Safety and immunogenicity of a live-attenuated chikungunya virus vaccine in endemic areas of Brazil: interim results of a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial in adolescents.

Background: Chikungunya outbreaks have been reported in Brazil since 2014. Adolescents are a sensitive population who would benefit from a prophylactic vaccine. This study assessed the immunogenicity and safety of the vaccine VLA1553 in adolescents in Brazil.

Clinical-laboratory characteristics predictive of COVID-19 severity: a prospective hospital cohort, in Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil.

Objective: To describe the clinical-laboratory profile and analyze the factors associated with the severity of COVID-19.

Methods: A prospective cohort study involving patients with COVID-19 admitted to a tertiary hospital in Recife, Brazil. All cases were confirmed by RT-PCR and classified according to severity criteria.

The Development of a One-Step RT-qPCR for the Detection and Quantification of Viable Forms of in Açai Samples from Areas at Risk of Chagas Disease through Oral Transmission.

Currently, approximately 70% of new cases of Chagas disease (CD) in Brazil are attributed to oral transmission, particularly through foods such as açaí, bacaba, and sugarcane juice, primarily in the northern and northeastern regions of the country. This underscores the imperative need to control the spread of the disease. The methods utilized to conduct quality control for food associated with outbreaks and to assess the potential for the oral transmission of CD through consuming açaí primarily rely on isolating the parasite or inoculating food into experimental animals, restricting the analyses to major research centers.

Insecticidal activity of fluralaner (Exzolt) administered to Gallus gallus domesticus against triatomines (Hemiptera, Reduviidae, Triatominae).

Background: Triatoma infestans, Triatoma brasiliensis, Triatoma pseudomaculata and Rhodnius prolixus are vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease. Chickens serve as an important blood food source for triatomines. This study aimed to assess the insecticidal activity of fluralaner (Exzolt) administered to chickens against triatomines (R.

Learning what matters: Synaptic plasticity with invariance to second-order input correlations.

Cortical populations of neurons develop sparse representations adapted to the statistics of the environment. To learn efficient population codes, synaptic plasticity mechanisms must differentiate relevant latent features from spurious input correlations, which are omnipresent in cortical networks. Here, we develop a theory for sparse coding and synaptic plasticity that is invariant to second-order correlations in the input.

Urban Advanced Mobility Dependability: A Model-Based Quantification on Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks with Virtual Machine Migration.

In the rapidly evolving urban advanced mobility (UAM) sphere, Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are crucial for robust communication and operational efficiency in future urban environments. This paper quantifies VANETs to improve their reliability and availability, essential for integrating UAM into urban infrastructures. It proposes a novel Stochastic Petri Nets (SPN) method for evaluating VANET-based Vehicle Communication and Control (VCC) architectures, crucial given the dynamic demands of UAM.

Body Mass Index Profile of Adult Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in a Multicenter Study in Northeastern Brazil.

Purpose: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a disease of increasing prevalence in developing countries. Obesity has emerged as a potential risk for IBD; however, the data in the literature are conflicting, and relevant studies in Brazil are limited. Here, we report body mass index profile (BMI) of patients with IBD treated at reference centers in three states of northeastern Brazil.

Unraveling phylogenetic relationships and species boundaries in the arid adapted Gerbillus rodents (Muridae: Gerbillinae) by RAD-seq data.

Gerbillus is one of the most speciose genera among rodents, with ca. 51 recognized species. Previous attempts to reconstruct the evolutionary history of Gerbillus mainly relied on the mitochondrial cyt-b marker as a source of phylogenetic information.

Seroprevalence of Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika at the epicenter of the congenital microcephaly epidemic in Northeast Brazil: A population-based survey.

Background: The four Dengue viruses (DENV) serotypes were re-introduced in Brazil's Northeast region in a couple of decades, between 1980's and 2010's, where the DENV1 was the first detected serotype and DENV4 the latest. Zika (ZIKV) and Chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses were introduced in Recife around 2014 and led to large outbreaks in 2015 and 2016, respectively. However, the true extent of the ZIKV and CHIKV outbreaks, as well as the risk factors associated with exposure to these viruses remain vague.

A Multicentre Study of the Clinical and Epidemiological Profile of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Northeast Brazil.

Purpose: Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) with multifactorial causes. They are becoming more prevalent in developing countries such as Brazil; however, relevant studies in poorer regions of the country are limited. Here, we report the clinical-epidemiological profile of patients with IBD treated at reference centers in three states of Northeast Brazil.

Temporal assessment of entomological surveillance of Trypanosoma cruzi vectors in an endemic area of northeastern Brazil.

Entomological surveillance is essential for the control of triatomines and the prevention of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in humans and domestic animals. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate entomological indicators and triatomine control during the period from 2005 to 2015 in an endemic area in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This observational and retrospective study was developed based on data analysis related to active entomological surveillance activities and chemical control of infested housing units (HU) in the Agreste mesoregion of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, in the period between 2005 to 2015.

Exploring the correlations between indicators of COVID-19 and the concentration of pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater treatment plants in Northern Portugal.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus led to changes in the lifestyle and human behaviour, which resulted in different consumption patterns of some classes of pharmaceuticals including curative, symptom-relieving, and psychotropic drugs. The trends in the consumption of these compounds are related to their concentrations in wastewater systems, since incompletely metabolised drugs (or their metabolites back transformed into the parental form) may be detected and quantified by analytical methods. Pharmaceuticals are highly recalcitrant compounds and conventional activated sludge processes implemented in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are ineffective at degrading these substances.

Dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya viral circulation and hospitalization rates in Brazil from 2014 to 2019: An ecological study.

Background: In addition to their direct pathogenic effects, arthropod-borne (arboviruses) have been hypothesized to indirectly contribute to hospitalizations and death through decompensation of pre-existing comorbidities. Using nationwide data routinely collected from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2019 in Brazil, we investigated whether local increases in arbovirus notifications were associated with excess hospitalization.

Methods: We estimated the relative risks for the association between municipality- and state-level increases in arboviral case notifications and age-standardized hospitalization rates (i.

Myopericarditis associated with acute Zika virus infection: a case report.

Background: Zika virus infection is commonly described as a mild and self-limiting illness. However, cardiac complications were associated with acute Zika virus infection.

Case Presentation: A 46-year-old woman without previous comorbidities with a 1-day history of symptoms tested positive for ZIKV by real time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR).

Loss of life estimation and risk level classification due to a dam break.

This report estimated the loss of life and the variation of risk level to people and properties from the city of São José do Jacuípe, at Bahia State, in Brazil, through a simulation of the dam break near the city. The simulations employ the HEC-RAS program with the HEC-GeoRAS plugin, both made available by the U.S.

Model-Driven Impact Quantification of Energy Resource Redundancy and Server Rejuvenation on the Dependability of Medical Sensor Networks in Smart Hospitals.

The spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic across countries all over the world urges governments to revolutionize the traditional medical hospitals/centers to provide sustainable and trustworthy medical services to patients under the pressure of the huge overload on the computing systems of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for medical monitoring as well as treatment services of medical professionals. Uncertain malfunctions in any part of the medical computing infrastructure, from its power system in a remote area to the local computing systems at a smart hospital, can cause critical failures in medical monitoring services, which could lead to a fatal loss of human life in the worst case. Therefore, early design in the medical computing infrastructure's power and computing systems needs to carefully consider the dependability characteristics, including the reliability and availability of the WSNs in smart hospitals under an uncertain outage of any part of the energy resources or failures of computing servers, especially due to software aging.

Performability Evaluation of Load Balancing and Fail-over Strategies for Medical Information Systems with Edge/Fog Computing Using Stochastic Reward Nets.

The aggressive waves of ongoing world-wide virus pandemics urge us to conduct further studies on the performability of local computing infrastructures at hospitals/medical centers to provide a high level of assurance and trustworthiness of medical services and treatment to patients, and to help diminish the burden and chaos of medical management and operations. Previous studies contributed tremendous progress on the dependability quantification of existing computing paradigms (e.g.

Insecticidal efficacy of fluralaner (Bravecto) against Triatoma brasiliensis, a major vector of Trypanosoma cruzi in Brazil.

Background: Triatomines are responsible for the vector transmission of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas disease. Triatoma brasiliensis is the main vector of the parasite in Brazil, and dogs are an important reservoir of the parasite. The aim of this study was to evaluate the insecticidal effect of fluralaner (Bravecto) on T.

Virulence of Strains Is Related to the Differential Expression of Innate Immune Receptors in the Heart.

Resistance or susceptibility to infection is dependent on the host immunological profile. Innate immune receptors, such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs/TLR2, TLR4, TLR7, and TLR9) and Nod-like receptors (NLRs/NOD1 and NLRP3 inflammasome) are involved with the resistance against acute experimental infection. Here, we evaluated the impact of virulence on the expression of innate immune receptors and its products in mice.

α-Gal immunization positively impacts Trypanosoma cruzi colonization of heart tissue in a mouse model.

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is considered endemic in more than 20 countries but lacks both an approved vaccine and limited treatment for its chronic stage. Chronic infection is most harmful to human health because of long-term parasitic infection of the heart. Here we show that immunization with a virus-like particle vaccine displaying a high density of the immunogenic α-Gal trisaccharide (Qβ-αGal) induced several beneficial effects concerning acute and chronic T.

Guillain-Barré syndrome during the Zika virus outbreak in Northeast Brazil: An observational cohort study.

Objective: To determine the clinical phenotype of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) after Zika virus (ZIKV) infection, the anti-glycolipid antibody signature, and the role of other circulating arthropod-borne viruses, we describe a cohort of GBS patients identified during ZIKV and chikungunya virus (CHIKV) outbreaks in Northeast Brazil.

Methods: We prospectively recruited GBS patients from a regional neurology center in Northeast Brazil between December 2014 and February 2017. Serum and CSF were tested for ZIKV, CHIKV, and dengue virus (DENV), by RT-PCR and antibodies, and serum was tested for GBS-associated antibodies to glycolipids.