Estimating the risk of irreversible post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) due to serotonergic antidepressants.

Background: Sexual dysfunction is a common side effect of Serotonergic antidepressants (SA) treatment, and persists in some patients despite drug discontinuation, a condition termed post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD). The risk for PSSD is unknown but is thought to be rare and difficult to assess. This study aims to estimate the risk of erectile dysfunction (ED) and PSSD in males treated with SAs.

Mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from a large-scale population-based study in Israel.

Introduction: Contemporary evidence notes the COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted the utilization of physical and mental health services worldwide. The present study was therefore designed to evaluate the changes in the utilization of mental health services during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years as well as to estimate the moderating role age had on these changes.

Materials And Methods: Psychiatric data was collected from n = 928,044 individuals living in Israel.

Viral respiratory tract infection and exacerbations of asthma in adult patients.

The role of viral respiratory tract infections in acute exacerbations of asthma was studied prospectively in 31 patients with atopic asthma aged 15-56 years. Patients recorded symptom scores for asthma and peak expiratory flow rate daily for 11 months. In addition, they reported for detailed clinical, functional, and virological study every four weeks and as soon as possible after the onset of worsening asthma or symptoms suggesting a respiratory tract infection.

Hepatitis B infection in New Zealand children.

Hepatitis B markers were tested for in 2001 samples of serum from those aged 0-21 years. There was a prevalence in Europeans of hepatitis B of 10% with a 2% of HBsAg carriage rate. For Maoris the prevalence was 25% with a 6% HBsAg carriage rate.

Changing patterns of genital herpes.

Isolation rates for herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2, recovered from oral and genital specimens submitted to the National Health Institute by clinicians within the Wellington region, were compared for two time-periods, 1971 to 1973 and 1981 to 1982 inclusive. The proportion of type 1 isolates from genital sites has increased from 4% to 11%, while conversely the proportion of type 2 isolates from oral sites has increased from 6% to 24%. Possible explanations for these trends are considered and the clinical and epidemiologic significance of this changing pattern is briefly discussed.

The 1980 rubella outbreak in New Zealand.

From late 1979 to 1981 there was an outbreak of rubella in New Zealand, most parts of the country being affected. The diagnostic virus laboratory at the National Health Institute, Wellington, examined approximately 15 000 sera for rubella during this period. The total number diagnosed as positive for rubella was 186.

The role of coxsackie B viruses in heart disease in New Zealand.

Sera from 622 patients received in a 20-month period were examined for coxsackie B neutralising antibody to serotypes 1--6. Two hundred and thirty-four of the total 622 were patients with a cardiac symptomatology, and 388 formed a comparable group of non-cardiac cases. There were 141 (60 percent) seropositive patients in the cardiac group, 34 percent and 29 percent of which respectively had antibody to B4 and B2.

Arbovirus infections in Ceylon.

The haemagglutination-inhibition test has been used to assess the frequency of arbovirus infections in the population of Ceylon, by age-group, and also in some animals. The antigens used were: chikungunya, JE, dengue 1, 2, 3, 4, and Tahyna.The percentage of positive reactors to the group-B viruses ranged from 16.