Climatic Factors and Influenza Transmission, Spain, 2010-2015

The spatio-temporal distribution of influenza is linked to variations in meteorological factors, like temperature, absolute humidity, or the amount of rainfall. The aim of this study was to analyse the association between influenza activity, and meteorological variables in Spain, across five influenza seasons: 2010-2011 through to 2014-2015 using generalized linear negative binomial mixed models that we calculated the weekly influenza proxies, defined as the weekly influenza-like illness rates, multiplied by the weekly proportion of respiratory specimens that tested positive for influenza. The results showed an association between influenza transmission and dew point and cumulative precipitation. In increase in the dew point temperature of 5 degrees produces a 7% decrease in the Weekly Influenza Proxy (RR 0.928, IC: 0.891-0.966), and while an increase of 10 mm in weekly rainfall equates to a 17% increase in the Weekly Influenza Proxy (RR 1.172, IC: 1.097-1.251). Influenza transmission in Spain is influenced by variations in meteorological variables as temperature, absolute humidity, or the amount of rainfall.This study has been funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III through the project “PI15/01398” (Co-funded by European Regional Development Fund/European Social Fund “Investing in your future”).S

Gravedad de la epidemia gripal 2017-18 en España

[ES] Siguiendo las recomendaciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), España ha adaptado su guía PISA (por las siglas en inglés de Pandemic Influenza Severity Assessment) para evaluar la gravedad de cualquier epidemia de gripe, estacional o pandémica, a partir de la información de vigilancia de gripe disponible. Dicha gravedad se establece en función de tres indicadores: la transmisibilidad del virus circulante, la gravedad clínica de la enfermedad que produce y su impacto en la población. En este manuscrito se aplican los indicadores y parámetros PISA utilizados en España con la información obtenida en el Sistema de Vigilancia de Gripe en España (SVGE) y del sistema de monitorización de la mortalidad diaria (MoMo y EuroMOMO), con el objetivo de evaluar la gravedad de la gripe durante la temporada 2017-18 en España. La transmisibilidad de la epidemia gripal de la temporada 2017-18 alcanzó un nivel moderado/alto para todas las edades en la semana de máxima actividad gripal (3/2018), y se caracterizó particularmente por una alta transmisibilidad en mayores de 64 años. En cuanto a la gravedad clínica, la epidemia gripal 2017-18, según el grado de admisión en UCI entre los casos graves hospitalizados confirmados de gripe (CGHCG), presentó un nivel bajo para todas las edades, adultos jóvenes y mayores de 64 años. En menores de 15 años el porcentaje de admisión en UCI alcanzó niveles altos respecto a los valores observados en temporadas previas. En términos de letalidad entre los CGHCG, se estimó que en la temporada 2017-18 se alcanzó un nivel alto de gravedad clínica en todas las edades y mayores de 64 años. En adultos jóvenes de 15-64 años la letalidad se estabilizó en un nivel bajo en el pico de la epidemia gripal y en menores de 15 años se consideró baja respecto a los valores observados en temporadas previas. En cuanto al impacto, la temporada 2017-18 presentó un impacto muy alto en términos de tasas de hospitalización de CGHCG en todas las edades, a expensas fundamentalmente de las hospitalizaciones por gripe en el grupo de mayores de 64 años. En este grupo de edad se observaron las tasas más altas de hospitalización desde la temporada 2013-14. En términos de excesos de mortalidad por todas las causas, la epidemia alcanzó un impacto alto en todas las edades, a expensas fundamentalmente de la mortalidad observada en el grupo de mayores de 64 años, siendo, en menores de 15 años y adultos jóvenes, el impacto nulo. En definitiva, la guía PISA permite la estimación de una serie de indicadores y parámetros para evaluar la gravedad de una epidemia o posible pandemia de gripe. La actividad realizada en el marco del proyecto PISA es un proceso dinámico en continua revisión, susceptible de mejora a medida que se desarrolla y aplica a las diferentes temporadas de gripe. [EN] Following World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, Spain has adapted its PISA guide (for Pandemic Influenza Severity Assessment) to assess the severity in seasonal epidemics and pandemics, based on available influenza surveillance information. This severity is defined in terms of three indicators: the transmissibility of the circulating virus, the seriousness or clinical severity of the disease it produces and its impact on the population. In this manuscript the PISA indicators and parameters used in Spain are applied with the information obtained in the Spanish Influenza Surveillance System and the daily mortality monitoring system (MoMo and EuroMOMO), with the objective of evaluating the severity of the influenza during the 2017-18 season in Spain. The transmissibility indicator in the 2017-18 influenza season reached a moderate / high level for all ages in the peak week (week 03/2018), and was particularly high in people over 64 years. Regarding seriousness, the 2017-18 influenza epidemic, according to the cumulative percentage of ICU admissions among severe hospitalized confirmed influenza cases (SHCIC), presented a low level for all ages, young adults and those over 64 years. In children under 15, the cumulative percentage of ICU admissions reached high levels compared to the values observed in previous seasons. In terms of lethality among the SHCIC, it was estimated that the 2017-18 season presented a high level of clinical severity at all ages and over 64 years. In young adults aged 15-64, lethality stabilized at a low level at the peak of the flu epidemic. In children under 15 years, the lethality was estimated low compared to the values observed in previous seasons. Regarding the impact, the 2017-18 influenza season presented a very high impact in terms of SHCIC rates at all ages, mainly due to hospitalizations in the group over 64 years. In this age group, the highest hospitalization rates were observed this season, since the 2013-14 season. In terms of excess mortality from all causes, the epidemic reached a high impact at all ages group, mainly due to the mortality observed in the group over 64 years. In children under 15 years and young adults, the impact according to excess mortality from all causes was low. In short, the PISA guide allows the estimation of indicators and parameters to assess the severity in seasonal epidemics and possible pandemics. The activity carried out within the framework of the PISA project is a dynamic process in continuous revision, susceptible to improvement as it develops and applies to the different influenza seasons

Efectividad de la vacuna COVID-19: Información para la acción en la vigilancia centinela de Infección Respiratoria Aguda Grave

Comunicación presentada en las II Jornada del Centro Nacional de Epidemiología - 2021.Se presentan resultados sobre la efectividad de la vacuna COVID-19 a partir de la información de la vigilancia centinela de Infección Respiratoria Aguda Grave. Las conclusiones del estudio son las siguientes: 1. Alta protección de las vacunas (>90%) frente a hospitalización por IRAG confirmada de COVID-19 para todas las edades, algo menor (83%) en la población de 80 y más años. 2. Las vacunas mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna) presentan la EV más alta (90%), seguidas por Janssen (79%) y AstraZeneca (73%). 3. Bajada progresiva de la EV después de cinco meses de la vacunación. 4. Alta protección frente a las variantes Alpha y Delta, aunque ligera menor EV frente a la hospitalización de IRAG con variante Delta, en comparación con Alpha

The Impact of COVID-19 on Mortality in Spain: Monitoring Excess Mortality (MoMo) and the Surveillance of Confirmed COVID-19 Deaths

Measuring mortality has been a challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we compared the results from the Spanish daily mortality surveillance system (MoMo) of excess mortality estimates, using a time series analysis, with those obtained for the confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported to the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network (RENAVE). The excess mortality estimated at the beginning of March 2020 was much greater than what has been observed in previous years, and clustered in a very short time. The cumulated excess mortality increased with age. In the first epidemic wave, the excess mortality estimated by MoMo was 1.5 times higher than the confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported to RENAVE, but both estimates were similar in the following pandemic waves. Estimated excess mortality and confirmed COVID-19 mortality rates were geographically distributed in a very heterogeneous way. The greatest increase in mortality that has taken place in Spain in recent years was detected early by MoMo, coinciding with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. MoMo is able to identify risk situations for public health in a timely manner, relying on mortality in general as an indirect indicator of various important public health problems.S

Assessing population-sampling strategies for reducing the COVID-19 incidence

As long as critical levels of vaccination have not been reached to ensure heard immunity, and new SARS-CoV-2 strains are developing, the only realistic way to reduce the infection speed in a population is to track the infected individuals before they pass on the virus. Testing the population via sampling has shown good results in slowing the epidemic spread. Sampling can be implemented at different times during the epidemic and may be done either per individual or for combined groups of people at a time. The work we present here makes two main contributions. We first extend and refine our scalable agent-based COVID-19 simulator to incorporate an improved socio-demographic model which considers professions, as well as a more realistic population mixing model based on contact matrices per country. These extensions are necessary to develop and test various sampling strategies in a scenario including the 62 largest cities in Spain; this is our second contribution. As part of the evaluation, we also analyze the impact of different parameters, such as testing frequency, quarantine time, percentage of quarantine breakers, or group testing, on sampling efficacy. Our results show that the most effective strategies are pooling, rapid antigen test campaigns, and requiring negative testing for access to public areas. The effectiveness of all these strategies can be greatly increased by reducing the number of contacts for infected individual.This work has been supported by the Carlos III Institute of Health under the project grant 2020/00183/001, the project grant BCV-2021-1-0011, of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES) and the European Union's Horizon 2020 JTI-EuroHPC research and innovation program under grant agreement No 956748. The role of all study sponsors was limited to financial support and did not imply participation of any kind in the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, nor in the writing of the manuscript.S

