(ragweed) pollen - A growing aeroallergen of concern in South Africa.

Background: Ragweed is an invasive, highly allergenic weed predicted to expand its habitat with warming global temperatures. Several species have been identified in South Africa for well over a century; however, its presence remained undetected by allergists and aerobiologists until the development of an extensive aerospora monitoring system across South African urban areas since 2019. This paper presents the inventory of preliminary investigation of the airborne pollen and the taxonomic identification of ragweed species.

Short-term, lagged association of airway inflammation, lung function, and asthma symptom score with PM exposure among schoolchildren within a high air pollution region in South Africa.

Background: Asthma affects millions of people globally, and high levels of air pollution aggravate asthma occurrence. This study aimed to determine the association between short-term lagged PM exposure and airway inflammation, lung function, and asthma symptom scores among schoolchildren in communities in the Highveld high-pollution region in South Africa.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among schoolchildren aged 9-14 years in six communities in the Highveld region in South Africa, between October 2018 and February 2019.

High aerospora levels and associated atmospheric circulation patterns: Pretoria, South Africa.

At high exposure levels, airborne pollen grains and fungal spores (termed aerospora hereafter), can trigger severe allergic respiratory diseases. For South Africa's administrative capital Pretoria, which boasts dense vegetation within a large urban forest, it is valuable from a health perspective to understand daily atmospheric circulation patterns associated with high aerospora levels. Therefore, we utilised a daily aerospora grain count dataset collected in Pretoria from 08/2019-02/2023 to investigate atmospheric circulation patterns (derived from ERA5 reanalysis sea level pressure [SLP] and 500 hPa geopotential height [zg500] fields) associated with high-risk aerospora levels (aerospora grain count > 90th percentile).

Outpatient Management of Fever and Neutropenia in Low-risk Children with Solid Tumors: A Quality Improvement Initiative.

Background: Management of febrile neutropenia in pediatric oncology usually requires inpatient parenteral antibiotics after initial evaluation, but some patients at lower risk of sepsis could be safely managed outpatient. We describe a quality improvement project to increase outpatient management of fever and neutropenia.

Methods: We designed a standardized algorithm for children with a solid tumor diagnosis and low risk for bacteremia.

Temporal variations in the short-term effects of ambient air pollution on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality: a pooled analysis of 380 urban areas over a 22-year period.

Background: Ambient air pollution, including particulate matter (such as PM and PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO), has been linked to increases in mortality. Whether populations' vulnerability to these pollutants has changed over time is unclear, and studies on this topic do not include multicountry analysis. We evaluated whether changes in exposure to air pollutants were associated with changes in mortality effect estimates over time.