Consumers’ raw poultry washing practices: A cross-sectional and observational study in eight Southeast Asian countries

Consumers are recommended not to wash raw poultry before cooking since this practice increases risks of cross contamination with foodborne pathogens. However previous studies had identified that consumers were unaware of this incorrect behaviour. This study aims to assess consumers' self-reported and observed raw poultry washing practices in Southeast Asian (SEA) countries. A mixed method design was employed, with data collected via a cross-sectional survey across eight SEA countries, observational studies and semi-structured interviews conducted in Indonesia and Malaysia. Ninety-six percent (n = 2009) of surveyed participants reported that they washed raw poultry at home. Participants from Laos and Philippines, older, married and low-income participants reported washing raw poultry more frequently. The main reasons for washing raw poultry were to remove dirt, slime, blood or feathers and the act of washing makes them feel safer. Participants from Cambodia (OR = 2.855, p < 0.001), Indonesia (OR = 3.208, p < 0.001), Laos (OR = 3.012, p < 0.05), Malaysia (OR = 2.003, p < 0.05) and Thailand (OR = 2.148, p < 0.001) were 2.00–3.21 times more confident about not washing raw poultry upon understanding the rationale that washing does not reduce microbial load. Participants who purchased from supermarkets (OR = 1.785, p < 0.05) were significantly more confident about not washing raw poultry compared to other sources of raw poultry. Our observation study identified various cross contamination pathways including lack of hand hygiene practices, inadequate cleaning and sanitation procedures, and cross contamination of raw poultry and washed water to surrounding areas. Semi-structured interviews revealed that participants preferred to wash raw poultry due to the lack of cleanliness of raw poultry purchased from traditional markets and the act is ingrained in their cultural practice. Due to consumers' preference for freshly slaughtered poultry and perceived cleanliness of raw poultry purchased from traditional markets, hand hygiene practices during and after handling raw poultry and cleaning of kitchen sinks and surrounding areas with soap should be emphasised. Targeted food safety messages and educational campaigns suited to local cultural differences should be conducted. This study presents the first empirical findings on consumers’ raw poultry washing practices in eight SEA countries. Practical implications and further recommendations are provided

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

The use of participatory approaches to evaluate the socio-economic factors impairing the efficacy of animal health surveillance systems

The need to set up efficient and sustainable surveillance networks is a major concern which must be continually placed at the heart of the overall issue of development. In developing countries, the political priority to reduce poverty means that it is vital to include social aspects in public decision making on health management in general. This focus on social aspects can be considered all the more important regarding surveillance as it is deeply embedded in agents’ everyday life. The flow of information about animal health involves different non-monetary costs, ensuing from stigmatization or from social pressure to withhold or disclose information. Understanding, measuring and alleviating these social costs of information is required to ensure the effectiveness and viability of surveillance. The present study considers the case of highly pathogenic avian influenza surveillance in Vietnam. It aims at establishing a protocol allowing for understanding and quantifying social costs incurred by surveillance agents at the community level. In this prospect, tools and concepts from anthropology, participative epidemiology and experimental economics were combined. More particularly, social network analysis, participatory observation, companion modeling and stated preference surveys were applied for the thorough examination of constraints and costs of health information flows. The opportunity for the scaling-up of such methodologies and for the inclusion of the so-elicited quantitative values in socio-economic evaluation of surveillance systems are discussed

Clinical features, genomic profiling, and outcomes of adult patients with unifocal Langerhans cell histiocytosis