Data management in epiGraph COVID-19 epidemic simulator

The transmission of COVID-19 through a population depends on many factors which model, incorporate, and integrate a large number of heterogeneous data sources. The work we describe in this paper focuses on the data management aspect of EpiGraph, a scalable agent-based virus-propagation simulator. We describe the data acquisition and pre-processing tasks that are necessary to map the data to the different models implemented in EpiGraph in a way that is efficient and comprehensible. We also report on post-processing, analysis, and visualization of the outputs, tasks that are fundamental to make the simulation results useful for the final users. Our simulator captures complex interactions between social processes, virus characteristics, travel patterns, climate, vaccination, and non-pharmaceutical interventions. We end by demonstrating the entire pipeline with one evaluation for Spain for the third COVID wave starting on December 27th of 2020.This work has been supported by the Spanish Instituto de Salud Carlos III under the project grant 2020/00183/001, the project grant BCV-2021-1-0011, of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES) and the European Union's Horizon 2020 JTI-EuroHPC research and innovation program under grant agreement No 956748

Heath-related quality of life in Spanish breast cancer patients: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Breast cancer is one of the oncological diseases in which health-related quality of life (HRQL) has been most studied. This is mainly due to its high incidence and survival. This paper seeks to: review published research into HRQL among women with breast cancer in Spain; analyse the characteristics of these studies; and describe the instruments used and main results reported.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The databases consulted were MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Dialnet, IBECS, CUIDEN, ISOC and LILACS. The inclusion criteria required studies to: 1) include Spanish patients, and a breakdown of results where other types of tumours and/or women from other countries were also included; and, 2) furnish original data and measure HRQL using a purpose-designed questionnaire. The methodological quality of studies was assessed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Spain ranked midway in the European Union in terms of the number of studies conducted on the HRQL of breast cancer patients. Of the total of 133 papers published from 1993 to 2009, 25 met the inclusion criteria. Among them, only 12 were considered as having good or excellent quality. A total of 2236 women participated in the studies analysed. In descending order of frequency, the questionnaires used were the EORTC, FACT-B, QL-CA-Afex, SF-12, FLIC, RSCL and CCV. Five papers focused on validation or adaptation of questionnaires. Most papers examined HRQL in terms of type of treatment. Few differences were detected by type of chemotherapy, with the single exception of worse results among younger women treated with radiotherapy. In the short term, better results were reported for all HRQL components by women undergoing conservative rather than radical surgery. Presence of lymphedema was associated with worse HRQL. Three studies assessed differences in HRQL by patients' psychological traits. Psychosocial disorder and level of depression and anxiety, regardless of treatment or disease stage, worsened HRQL. In addition, there was a positive effect among patients who reported having a "fighting spirit" and using "denial" as a defence mechanism. One study found that breast cancer patients scored worse than did healthy women on almost all SF-12 scales.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Research into health-related quality of life of breast-cancer patients is a little developed field in Spain.</p

Impacto de la COVID-19 en la mortalidad en España: exceso de mortalidad por MoMo y muertes confirmadas por COVID-19

Comunicación presentada en las II Jornada del Centro Nacional de Epidemiología - 2021.Se estudia el impacto de la COVID-19 en la mortalidad en España. Los objetivos del estudio son: 1. Analizar la mortalidad por COVID-19 en España, describiendo las tres primeras olas pandémicas de COVID-19 y proporcionando estimaciones por grupo de edad y regiones españolas; y 2. Comparar el exceso de mortalidad por todas las causas de MoMo durante la pandemia de COVID-19 con las muertes confirmadas por COVID-19 notificadas al sistema nacional de vigilancia. Las conclusiones son: 1. MoMo identificó un exceso de mortalidad sin precedentes, en la primera ola pandémica de COVID-19 en España, que coincidió con la aparición de la pandemia COVID-19, 2. El sistema MoMo puede proporcionar estimaciones de exceso de mortalidad por todas las causas por edad y región geográfica, y 3. A pesar de ser un sistema inespecífico que no permite establecer causalidad directa en el análisis de exceso de mortalidad, MoMo constituye una herramienta esencial de vigilancia a tiempo real, como sistema de alerta temprana para la acción en salud pública, y para realizar estimaciones del impacto de diferentes eventos de salud en la mortalidad de la población

