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The number of COVID-19 cases continues to surge globally, with millions of people affected and many innocent lives lost. Thailand reported the first confirmed COVID-19 case on 13th January 2020. Among the three waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand, the third wave is more severe than the previous waves, indicating a lack of strong public health interventions. The health authorities in Thailand are constantly promoting the COVID-19 vaccination plan to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus. Facing economic pressure, the government decided to open up border tourism from 1st November 2021 and continue monitoring the COVID-19 transmission among the community. The war against COVID-19 is still ongoing. In order to win this challenging war, unified collaborations between public, governmental agencies, and industries are essential for long-term success for all humanity.

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) has been reported in one-third of women worldwide at different life stages, due to the complex balance in the ecology of the vaginal microbiota. It is a common cause of abnormal vaginal discharge and is associated with other health issues. Since the first description of anaerobic microbes associated with BV like Gardnerella vaginalis in the 1950s, researchers have stepped up the game by incorporating advanced molecular tools to monitor and evaluate the extent of dysbiosis within the vaginal microbiome, particularly on how specific microbial population changes compared to a healthy state. Moreover, treatment failure and BV recurrence rate remain high despite the standard antibiotic treatment. Consequently, researchers have been probing into alternative or adjunct treatments, including probiotics or even vaginal microbiota transplants, to ensure successful treatment outcomes and reduce the colonization by pathogenic microbes of the female reproductive tract. The current review summarizes the latest findings in probiotics use for BV and explores the potential of vaginal microbiota transplants in restoring vaginal health.

A three-branch viscoelastic model based on fractional derivatives is proposed for the viscoelastic behaviours of solid propellants. The simulation results show a satisfactory agreement with the stress relaxation modulus and complex modulus of solid propellants. As a comparison, the static modulus is also characterized by traditional viscoelastic model with integer-order derivatives. Results show that the application of the fractional derivatives to the viscoelastic constitutive model can effectively reduce the number of the required parameters while giving an accurate prediction of viscoelastic behaviours of solid propellants. Moreover, a simple and effective direct search method based on simulated annealing and Powell's mothed is proposed for the data fitting. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advanced materials modelling via fractional calculus: challenges and perspectives'.