Search

The farming of animals is one of the largest industries, with animal food products, milk, and dairy being crucial components of the global economy. However, zoonotic bacterial diseases, including brucellosis, pose significant risks to human health. The goal of this research is to develop a mathematical model to understand the spread of brucellosis in cattle populations, utilizing the Caputo-Fabrizio operator to control the disease's incidence rate. The existence and uniqueness of the model's solution are ensured through the Lipschitz conditions, the contraction mapping theorem, and the application of the kernel properties of the Caputo-Fabrizio operator. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to assess the impact of various factors on the disease's progression. This study performs a realistic stability analysis of both global and local stability at the disease-free and the endemic equilibrium point which give a more accurate understanding of the dynamism and behavior of the system. Stability analysis is performed using Picard stability in Banach spaces, and Lagrange's interpolation formula is employed to obtain initial approximations for successive fractional orders. The findings of this study demonstrate that fractional orders, along with memory effects, play a crucial role in describing the transmission dynamics of brucellosis. Sensitivity analysis helps identify the parameters most critical to the infection rate, providing essential data for potential control measures. The results highlight the applicability of the Caputo-Fabrizio operator in modeling the transmission of infectious diseases like brucellosis and offer a strong foundation for controlling disease spread within communities., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interest: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Pakistan witnessed five waves of COVID-19 infections during the pandemic. Punjab, the largest province of Pakistan, remained the epicentre due to a high infection rate. Administrative data for five waves of the pandemic was analyzed to determine the rate of infections and the significance of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions on the severity and duration of infection., Methodology: COVID-19 data from March 2020 to May 2023 was obtained from the Provincial Public Health Reference Laboratory (PPHRL), Punjab AIDS Control Program, Lahore. The data included samples from index cases, contacts, and recovered patients. A total of 36,252,48 cases were screened for COVID-19, and 90,923 (2.50%) were detected positive by RT-PCR, accounting for 5.69% of the cases reported positive throughout the country., Results: Among the positive cases, 50.86% (n = 46,244) cases were new cases (registered for the first time), 40.41% (n = 36751) were the contact cases traced from the newly identified cases and 8.62% (n = 7842) repeated cases. The positivity rates among index cases were reported to be 2.37%, 2.34%, 4.61%, 2.09%, and 1.19%, respectively, for the five respective COVID-19 pandemic waves. Distribution by gender indicated that 64% of males and 35% of females were infected during the pandemic. The age factor demonstrated the most susceptibility to infection in women aged 19-29 years, whereas most males between the ages of 29-39 had an infection. Susceptibility to COVID-19 infection was observed to be equally likely between males and females; however, clinical outcomes indicated that infections in males were more severe and often resulted in fatalities as compared to those in females. This trend was also reflected in the viral titer as measured by the Ct values, where 40% of males had Ct values < 25 (an indicator of high viral titers) compared to 30% of females with Ct values < 25., Conclusion: Overall, our data indicated that infection rates remained stable throughout the pandemic except for 3rd wave, which showed a higher incidence of infection rate of 4%. Additionally, data showed a positive impact of masking, social distancing, and immunization, as indicated by the shorter window of high infection rates., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain, unfavorable working conditions, and assessment of occupational injuries among sawmill workers. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, measurement of handgrip strength, working environment, and occupational injuries were assessed among 135 sawmill workers participating in the study. The data showed that sawmill workers complained of discomfort (pain) felt primarily in the low back region of the body followed by the shoulders, hands, knees, upper back, and wrist. This study indicated that sawmill workers had less handgrip strength due to more intense manual work than control subjects. Based on the results of this study, it was concluded that sawmill workers were highly affected due to working in an awkward posture with manual material handling for an extended period of time and that these factors may lead to work-related musculoskeletal disorders as well as occupational injuries. Proper training, a proper work-rest schedule, and modifications of some working procedures may reduce injuries and work-related musculoskeletal pain., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Introduction: The benchmarking for medication incidents rate is not regarded as a recognized key performance measure or indicator in national or international organizations. The absence of benchmarking the medication incidents results in the loss of a self-governing perception of how well we performed compared to other peers., Methodology and Settings: This 600-bed tertiary, Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited hospital retrospective analysis looked at all medication management-related events from January-2018 to December-2021. The study design follows descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective prevalence research., Results: The rate of medication incidents that resulted in harm declined from Q3-2019 to Q4-2021. A significant increase in Pharmacy interventions/clarifications was recorded. Additionally, a significant increase in incidents reported with no-harm coupled with a significant reduction in incidences of serious events from 2019 to 2020. Finally, no-harm events were significantly reduced from 2020 to 2021., Discussion: The Pharmacy's study analyzed every medication incident documented from 2019 to 2021. 99.7% of reported incidents were classified as no-harm (near misses). There was an exponential decrease from Q1-2020 to Q1-202. A significant increase in incidents fell in the category of (near misses) with no-harm and a significant reduction in serious events. Pharmacy interventions/clarifications saw a massive increase and impact from Q3-2018 to Q2-2019, compared to the same period in 2018. By preventing medical incidents, benchmarking, and analyzing incidents and the reporting system, the use of information technology could dramatically reduce the rate of drug incidents., Conclusion: This study found that benchmarking medication incidents is valuable, as it can help identify areas where improvements can be made, implement strategies to improve safety, and track progress over time. The benchmark was recommended to be below 100 incidents for every 10,000 prescriptions/orders processed, and for E-I categories, below one incident for every 10,000 prescriptions/orders processed. This will help develop a worldwide standard with an absolved culture with non-punitive consequences., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.)

Background Cancer is an ongoing global health concern; it is the greatest cause of mortality in the industrialized world and the second-highest cause of death in the developing world. This study aims to assess the incidence and geographic distribution of nasopharyngeal cancer between 2007 and 2016 in Saudi Arabia. Methods Data between 2007 and 2016 from Saudi Cancer Registry reports were collected in this study. These reports provide information on all cancer cases, including the age, sex, geographic location, and year of diagnosis for each patient. Result Between 2007 and 2016, the Saudi Cancer Registry identified 110,075 cancer cases in total. The mean age-standardized rate of all cancer types for women was 51.7 compared with 48.2 for men. The percentage of cases of nasopharyngeal cancers was 1.2% for women and 2.2% for men in 2007. This percentage decreased to 0.8% for women and increased to 2.7% for men in 2016 in comparison to all cancer cases. The curve for nasopharyngeal cancer of all cancer types for men and women correlated with rises and drops in men over the study period, and a minor decrease in women over time, until another rise in 2016. A positive correlation was observed between nasopharyngeal cancer incidence and age. The age-standardized rate data for nasopharyngeal cancer cases demonstrated a wide variation across Saudi regions. The age-standardized rate per 100,000 people from 2007 to 2016 ranged from 0.39 in Jazan to 1.92 in Qassim, with a national average of 1.06. Conclusion From 2007 to 2016, the overall trend of the age-standardized rate for men fluctuated while the female rate slightly dropped before rising again. On the contrary, the incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer varies by region in Saudi Arabia. Further study of this variation would help focus awareness campaigns on the most susceptible regions., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2022, Kabli et al.)

Child labor is an infraction of fundamental human rights, and it prevents the children's physical, psychosocial, and psychological development. In India, children have been working in different unorganized sectors as paid laborers. Children were found performing a fair amount of manual, rigorous tasks in the brickfield industry due to socioeconomic disadvantages. Child brickfield workers suffered from musculoskeletal pain and injuries due to working with a heavy physical workload, which hampers the overall quality of life. A study had been conducted among these child brickfield laborers from India during 2011-2017. The study found laceration (38.7% male and 36.9% female) as the primary injury followed by sprain and strain, scratches, avulsion, and fractures among child brickfield workers. The study shows that child workers are highly prone to injuries, mainly toe (23.9% male and 28.1% female), hands (22.0% male and 23.4% female), wrists, feet, ankles, and fingers. The injury rate among male and female child brickfield laborers was 7.64 and 9.52 per 1000 workers. The primary source of injuries in brickfields was due to falling from height. Several risk factors, including biomechanical, work stress, may play a key role in work-related injuries among child brickfield laborers.

Background: School urinary screening has been performed in Japan., Methods: Ikeda City and Toyono Town introduced, in 2012 and 2013, urinary protein/creatinine (Cr) ratio measurement into the urine-screening protocols designed for students aged between 4 and 15 years. For each student whose urinary protein/Cr ratio was ≥ 0.15 g/gCr (positive case), an appointment was made with a specialist at Ikeda City Hospital. The results of these screening urinalyses conducted through 2018 are summarized., Results: 14,606 junior high and elementary school students aged between 6 and 15 years were included. On average, they underwent 4.16 screening tests. 77 positive cases were detected, and seven students were diagnosed with high-risk chronic kidney disease (CKD). Of these, four underwent renal biopsy, and two, one, and one were diagnosed with IgA nephropathy, MPGN, and FSGS, respectively. In three students, detection of CKD would have been difficult without urinary screening. Incident rates of high-risk CKD and IgA nephropathy are estimated as 11.5 and 3.3 cases/100,000 students/year. 78.0% of positive cases without high-risk CKD showed no urinary abnormality after one year. 2301 kindergarten students aged between 4 and 6 years received an average of 1.74 screening urinalyses; none was positive or high-risk CKD. The estimated cost of detecting one high-risk CKD student whose detection would have been difficult without this screening was 3,156,711 Japanese yen., Conclusion: School urinary screening using the urinary protein/Cr ratio can efficiently refer to a specialist. It detects a few children with high-risk CKD early with spending high cost.