Informe de situación: Actividad gripal en la temporada 2018-19 Evaluación de riesgo hasta semana 03/2019

[ES] La epidemia gripal 2018-19 se ha iniciado en España en la semana 01/2019, tres semanas más tarde que en las dos temporadas previas, pero en el rango de las temporadas post-pandémicas previas. La incidencia de gripe se asocia de forma casi exclusiva a la circulación de virus de la gripe tipo A. Aunque la proporción entre subtipos A(H1N1)pdm09 y A(H3N2) es similar, la tendencia de las últimas semanas indica un aumento en la proporción del primero. Los datos de vigilancia en hospitales señalan una distribución similar por tipo/subtipo de virus. Si bien el grupo de mayores de 65 años es el mayoritario (53%), este porcentaje es inferior al que se puede observar en aquellas temporadas en las que predomina A(H3N2) y se parece más a aquellas temporadas en las que predominó A(H1N1)pdm09. Hasta el momento, la epidemia gripal 2018-19 presenta un nivel bajo de transmisibilidad en todos los grupos de edad. El impacto ocasionado en la población española se estima medio, en términos de tasa de hospitalización y bajo en términos de excesos de mortalidad por todas las causas. Ambos indicadores, así como la gravedad clínica de la enfermedad, se seguirán evaluando en las semanas próximas de la epidemia gripal. Las estimaciones preliminares de EV antigripal de esta temporada en Canadá señalan un valor de EV frente a A(H1N1)pdm09 por encima del 70%, en consonancia con datos preliminares de la red Europea I-MOVE. La EV antigripal frente a A(H3N2) es subóptima hasta el momento. Sin embargo, se han estimado valores moderados de EV antigripal frente a todos los virus A en grupos recomendados de vacunación, lo que refuerza la recomendación oficial de vacunación antigripal en estos grupos de riesgo de complicaciones por gripe. En definitiva, las características de la epidemia 2018-19 hasta el momento se mueven en un patrón intermedio entre las temporadas de A(H1N1)pdm09 y las de A(H3N2), de forma que según derive la circulación mayoritaria de uno u otro virus, cabe esperar que predominen unas u otras características. [EN] Influenza activity in Spain started this 2018-19 season in week 01/2019, three weeks later than in the previous two seasons, but in the range of the previous post-pandemic seasons. So far, the influenza season 2018-19 is characterized by the predominant circulation of type A. Although both A(H1N1) pdm09 and A(H3N2) subtypes are co-circulating in similar proportions, the trend of the last weeks indicates an increase in the proportion of the first. Surveillance data in hospitals indicate a similar distribution by type/subtype. Although 53% were adults 65 years of age and older, this percentage is lower than that observed in seasons associated with A(H3N2) predominance, and more similar to those seasons in which A(H1N1)pdm09 predominated. So far, the influenza season 2018-19 has a low level of transmissibility in all age groups. The impact caused in the Spanish population is estimated as “medium”, in terms of hospitalization rates, and “low” in terms of all causes excess mortality. Both indicators, as well as the clinical severity of the disease, will continue to be evaluated in the next few weeks of the flu epidemic. Preliminary estimates of the effectiveness of influenza vaccine this season in Canada indicate good vaccine effectiveness (VE) (above 70%), in line with preliminary data from the European I-MOVE network. The VE against influenza A(H3N2) viruses is suboptimal so far. However, moderate values of VE have been estimated against all A viruses in recommended groups of vaccination, which reinforces the official recommendation of influenza vaccination in these risk groups of complications due to influenza. In short, the characteristics of the influenza season 2018-19 so far move in an intermediate pattern between the A(H1N1)pdm09 seasons and those with A(H3N2) predominance. It is expected that some or other characteristics will prevail depending on the predominance of the circulation of one or the other virus

Población mayor, Calidad de Vida y redes de apoyo: demanda y prestación de cuidados en el seno familiar

Esta investigación ha recibido el 2º Premio Caja Madrid de Investigación Social - Edición 2008El trabajo se enfoca desde la doble complementariedad de metodologías cuantitativa y cualitativa, al usar, respectivamente, datos de la encuesta sobre Calidad de Vida de los mayores no institucionalizados en la Comunidad de Madrid –CadeViMa- (diseñada y elaborada por el equipo de investigación en el año 2005), así como Entrevistas en Profundidad a mayores dependientes y Grupos de Discusión a familiares cuidadores (realizados en abril-mayo de 2007)