Abstract Background Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare highly heterogeneous histiocytosis, which can be divided into single system and multiple system disease according to site of involvement. There is a paucity of studies examining unifocal LCH in adults in the molecular era. Results We retrospectively analysed records from 70 patients with unifocal LCH. The median age at diagnosis was 36 years (18–69). The most common organ involved was the bone (70.0%), followed by pituitary gland (7.1%). Target gene sequencing of lesion tissues was performed on 32 of the 70 patients. MAPK/PI3K pathway alterations were observed in 78.1% of the patients; the most common mutations included BRAF V600E (28.1%), MAP2K1 (18.8%) and PIK3CA (9.4%). After a median follow-up time of 39.4 months (0.7–211.8), 10 (14.3%) patients developed disease progression, of whom 4 had local recurrence, 2 progressed to single-system multifocal and 4 progressed to multiple system LCH. The 3-year progression-free survival (PFS) was 81.9%. Univariate analysis showed that age < 30 years at diagnosis was associated with worse 3-year PFS (52.2% vs. 97.0%, p = 0.005). The 3-year overall survival was 100%. Conclusions In our large cohort of adults with unifocal LCH, we found that prognosis of unifocal LCH in adults was very good, and age < 30 years at diagnosis was associated with increased relapse risk

Evaluating the social costs and benefits of surveillance: the case of HPAI in Vietnam

Economic evaluations of animal health surveillance systems are critical components of the assessment of their long-term sustainability and the improvement of their cost- effectiveness. Social costs and benefits of health information release through the surveillance systems are fundamental determinants of the acceptability and efficacy of surveillance and are often neglected in the evaluation process. This study presents the evaluation of social costs and benefits of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) surveillance in Vietnam. Three field studies were conducted in the South and North of the country. Data on animal health information flow networks and social costs and benefits were collected using participatory approaches. Non-monetary costs and benefits were quantified using a newly developed tool based on stated choice method and participatory techniques. The study showed that private actors incur many transaction costs in reporting the information. However social costs mainly arise from price drops due to information release on market which has strong influences on the decision to disclose sanitary information. This applies at all levels including farmers and veterinary authorities. Private actors of the poultry sector valued information on occurring disease outbreaks, which is perceived as a social benefit. However avian influenza information is scarcely disclosed in private networks as stakeholders fear its potential impact on markets

A Multicenter, Randomized, Controlled Trial of Electroacupuncture for Perimenopause Women with Mild-Moderate Depression

Objective. Up to 62% of perimenopausal women have depression symptoms. However, there is no efficacy treatment. The aim of this study is to compare the clinical efficacy and safety of EA therapy and escitalopram on perimenopause women with mild-moderate depressive symptom. Method. A multicenter, randomized, positive-controlled clinical trial was conducted at 6 hospitals in China. 242 perimenopause women with mild-moderate depressive symptom were recruited and randomly assigned to receive 36 sessions of EA treatment or escitalopram treatment. The primary outcome measure was the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17). The secondary outcome measures include menopause-specific quality of life (MENQOL) and serum sexual hormones which include estrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone, and luteinizing hormone. Results. 221 (91.3%) completed the study, including 116 in the EA group and 105 in the escitalopram group. The baseline levels of demographic and outcome measurements were similar in the two groups. In the intervention period, there was no difference between two groups. However, in the follow-up, both HAMD-17 and MENQOL were significantly decreased, and at week 24 the mean differences were −2.23 and −8.97, respectively. There were no significant differences in the change of serum sexual hormones between the two groups. No serious adverse events occurred. Conclusion. EA treatment is effective and safe in relieving depression symptom and improving the quality of life in the perimenopausal depression. Further research is needed to understand long-term efficacy and explore the mechanism of this intervention. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02423694

Vietnam's Political Economy: A Discussion on the 1986-2016 Period

Being a member of the thriving ASEAN and successfully implementing economic renovation (Doi Moi) have drawn the world's attention on Vietnam around the turn of the millennium. Some even expected a much faster pace of transformation, and renewed economic, AND political, reforms in Vietnam, or Doi Moi II.However, in the recent transition turmoil the Vietnamese economy has experienced some significant setback, and the solution for getting the country out of the downward spiral of low productivity, waning purchasing power and increasing costs of doing business cannot be worked out without addressing those political economy issues that have shaped the modus operandi of the nation's economic system. This article discusses the post-Doi Moi political economy in Vietnam, from 1986 to 2016 – when the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam takes place – and prospects of reviving reform momentum in subsequent years.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe