New pandemics: HIV and AIDS, HCV and chronic hepatitis, Influenza virus and flu

New pandemics are a serious threat to the health of the entire world. They are essentially of viral origin and spread at large speed. A meeting on this topic was held in Lyon, France, within the XIXth Jacques Cartier Symposia, a series of France-Québec meetings held every year. New findings on HIV and AIDS, on HCV and chronic hepatitis, and an update on influenza virus and flu were covered during this meeting on December 4 and 5, 2006. Aspects of viral structure, virus-host interactions, antiviral defenses, drugs and vaccinations, and epidemiological aspects were discussed for HIV and HCV. Old and recent data on the flu epidemics ended this meeting.The meeting sponsors were the Centre Jacques Cartier, the Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le SIDA et les hépatites (ANRS) France, the Ecole Normale Supérieure en Sciences de Lyon, The Réseau SIDA et Maladies Infectieuses from the Fond de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ), The Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi Aventis, ViroChem Pharma and Merck Frosst. The authors thank the speakers for their meeting abstracts and comments that helped writing this review

How will the ebola crisis impact the HIV epidemic?

10.1186/s12977-014-0110-zRetrovirology11111

Benefits of an educational program for journalists on media coverage of HIV/AIDS in developing countries

Benefits of an educational program for journalists on medi

Mental Illness Sexual Stigma: Implications for Health and Recovery

The majority of people in psychiatric care worldwide are sexually active, and studies have revealed sharply elevated rates of HIV infection in that group compared with the general population. Recovery-oriented treatment does not routinely address sexuality. We examined the relationship between gender, severe mental illness diagnosis, and stigma experiences related to sexuality among people in psychiatric outpatient care. Method: Sexually active adults attending 8 public outpatient psychiatric clinics in Rio de Janeiro (N = 641) were interviewed for psychiatric diagnosis and stigma experiences. Stigma mechanisms well-established in the literature but not previously examined in relation to sexuality were measured with the Mental Illness Sex Stigma Questionnaire, a 27-item interview about stigma in sexual situations and activities. Results: Experiences of stigma were reported by a majority of participants for 48% of questionnaire items. Most people reported supportive attitudes toward their sexuality from providers and family members. Those with severe mental illness diagnoses showed greater stigma on individual discrimination and structural stigma mechanisms than did those with nonsevere mental illness diagnoses, whereas there was no difference on the social psychological processes (internalized stigma) mechanism. Regardless of diagnosis or gender, a majority of participants devalued themselves as sexual partners. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: Adults in psychiatric outpatient care frequently reported stigma experiences related to aspects of their sexual lives. From the perspectives of both HIV prevention and recovery from mental illness, examinations of the consequences of stigma in the sexual lives of people in psychiatric care and improving their measurement would have wide applicability

Association of accelerometer-derived sleep measures with lifetime psychiatric diagnoses : A cross-sectional study of 89,205 participants from the UK Biobank

Funding Information: The authors acknowledge Milos Milic for data curation assistance. MW and SJT acknowledge support from the Kavli Foundation, Krembil Foundation, CAMH Discovery Fund, the McLaughlin Foundation, NSERC (RGPIN-2020-05834 and DGECR-2020-00048) and CIHR (NGN-171423). DF is supported by the Michael and Sonja Koerner Foundation New Scientist Program, Krembil Foundation, CAMH Discovery Fund, and the McLaughlin Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This research was conducted under the auspices of UK Biobank application 61530, ?Multimodal subtyping of mental illness across the adult lifespan through integration of multi-scale whole-person phenotypes?. The authors acknowledge Milos Milic for data curation assistance. This research was conducted under the auspices of UK Biobank application 61530, ?Multimodal subtyping of mental illness across the adult lifespan through integration of multi-scale whole-person phenotypes.? Publisher Copyright: Copyright: © 2021 Wainberg et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background Sleep problems are both symptoms of and modifiable risk factors for many psychiatric disorders. Wrist-worn accelerometers enable objective measurement of sleep at scale. Here, we aimed to examine the association of accelerometer-derived sleep measures with psychiatric diagnoses and polygenic risk scores in a large community-based cohort. Methods and findings In this post hoc cross-sectional analysis of the UK Biobank cohort, 10 interpretable sleep measures—bedtime, wake-up time, sleep duration, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, number of awakenings, duration of longest sleep bout, number of naps, and variability in bedtime and sleep duration—were derived from 7-day accelerometry recordings across 89,205 participants (aged 43 to 79, 56% female, 97% self-reported white) taken between 2013 and 2015. These measures were examined for association with lifetime inpatient diagnoses of major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder/mania, and schizophrenia spectrum disorders from any time before the date of accelerometry, as well as polygenic risk scores for major depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Covariates consisted of age and season at the time of the accelerometry recording, sex, Townsend deprivation index (an indicator of socioeconomic status), and the top 10 genotype principal components. We found that sleep pattern differences were ubiquitous across diagnoses: each diagnosis was associated with a median of 8.5 of the 10 accelerometer-derived sleep measures, with measures of sleep quality (for instance, sleep efficiency) generally more affected than mere sleep duration. Effect sizes were generally small: for instance, the largest magnitude effect size across the 4 diagnoses was β = −0.11 (95% confidence interval −0.13 to −0.10, p = 3 × 10−56, FDR = 6 × 10−55) for the association between lifetime inpatient major depressive disorder diagnosis and sleep efficiency. Associations largely replicated across ancestries and sexes, and accelerometry-derived measures were concordant with self-reported sleep properties. Limitations include the use of accelerometer-based sleep measurement and the time lag between psychiatric diagnoses and accelerometry. Conclusions In this study, we observed that sleep pattern differences are a transdiagnostic feature of individuals with lifetime mental illness, suggesting that they should be considered regardless of diagnosis. Accelerometry provides a scalable way to objectively measure sleep properties in psychiatric clinical research and practice, even across tens of thousands of individuals.Peer reviewe

