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We isolated Getah virus from infected foxes in Shandong Province, eastern China. We sequenced the complete Getah virus genome, and phylogenetic analysis revealed a close relationship with a highly pathogenic swine epidemic strain in China. Epidemiologic investigation showed that pigs might play a pivotal role in disease transmission to foxes.

Improvement in the quality of life is reflected in the narrowing of the gap between health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) and life expectancy (LE). The effect of megacity expansion on narrowing the gap is rarely reported. This study aimed to disclose this potential relationship. Annual life tables were constructed from identified death records and population counts from multiple administrative sources in Guangzhou, China, from 2010 to 2020. Joinpoint regression was used to evaluate the temporal trend. Generalized principal component analysis and multilevel models were applied to examine the county-level association between the gap and social determinants. Although LE and HALE in megacities are increasing steadily, their gap is widening. Socio-economic and health services are guaranteed to narrow this gap. Increasing personal wealth, a growing number of newborns and healthy immigrants, high urbanization, and healthy aging have helped in narrowing this gap. In megacities, parallel LE and HALE growth should be highly considered to narrow their gap. Multiple social determinants need to be integrated as a whole to formulate public health plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Quantitative attribution of the burden of disease due to population aging is an important part of setting meaningful global health priorities. This study comprehensively examines the burden of disease attributable to population aging in 188 countries from 1990 to 2019, incorporates a comprehensive range of diseases, and projects the burden of disease due to population aging till 2050.Methods: We extracted data from 1990 to 2019 for 188 countries from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. We decomposed the change in disease burden into the contribution of the age structure of the population, population size, and age-specific disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) rates due to all other reasons. We used the Bayesian age-period-cohort model to evaluate the effects of age on temporal trends, and then to predict the possible disease burden in 2050.Results: At the global level, the change in total DALYs associated with age structure, population size, and all other reasons is 27.4%, 16.8%, and 89.4% (absolute level of DALYs attributable to age structure: -15.20 million, 9.32 million, and -49.58 million) of the absolute level of DALYs gap between 2019 and 1990. The absolute level of DALYs changes attributable to age structure for communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases were negative in all income groups from 1990 to 2019. For non-communicable diseases, the contribution was positive except in the low-income group. For injuries, the contribution was positive in lower-middle-income groups and low-income groups. By 2050, DALY rates decreased in all income groups, if compared to 2019. However, a total of 132 countries may see a gradual increase of all-cause DALYs attributable to population aging.Conclusions: The direction and intensity of the effects of population aging on the burden of disease vary by region and disease, with huge implications for global health in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Batai virus (BATV) is an arthropod-borne single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the genus Orthobunyavirus of the family Bunyaviridae that is primarily transmitted by mosquitoes. Methods for detecting BATV are currently limited to serological surveillance, virus isolation, and conventional reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. In this study, we sought to develop a BATV detection assay that needs no specialized equipment and is highly specific, sensitive, and simple. We first developed and optimized a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) for rapid detection of BATV that uses two pairs of primers to amplify a conserved region of the BATV M gene. The optimal reaction conditions for this RT-LAMP BATV detection assay were 40 min at 65°C. The amplification products could be visualized directly for color changes. This RT-LAMP method has a detection limit of 2.86 copies/μL and a sensitivity that was approximately 10- and 100-fold greater than real-time and conventional RT-PCR, respectively. RT-LAMP for BATV detection showed no cross-reactivity with other viruses and its sensitivity was validated with cattle blood and mosquito specimens. Our results suggest that this RT-LAMP method was simpler and faster than conventional RT-PCR or real-time RT-PCR. Moreover, RT-LAMP represents a potential tool to test for BATV in clinical and mosquito samples, especially in rural areas of China. This method also shows promise as a diagnostic tool due to its rapid and sensitive detection without the need for sophisticated equipment or complicated protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As a key link between innate and adaptive immune responses, the interferon (IFN) system is the first line of defense against viral infection. IFN, and in particular, IFN-α, has been used clinically as an effective therapeutic agent for viral infections. However, different subtypes of IFN-α demonstrate distinct antiviral activity. Therefore, it is important to identify IFN-α subtypes with high antiviral activity for the development of genetically engineered antiviral drugs. Results: In this study, we cloned the genes for 13 IFN-α subtypes from peripheral blood lymphocytes of the mink. The homologies of the 13 mink IFN-α genes were 93.6-99.3% and 88.8-98.4% at the nucleotide and amino acid sequence levels, respectively. In contrast to human and canine IFN-α subtypes, most mink IFN-α subtypes contained two N-glycosylation sites. We expressed and purified 13 mink IFN-α subtypes in Escherichia coli. The cytopathic effect inhibition assay showed that all the 13 recombinant mink IFN-α subtypes inhibited the propagation of vesicular stomatitis virus in WISH cells, with IFN-α2 and IFN-α12 demonstrating the highest activities. Furthermore, recombinant mink IFN-α2 and IFN-α12 significantly suppressed the propagation of canine distemper virus in Vero cells, with IFN-α2 demonstrating the highest activity. Conclusions: We identified the mink IFN-α2 subtype as a promising candidate for the development of effective antiviral drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Batai virus (BATV) is a member of the Orthobunyavirus genus of the family Bunyaviridae, and a vector-borne pathogen. Genomic variations of BATV exist in different regions of the world, due to genetic reassortment. Whole-genome sequencing of any isolate is necessary for a phylogenetic analysis. In 1998, a BATV strain was isolated from an Anopheles philippines mosquito in Yunnan Province, China. This strain has not been found to infect any other host. We investigated BATV infection in cattle in Inner Mongolia, China and performed deep sequencing of the genome of the BATV isolate. Findings: Ninety-five blood samples were collected from cattle in Inner Mongolia, China in 2012. The BATV infection rate was 2.1%. Previously, BATV strain NM/12 was isolated from two cattle in Inner Mongolia, China, and the whole genomic sequence of the strain has been available. We determined the complete genomic nucleotide sequences of the small (S), medium (M), and large (L) genome segments using bovine blood obtained in 2012, and the nucleotide homologies of these segments with those from GenBank were 88.7%-97%, 84%-95.4%, and 72.6%-95.8%, respectively. The deduced amino acid identities were 87.2-99.7%, 64.2-96.8%, and 81.1-98.6%. Phylogenetic analyses based on full-length genomic sequences indicated that the M and L segments, and a portion of the S segment, of NM/12 are most closely related to the BATV strains isolated in Asia. The S and M segments of NM/12 were independent of phylogenetic lineages. The L segment was the most closely related to Chittoor/IG-20217 (isolated in India), and distantly related to isolated strains in Italy. Nucleotide substitution rates in the nucleotide sequences that code for the nucleocapsid, envelope glycoprotein, and polymerase protein of NM/12 strain were 2.56%, 4.69%, and 4.21%, respectively, relative to the original strain of MM2222. Conclusion: A novel BATV NM/12 strain from bovine serum collected in Inner Mongolia was isolated from cattle in China for the first time. Our findings elucidate the evolutionary status of the BATV NM/12 strain among different orthobunyavirus strains and may provide some clues to prevent the emergence of BATV infection in cattle and humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on detecting the prokaryotic expression of VP2 gene of the canine parvovirus (CPV) antibodies and the development of the recombinant protein-based indirect Enzyme-linked immusorbent assay (ELISA).

Objective: To assess the interplay among psychopathological symptoms and real-life functioning, and to further detect their influence with violent behavior in patient with schizophrenia., Methods: A sample of 1,664 patients with post-violence assessments and their propensity score-matched controls without violence from a disease registration report system of community mental health service in Guangdong, China, were studied by network analysis. Ising-Model was used to estimate networks of psychopathological symptoms and real-life functioning. Then, we tested whether network properties indicated the patterns of interaction were different between cases and controls, and calculated centrality indices of each node to identify the central nodes. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the difference of interaction patterns between pre-violence and post-violence assessments in violence cases., Results: Some nodes in the same domain were highly positive interrelations, while psychopathological symptoms were negatively related to real-life functioning in all networks. Many symptom-symptom connections and symptom-functioning connections were disconnected after the violence. The network density decreased from 23.53% to 12.42% without statistical significance ( p = 0.338). The network structure, the global network strength, and the global clustering coefficient decreased significantly after the violence ( p < 0.001, p = 0.019, and p = 0.045, respectively). Real-life functioning had a higher node strength. The strength of sleeping, lack of spontaneity and flow of conversation, and preoccupation were decreased in post-violence network of patients., Conclusion: The decreasing connectivity may indicate an increased risk of violence and early warning for detecting violence. Interventions and improving health state based on nodes with high strength might prevent violence in schizophrenia patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Chen, Tan, Xi, Xie, Lin, Wang, Wu, Liu, Gu, Jia, Du and Hao.)