be screened between 2018 and 2030. Targeting of people who inject drugs in the early years would limit annual screening coverage to less than 1 million individuals from 2018 to 2026. General population screening would have to be launched by 2026. Total costs were estimated at MYR 222 million ($58 million). Proportional to coverage targets, 60% of program costs would fall from 2026 to 2030

Estimating the population size of people who inject drugs in Malaysia for 2014 and 2017 using the benchmark-multiplier method

Background: As hepatitis C elimination efforts are launched, national strategies for screening and treatment scale-up in countries, such as Malaysia, must be designed and implemented. Strategic information, including estimates of the total number of patients chronically-infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and the size of key populations, such as people who inject drugs (PWID), is critical to informing these efforts. For Malaysia, the estimate of the PWID population size most frequently reported in global systematic reviews is for the year 2009. Objectives: To support ongoing national HCV planning efforts, we aimed to estimate the national population size of active PWID in Malaysia, for the years 2014 and 2017. Methods: To estimate the PWID population size, we applied standard benchmark-multiplier methodology, frequently used for PWID population size estimation, and extended it by adjusting for cessation of injecting drug use within the benchmark and calculating statistical uncertainty intervals. Results: The estimated active PWID population size was 153,000 (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 136,000-172,000) for 2014 and 156,000 (95% UI: 137,000-188,000) for 2017. Conclusions/importance: This updated estimate of the active PWID population size in Malaysia will help inform effective planning for the scale-up of HCV screening and treatment services. The proposed methodology is applicable to other countries that maintain national HIV registries and have conducted Integrated Biological and Behavioral Surveys among active PWID

Projections of the healthcare costs and disease burden due to hepatitis C infection under different treatment policies in Malaysia, 2018-2040

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set ambitious goals to reduce the global disease burden associated with, and eventually eliminate, viral hepatitis

Potential health and economic impacts of dexamethasone treatment for patients with COVID-19

Acknowledgements We thank all members of the COVID-19 International Modelling Consortium and their collaborative partners. This work was supported by the COVID-19 Research Response Fund, managed by the Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford. L.J.W. is supported by the Li Ka Shing Foundation. R.A. acknowledges funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1193472).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Recognition and Expression of Emotions by a Symbiotic Android Head

The creation of social empathie communication channels between social robots and humans has started to become reality. Nowadays, the development of empathie and affective agents is giving to scientists another way to explore the social dimension of human beings. In this work, we introduce the FACE humanoid project that aims at creating a social and emotional android. FACE is an android head with an articulated neck mounted on a passive body. In order to enable FACE to perceive and express emotions, two dedicated engines have been developed. A sensory apparatus able to perceive the 'social world', and a facial expressions generation engine that allows the robot to express its synthetic emotions. The system has been also integrated with an attention-based gaze generation component that allows the robot to autonomously follow a conversation between its partners. The developed framework has been implemented and tested in several standard human-robot interaction settings. Results demonstrated the promising social capabilities of the robot to perceive and convey emotions to humans through the generation of emotional perceivable facial expressions and socially aligned behaviour. © 2014 IEEE

A concept design of three rudders-shaped like body in columns for low-drag USV

This paper presented a new design for the unmanned surface vessel (USV) platform with a self-manoeuvring system which is capable of collecting the same data as a hydrography boat. This platform was designed with three hulls that were placed in triangle position. The hulls designed were in the form of rudders-shape and were vertically placed as a slender body shape using NACA 64-0012 profile. This provides the USV with low-drag characteristic. The application of stability and resistance theories investigated the effect of the configuration position of the three hulls for this platform. The results revealed that a larger configuration distance between the three hulls will lead to a reduction in resistance and the platform will be in highly stable condition. The relationships derived from these findings should produce a stable and low-drag platform to accomplish the design concept of three rudders-shaped like body in columns for low-drag USV. This concept may help us to accomplish the design requirements that are related to low-drag and minimum power operation

Drag analysis of three rudder-shaped like bodies

This paper presents an investigation of Rudder Shaped-Like (RSL) hull configurations with low-drag characteristic using the resistance model tests and numerical analysis. The new design of the floating platform using three hulls with a self-manoeuvring system as Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) and capable of collecting the same data as a hydrography boat is needed. This platform was designed with three hulls placed in a triangle position in the form of rudder shape and vertically placed as a slender body shape using National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) 0012 profile. This provides the low-drag characteristic to USV. The results from the experimental and numerical analysis revealed that a larger configuration distance between three hulls leads to a reduction in resistance of the same speed. This result may help to accomplish the required concept design related to low-drag and minimum power operation