Introduction and objectives With such a huge country as Saudi Arabia, it would be expected to have variations in the pattern and incidence of breast diseases. This study aims to determine the recent trends in breast cancer incidence rates by age and tumor characteristics among female patients treated in the Armed Forces Hospital Southern Region (AFHSR) from the period of January 2010 to December 2017. Methods This study is a retrospective chart review where all breast biopsy reports of female patients were seen between January 2010 and December 2017 at the AFHSR, Saudi Arabia, to observe the pattern of breast cancer as well as to calculate the incidence rates by age and tumor characteristics among the study subjects. Results Overall, the incidence rates of breast cancer among female patients ranged between three to eight confirmed cases of breast cancer for every 1000 patients for the period of 2010 to 2017, where the highest incidence rate was reported in the year of 2017. Additionally, two distinct patterns are observed in breast cancer trends, i.e., the most common type of cancer was ductal carcinoma with an incidence percentage of 81.80%, followed by lobular carcinoma (3.40%). There was no statistical evidence that the associated population means of age are significantly different from the type of tumor characteristics. Conclusions In this study, the average age for diagnosed women with invasive breast cancer is about 56 years of age while in situ is 51 years. Among women of all age groups, ductal carcinoma is the most common. There is also an increase in the incidence of breast cancer between 2016 to 2017, where the highest incidence rate was reported in the year 2017. Continued vigilance, mammographic screening, and patient education are needed to establish an early diagnosis and perform the optimal treatment., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2020, Asiri et al.)

In a cohort of 4,225 persons living with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection (PLWH) enrolled at a southeastern US clinic, the overall rate of incident herpes zoster (HZ) was 101 per 10,000 person-years (PY) between January 1999 and 2017, which nearly quadruples the rate reported for the general US population. In the same cohort, the median age of HZ diagnosis was 39.5 years [interquartile range (IQR) 31.5-49.2] in African American (AA) and 39.1 years (IQR 34.9-45.2) in European American (EA) PLWH, with the highest incidence seen in PLWH who were over 50 years old (144 and 93 per 10,000 PY in AA and EA, respectively, P  = 0.18), showing no bias between men (100 per 10,000 PY) and women (101 per 10,000 PY). In multivariable models that were applicable to 245 HZ cases and 3,713 controls, age, nadir CD4 + T-cell (CD4) count, plasma viral load (VL), and duration of combination antiretroviral therapy were independent correlates of incident HZ (adjusted P  ≤ 0.006 for all). Regardless of other factors, viremic PLWH (VL > 50 copies/mL) was at the highest risk of HZ [adjusted odds ratio (OR) > 3.0, P  < 0.0001]. PLWH with a nadir CD4 count of ≥500 cells/μL showed a relatively low risk (adjusted OR = 0.48, P  = 0.003). By contrast, similar risk estimates were observed with three advancing age groups (30-39, 40-49, and ≥50) when compared with age <30 (adjusted OR = 1.86-2.17, P  ≤ 0.010). These findings indicate that efforts for HZ diagnosis and prophylaxis should target viremic PLWH who are over 30 years old and with CD4 count <500 cells/μL.

Agriculture is one of the most hazardous industries with high rates of accidental death, injury and occurrences of work related illnesses. The main objective of the study is to assess types, categories and number of incident rate of the accidents along with the causes of accidents as well as with the affected parts of the different parts of the body among the agricultural workers. The number of injuries that occurred during 2006-2010 for male and female farmers was 214 and 109, respectively, in West Bengal. The leading external causes of farm injury were hand tools (64.7%)), farm machinery (29.1%) and others (6.2%). The most frequently involved tools in hand injuries were spade and sickle. Fingers of both limbs are the most affected parts of the body followed by feet, ankle, hand, wrist and lower back. From this study it was also observed that the male agricultural workers are much more affected than female agricultural workers. The incident rate among male and female agricultural workers was 8.99 per 1000 workers per year and 7.89 per 1000 workers per year, respectively. So due to injuries in both groups of agricultiral workers, their health, productivity and work performance were consequently affected.