Publications by authors named "D S Hungerford"
Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) infections affect one in five people in the UK and local authorities play a crucial role in controlling these infections. However, there have been substantial reductions in funding for environmental and regulatory (ER) services that enable GI infectious disease prevention and control via food safety and infection control (FSIC) services. This study investigates how local funding cuts to these services have varied across England to understand the potential consequences of inequalities in GI infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of localised Tier 3 restrictions, implemented in England in December 2020, on reducing COVID-19 hospitalisations compared with less stringent Tier 2 measures and the variations by neighbourhood deprivation and the prevalence of Alpha (B.1.1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To quantify changes in inequalities in uptake of childhood vaccination during a period of steadily declining overall childhood vaccination rates in England.
Design: Longitudinal study.
Setting: General practice data for five vaccines administered to children (first and second doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR1 and MMR2, respectively), rotavirus vaccine, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) booster, and six-in-one (DTaP/IPV/Hib/HepB) vaccine covering diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, type b, and hepatitis B) from the Cover of Vaccination Uptake Evaluated Rapidly dataset in England.
Article Synopsis
- The Rotarix® vaccine was introduced in Malawi's national immunization program in October 2012, and a study analyzed data on children under 5 with acute gastroenteritis from January 2012 to June 2022, comparing it to pre-vaccination data from 1997 to 2009.
- Post-vaccine introduction, there was a significant decline in cases of rotavirus-associated gastroenteritis (RVGE), with vaccine coverage exceeding 90% by mid-2014 but dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic before rebounding.
- The estimated overall vaccine effectiveness was modest at 36.0%, peaking in 2014 and being highest among infants at 52.5%, demonstrating the need
Previous systematic literature reviews of rotavirus genotype circulation in Europe and the Middle East are limited because they do not include country-specific prevalence data. This study documents country-specific evidence on the prevalence of rotavirus genotypes in Europe and the Middle East to enable more precise epidemiological modeling and contribute to the evidence-base about circulating rotavirus genotypes in the post-vaccination era. This study systematically searched PubMed, Embase and Scopus for all empirical epidemiological studies that presented genotype-specific surveillance data for countries in Europe and the Middle East published between 2006 and 2021.
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