Publications by authors named "D C Lung"
During September-October 2021, group B Streptococcus bloodstream infections surged among patients hospitalized in Hong Kong. Of 95 cases, 57 were caused by the hypervirulent strain sequence type 283, which at the time was also found in freshwater fish and wet market environments and thus poses a transmission threat.
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- A new viral species called human circovirus (HCirV) has been identified, potentially linked to hepatitis in people with weakened immune systems.
- A study tested 278 hepatitis patients and 184 healthy individuals, finding HCirV in 2.9% of the hepatitis patients but none in healthy individuals.
- The virus appears to have a preference for liver cells, indicated by its ability to bind to liver cancer cell lines but not to lung cells, suggesting it may play a role in hepatitis, especially in immunocompromised patients.
Article Synopsis
- The study highlights the challenges in determining minimum ventilation rates needed to prevent airborne infections due to unknown quanta generation rates of viruses like SARS-CoV-2.
- Researchers investigated a specific outbreak in a restaurant using various analytical methods, revealing that all secondary infections occurred in one zone (Zone B) while two other interconnected zones remained unaffected.
- The findings suggest that the quanta generation rates during this outbreak were extremely high, indicating that simply relying on air dilution may not be enough to prevent infections in spaces with super-spreader events, necessitating the development of additional prevention strategies.
Influenza is an important respiratory viral pathogen in adults, with secondary bacterial pneumonia being a common complication. While pneumococcal vaccines can prevent pneumococcal pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease, whether they can also prevent the severe in-hospital outcomes among patients hospitalized for influenza has not been examined. A territory-wide retrospective study was conducted in Hong Kong, which included all adult patients having chronic airway diseases (asthma, bronchiectasis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) hospitalized for influenza and who had received seasonal influenza vaccine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rebound characteristics of respiratory infections after lifting pandemic control measures were uncertain. From January to November 2023, patients presenting at a teaching hospital were tested for common respiratory viruses and using a combination of antigen, nucleic acid amplification, and targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) tests. The number and rate of positive tests per month, clinical and microbiological characteristics were analyzed.
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