Background: Dengue is the most common arboviral disease of humans, with more than one third of the world's population at risk. Accurate prediction of dengue outbreaks may lead to public health interventions that mitigate the effect of the disease. Predicting infectious disease outbreaks is a challenging task; truly predictive methods are still in their infancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPublic health surveillance is undergoing a revolution driven by advances in the field of information technology. Many countries have experienced vast improvements in the collection, ingestion, analysis, visualization, and dissemination of public health data. Resource-limited countries have lagged behind due to challenges in information technology infrastructure, public health resources, and the costs of proprietary software.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCapacity-building initiatives related to public health are defined as developing laboratory infrastructure, strengthening host-country disease surveillance initiatives, transferring technical expertise and training personnel. These initiatives represented a major piece of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, Division of Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (AFHSC-GEIS) contributions to worldwide emerging infectious disease (EID) surveillance and response. Capacity-building initiatives were undertaken with over 80 local and regional Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Defense, as well as other government entities and institutions worldwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Pandemic Influenza Policy Model (PIPM) is a collaborative computer modeling effort between the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHistorically, military recruits have been at high risk of acquiring meningococcal disease. Beginning in the 1940s, the US military relied on mass treatment with sulfadiazine to control outbreaks in training camps. In the 1960s, a vaccine was developed in response to the emergence of sulfadiazine-resistant strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOutbreaks of adenovirus type 4 (Ad4) acute respiratory disease (ARD) have reemerged among US military personnel during the past decade. A prospective epidemiological investigation of 678 military recruits was conducted at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in the fall of 1998; 115 (17%) of the recruits were hospitalized for febrile ARD. Adenovirus types 4, 3, and 21 were recovered from the cultures of 70 (72%), 7 (7%), and 2 (2%) of 97 recruits, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA serosurvey of 9,673 United States military personnel was conducted to estimate infection rates with Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, which is the cause of Lyme disease in the United States. Initial screening of sera from 9,673 military personnel on active duty in 1997 was performed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA); supplemental testing of all ELISA-positive sera was performed by Western blot. Initial screening identified 1,594 (16.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn outbreak of acute gastroenteritis hospitalized 99 (12%) of 835 U. S. Army trainees at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas, from August 27 to September 1, 1998.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs part of an operational effort to control the transmission of malaria after its reemergence in the Republic of Korea, a number of U.S. military and Korean civilian health workers assessed the situation at a large training site where two cases had been transmitted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlasmodium vivax malaria reemerged in the Republic of Korea in 1993. The number of cases has tripled each year since, with more than 1,600 cases reported in 1997. All 27 cases in U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo study the feasibility of using inactivated hepatitis A vaccine for rapid immunization of US soldiers, 276 randomized seronegative volunteers received one of four regimens: two injections, on day 0 or one each on day 0 and 14, day 0 and 30, or day 0 and 180. A third dose was given on day 380. Among the 256 recipients of two doses, 99% responded with antibody (by ELISA) with few symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA case-control study was done to assess a potential association between drinking water and pancreatic cancer in Washington County, Maryland. Cases of pancreatic cancer occurring from 1975 through 1989 were identified from the cancer registry. Controls were selected from the private 1975 census of Washington County.
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