Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Vector host choice and the environmental context of mosquito-borne virus transmission

The present thesis explored ethological and geographical approaches for the investigation of vector-borne parasites. In the first part, the role of associative learning on vector preferences for hosts was investigated through a comprehensive series of behavioural experiments using the vector of dengue and yellow fever diseases, the mosquito Aedes aegypti. To this end, the possibility that the mosquitoes were able to associate unconditional stimuli with particular odours and visual patterns to which they were responsive was explored, but no evidence supporting the hypothesis that associative learning abilities are present in adults of this species was found. A critical review of the literature on learning in mosquitoes conducted afterward allowed the reinterpretation of findings in the field, narrowing the scope of evidence suggesting the existence of these cognitive abilities in some species.In the second part of the thesis, the distribution and evolution of mosquito-borne viruses was investigated with the use of geo-coded environmental data and spatial statistics. Initially, the eco-climates associated with the distribution of Japanese encephalitis virus were described and modelled, allowing the production of a worldwide predictive map defining the probability of each region to develop this disease in the future. Predominating amongst those areas shown to be under high risk were the equatorial regions of South America and Africa. The methodology used to infer such patterns – non-linear discriminant analysis – was subsequently explored with a number of simulations. Overall, differences in the choice of parameters required for the analysis were shown to lead to differences in the final outputs produced, basically in those cases where the environmental range for which predictions are generated is not rigorously limited. Finally, eco-climate surrogates for the evolution of the Japanese encephalitis serocomplex were investigated, but the current environmental distances between the viruses did not seem to be associated with the events leading to their speciation.</p

Can AI power the Global Mapping and Quantification of Animal Suffering? The Pain Atlas Project

The capabilities of AI have the potential to revolutionize other scientific fields too, at a pace that is difficult to comprehend. We propose that one such field is the large-scale mapping and quantification of animal suffering, and that the analytical tools required for this task are already availabl

A Novel Proposal for the Definition of Pain

This work challenges IASP definition of pain and proposes a more comprehensive understanding that includes its evolutionary, cognitive, and affective dimension