Correlations between caregiver psychiatric symptoms and offspring psychopathology in a low-resource setting

Objective: Associations between parental/caregiver depression and adverse child outcomes are well established and have been described through one or more mechanisms: child psychopathology following exposure to a depressed caregiver, child psychopathology exacerbating a caregiver's depression, and caregiver and offspring depression sharing the same etiology. Data from low and middle-income countries is scarce. We examined correlations between common symptoms of mental disorders in caregivers and their offspring's psychopathology in a Brazilian sample. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, adult caregivers were screened for depression during routine home visits by community health workers as part of the Brazilian Family Health Strategy. Caregivers with suspected depression were assessed using the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale and the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). Children's symptoms were evaluated using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results: The sample included 68 primary caregivers and 110 children aged 6 to 15 years. Higher caregiver scores on the SRQ-20 correlated significantly with psychiatric symptoms in offspring. Conclusion: These results substantiate our hypothesis that child psychopathology correlates with caregivers' psychiatric symptoms. This paper adds to the growing literature on community mental health assessment and can help guide future strategies for reducing the burden of common mental disorders in caregivers and children alike in low and middle-income countries.Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) [2012/17485-4]Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq)Instituto LemannNIMH [D43 TW009675, T32 MH096724, T32-MH19139, K01MH104514]Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES)Columbia University Department of Psychiatry/New York State Psychiatric Institute [T32MH096724]Univ Fed Sao Paulo UNIFESP, Dept Psiquiatria, Sao Paulo, SP, BrazilNew York State Psychiat Inst & Hosp, Div Epidemiol, New York, NY 10032 USAColumbia Univ Coll Phys & Surg, Dept Psychiat, 722 W 168th St, New York, NY 10032 USANew York State Psychiat Inst & Hosp, Div Child Psychiat, New York, NY 10032 USAUniv Fed Sao Paulo UNIFESP, Dept Psiquiatria, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil(FAPESP) [2012/17485-4]NIMH [D43 TW009675, T32 MH096724, T32-MH19139, K01MH104514]Columbia University Department of Psychiatry/New York State Psychiatric Institute [T32MH096724]Web of Scienc

An index to examine the sexual HIV risk of psychiatric service users based on sexual partners

Numerous studies report higher HIV infection rates among psychiatric patients than in the general population.1 Relative to other HIV-affected populations, they have higher rates of HIV-related risk behaviors in fewer sexual occasions, including multiple partners, partners of unknown or positive HIV status, sex in exchange for money, shelter or goods, and low condom use rates.2 We present a new HIV risk index (RI)3 that takes into account differential risk associated with these factors

Calibration of the Logarithmic-Periodic Dipole Antenna (LPDA) Radio Stations at the Pierre Auger Observatory using an Octocopter

An in-situ calibration of a logarithmic periodic dipole antenna with a frequency coverage of 30 MHz to 80 MHz is performed. Such antennas are part of a radio station system used for detection of cosmic ray induced air showers at the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the so-called Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA). The directional and frequency characteristics of the broadband antenna are investigated using a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) carrying a small transmitting antenna. The antenna sensitivity is described by the vector effective length relating the measured voltage with the electric-field components perpendicular to the incoming signal direction. The horizontal and meridional components are determined with an overall uncertainty of 7.4^{+0.9}_{-0.3} % and 10.3^{+2.8}_{-1.7} % respectively. The measurement is used to correct a simulated response of the frequency and directional response of the antenna. In addition, the influence of the ground conductivity and permittivity on the antenna response is simulated. Both have a negligible influence given the ground conditions measured at the detector site. The overall uncertainties of the vector effective length components result in an uncertainty of 8.8^{+2.1}_{-1.3} % in the square root of the energy fluence for incoming signal directions with zenith angles smaller than 60{\deg}.Comment: Published version. Updated online abstract only. Manuscript is unchanged with respect to v2. 39 pages, 15 figures, 2 table

Multi-resolution anisotropy studies of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory

We report a multi-resolution search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory with local zenith angles up to $80^\circ$ and energies in excess of 4 EeV ($4 \times 10^{18}$ eV). This search is conducted by measuring the angular power spectrum and performing a needlet wavelet analysis in two independent energy ranges. Both analyses are complementary since the angular power spectrum achieves a better performance in identifying large-scale patterns while the needlet wavelet analysis, considering the parameters used in this work, presents a higher efficiency in detecting smaller-scale anisotropies, potentially providing directional information on any observed anisotropies. No deviation from isotropy is observed on any angular scale in the energy range between 4 and 8 EeV. Above 8 EeV, an indication for a dipole moment is captured; while no other deviation from isotropy is observed for moments beyond the dipole one. The corresponding $p$-values obtained after accounting for searches blindly performed at several angular scales, are $1.3 \times 10^{-5}$ in the case of the angular power spectrum, and $2.5 \times 10^{-3}$ in the case of the needlet analysis. While these results are consistent with previous reports making use of the same data set, they provide extensions of the previous works through the thorough scans of the angular scales.Comment: Published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Added Report Numbe