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In February 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 232 evacuees from Wuhan, China, were placed under federal 14-day quarantine upon arrival at a US military base in San Diego, California. We describe the monitoring of evacuees and responders for symptoms of COVID-19, case and contact investigations, infection control procedures, and lessons learned to inform future quarantine protocols for evacuated people from a hot spot resulting from a novel pathogen. Thirteen (5.6%) evacuees had COVID-19-compatible symptoms and 2 (0.9%) had laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2. Two case investigations identified 43 contacts; 3 (7.0%) contacts had symptoms but tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Daily symptom and temperature screening of evacuees and enacted infection control procedures resulted in rapid case identification and isolation and no detected secondary transmission among evacuees or responders. Lessons learned highlight the challenges associated with public health response to a novel pathogen and the evolution of mitigation strategies as knowledge of the pathogen evolves.

Background The Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) provides antifilarial medications to hundreds of millions of people annually to treat filarial infections and prevent elephantiasis. Recent trials have shown that a single-dose, triple-drug treatment (ivermectin with diethylcarbamazine and albendazole [IDA]) is superior to a two-drug combination (diethylcarbamazine plus albendazole [DA]) that is widely used in LF elimination programs. This study was performed to assess the safety of IDA and DA in a variety of endemic settings. Methods and findings Large community studies were conducted in five countries between October 2016 and November 2017. Two studies were performed in areas with no prior mass drug administration (MDA) for filariasis (Papua New Guinea and Indonesia), and three studies were performed in areas with persistent LF despite extensive prior MDA (India, Haiti, and Fiji). Participants were treated with a single oral dose of IDA (ivermectin, 200 [mu]g/kg; diethylcarbamazine, 6 mg/kg; plus albendazole, a fixed dose of 400 mg) or with DA alone. Treatment assignment in each study site was randomized by locality of residence. Treatment was offered to residents who were [greater than or equal to]5 years of age and not pregnant. Adverse events (AEs) were assessed by medical teams with active follow-up for 2 days and passive follow-up for an additional 5 days. A total of 26,836 persons were enrolled (13,535 females and 13,300 males). A total of 12,280 participants were treated with DA, and 14,556 were treated with IDA. On day 1 or 2 after treatment, 97.4% of participants were assessed for AEs. The frequency of all AEs was similar after IDA and DA treatment (12% versus 12.1%, adjusted odds ratio for IDA versus DA 1.15, 95% CI 0.87-1.52, P = 0.316); 10.9% of participants experienced mild (grade 1) AEs, 1% experienced moderate (grade 2) AEs, and 0.1% experienced severe (grade 3) AEs. Rates of serious AEs after DA and IDA treatment were 0.04% (95% CI 0.01%-0.1%) and 0.01% (95% CI 0.00%-0.04%), respectively. Severity of AEs was not significantly different after IDA or DA. Five of six serious AEs reported occurred after DA treatment. The most common AEs reported were headache, dizziness, abdominal pain, fever, nausea, and fatigue. AE frequencies varied by country and were higher in adults and in females. AEs were more common in study participants with microfilaremia (33.4% versus 11.1%, P < 0.001) and more common in microfilaremic participants after IDA than after DA (39.4% versus 25.6%, P < 0.001). However, there was no excess of severe or serious AEs after IDA in this subgroup. The main limitation of the study was that it was open-label. Also, aggregation of AE data from multiple study sites tends to obscure variability among study sites. Conclusions In this study, we observed that IDA was well tolerated in LF-endemic populations. Posttreatment AE rates and severity did not differ significantly after IDA or DA treatment. Thus, results of this study suggest that IDA should be as safe as DA for use as a MDA regimen for LF elimination in areas that currently receive DA. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov registration number: NCT02899936, Author(s): Gary J. Weil 1,*, Joshua Bogus 1, Michael Christian 2, Christine Dubray 3, Yenny Djuardi 2, Peter U. Fischer 1, Charles W. Goss 1, Myra Hardy 4, Purushothaman Jambulingam [...]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Global Rapid Response Team (GRRT) was created in 2015 to efficiently deploy multidisciplinary CDC experts outside the United States for public health emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased the need for domestic public health responders. This study aimed to follow up on previously published data to describe the GRRT surge staffing model during the height of the COVID-19 response. We conducted descriptive analyses to assess GRRT deployment characteristics during April 1, 2019–March 31, 2022, and characteristics of responders rostered in 2021 and 2022. We analyzed data on response events, remote versus in-person work, and international versus domestic deployment location. We also examined the number of responders on call per month, language proficiency, and technical skills. During the study period, 1725 deployments were registered, accounting for 82 058 person-days deployed. Of all person-days deployed during the study period, 82% were related to COVID-19. Eighty-seven percent of all person-days deployed were domestic. Virtual deployments that were not in person accounted for 51% of deployments registered, yet these resulted in 67% of person-days deployed. The median deployment duration was 31 days. We found a median of 79 surge responders on call each month. Among 608 responders rostered in 2021 and 2022, 35% self-reported proficiency in a second language. Epidemiology was the most common technical skill (38%). GRRT transitioned to primarily remote, domestic deployments to support the COVID-19 pandemic response. The GRRT model demonstrates how response structure shifted to address the global health threat of a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) persons account for 0.7% of the U.S. population,* a recent analysis reported that 1.3% of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases reported to CDC with known race and ethnicity were among AI/AN persons (1). To assess the impact of COVID-19 among the AI/AN population, reports of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases during January 22 † -July 3, 2020 were analyzed. The analysis was limited to 23 states § with >70% complete race/ethnicity information and five or more laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases among both AI/AN persons (alone or in combination with other races and ethnicities) and non-Hispanic white (white) persons. Among 424,899 COVID-19 cases reported by these states, 340,059 (80%) had complete race/ethnicity information; among these 340,059 cases, 9,072 (2.7%) occurred among AI/AN persons, and 138,960 (40.9%) among white persons. Among 340,059 cases with complete patient race/ethnicity data, the cumulative incidence among AI/AN persons in these 23 states was 594 per 100,000 AI/AN population (95% confidence interval [CI] = 203-1,740), compared with 169 per 100,000 white population (95% CI = 137-209) (rate ratio [RR] = 3.5; 95% CI = 1.2-10.1). AI/AN persons with COVID-19 were younger (median age = 40 years; interquartile range [IQR] = 26-56 years) than were white persons (median age = 51 years; IQR = 32-67 years). More complete case report data and timely, culturally responsive, and evidence-based public health efforts that leverage the strengths of AI/AN communities are needed to decrease COVID-19 transmission and improve patient outcomes., Competing Interests: All authors have completed and submitted the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.