Publications by authors named "S Truelove"

Residual blood specimens collected at health facilities may be a source of samples for serosurveys of adults, a population often neglected in community-based serosurveys. Anonymized residual blood specimens were collected from individuals 15 - 49 years of age attending two sub-district hospitals in Palghar District, Maharashtra, from November 2018 to March 2019. Specimens also were collected from women 15 - 49 years of age enrolled in a cross-sectional, community-based serosurvey representative at the district level that was conducted 2 - 7 months after the residual specimen collection.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Residual blood specimens offer a cost-effective way to track seroprevalence changes compared to traditional household surveys, as shown in a study in India focused on measles-rubella vaccinations.
  • A cross-sectional survey in Kanpur Nagar and Palghar found significant increases in rubella seroprevalence post-immunization, though measles trends were inconsistent between facility and community samples.
  • Younger children in public facilities initially had lower rubella seroprevalence than those in private hospitals, but this gap disappeared after the vaccination campaign, highlighting the importance of residual specimens for public health monitoring.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Models of measles transmission can be used to identify areas of high risk to tailor immunization strategies. Estimates of spatial connectivity can be derived from data such as mobile phone records, however it is not clear how this maps to the movement of children who are more likely to be infected. Using travel surveys across two districts in Zambia and national mobile phone data, we compared estimates of out-of-district travel for the population captured in the mobile phone data and child-specific travel from travel surveys.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to upgrade systems for infectious disease surveillance and forecasting and modeling of the spread of infection, both of which inform evidence-based public health guidance and policies. Here, we discuss requirements for an effective surveillance system to support decision making during a pandemic, drawing on the lessons of COVID-19 in the U.S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF