Indirect Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child and Adolescent Health and Possible Interventions for Low- and Middle-Income Countries

No abstract in Englis

Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, 20th Edition

No  abstract in Englis

Benefits of Fiscal Policies on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages

Objectives: Overweight, obesity, and their associated chronic diseases have become prevalent in many developing countries in Asia, defining them as major public health issues. One of the main contributors to overweight and obesity is the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB). In this article, we reviewed the latest literature examining the benefits of a SSB tax. Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted on: (i) policy documents and government reports to examine the current applications of SSB taxation; and (ii) published studies on price elasticity of demand (PED) of SSBs to examine the health and economic benefits of SSB taxation. Results: Articles included in our review have used or estimated negative PED, ranging from -0.63 to -1.3, and have shown an associated decrease in BMI and prevalence of overweight and obesity. Conclusion: Most studies so far have focused on the health and economic impacts of SSB taxation among high- and upper-middle income countries. Further research is needed to understand the impact of SSB taxation on lower-middle and low-income countries, which are facing comparable, if not more serious, obesity and overweight threats

Association Between Consumption of Sugar-sweetened Beverages and Childhood Obesity and Overweight

Objectives: This paper aims to study how consumption of beverages relates to the body weight of children and adolescents in Mongolia. Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted between 2015 and 2016. A group of 353 relatively healthy children and adolescents aged 6-16 were selected from ger districts of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. Chi-squared analysis was conducted to evaluate the association of categorical variables with body mass index (BMI) z-score subgroups. T-test or two-way ANOVA was performed to compare means. Beverage consumption was presented as means with standard deviation (SD) among sex and age groups. Results: The data from 347 children and adolescents were analyzed. Boys represented 50.1% (n =174) and the mean age ± SD was 10.0 ±2.9 years. Tea was the main beverage type in all age and sex groups compared to other types of beverages. Girls aged between 10 and 13 years old had the highest consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB). And there was a markedly high consumption of SSB among overweight and obese children. Conclusion: Significantly higher consumption of SSB was seen among overweight and obese children. Detailed household and school-based observational and interventional studies should be performed using these findings to help policy makers to make evidence-based decisions about SSB

Child Health: A Population Perspective

No abstract in Englis

Estimating Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Transmission of the COVID-19 First Few Cases in Selenge Province, Mongolia.

BACKGROUND: Following the first locally transmitted case in Sukhbaatar soum, Selenge Province, we aimed to investigate the ultimate scale of the epidemic in the scenario of uninterrupted transmission. METHODS: This was a prospective case study following the locally modified WHO FFX cases generic protocol. A rapid response team collected data from November 14 to 29, 2020. We created a stochastic process to draw many transmission chains from this greater distribution to better understand and make inferences regarding the outbreak under investigation. RESULTS: The majority of the cases involved household transmissions (35, 52.2%), work transmissions (20, 29.9%), index (5, 7.5%), same apartment transmissions (2, 3.0%), school transmissions (2, 3.0%), and random contacts between individuals transmissions (1, 1.5%). The posterior means of the basic reproduction number of both the asymptomatic cases R 0 Asy $${R}_0^{Asy}$$ and the presymptomatic cases R 0 Pre $${R}_0^{Pre}$$ (1.35 [95% CrI 0.88-1.86] and 1.29 [95% CrI 0.67-2.10], respectively) were lower than that of the symptomatic cases (2.00 [95% Crl 1.38-2.76]). CONCLUSION: Our study highlights the heterogeneity of COVID-19 transmission across different symptom statuses and underscores the importance of early identification and isolation of symptomatic cases in disease control. Our approach, which combines detailed contact tracing data with advanced statistical methods, can be applied to other infectious diseases, facilitating a more nuanced understanding of disease transmission dynamics