Expanding Hepatitis C Virus Treatment in the New Mexico State Prison System: Using the ECHO Model for Provider and Prison Peer Education.

It is critical to address hepatitis C virus (HCV) in carceral settings to achieve worldwide elimination of the virus. We describe New Mexico's (NM) experience expanding HCV treatment in state prisons, supplemented with Project ECHO (ECHO; virtual mentorship through guided practice) and the NM Peer Education Program (NMPEP). We describe how using these programs may be a model for expanding treatment in prisons globally.

Free-standing acute inpatient rehabilitation hospital enhanced practices and policies in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

This special report was developed to communicate policy and procedures for free-standing acute inpatient rehabilitation hospitals (AIRHs) to protect patients and healthcare personnel and to prevent further spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The recommended policies were developed in conjunction with the New Mexico Department of Health and hospital leadership. As we attain additional knowledge and experience during this pandemic, suggestions of best practice will continue to evolve for AIRHs.

An Assessment of the Cocooning Strategy for Preventing Infant Pertussis-United States, 2011.

Background:  Infants are at greatest risk for severe pertussis. In 2006, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that adolescents and adults, especially those with infant contact, receive a single dose of Tdap (tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid, and acellular pertussis vaccine). To assess the effectiveness of cocooning, we conducted a case-control evaluation of infant close contacts.

Risk factors for hospitalisation and associated costs among patients with hepatitis A associated with imported pomegranate arils, United States, 2013.

Objectives: To assess hospitalisation risk factors and economic effects associated with a multistate hepatitis A outbreak in 2013.

Study Design: Retrospective case series.

Methods: Eligible outbreak-related cases confirmed by September 1, 2013, were defined as acute hepatitis symptoms and positive IgM anti-hepatitis A during March 15-August 12 among patients who consumed the food vehicle or had the outbreak genotype.

Pertactin-negative Bordetella pertussis strains: evidence for a possible selective advantage.

Background: A recent increase in Bordetella pertussis without the pertactin protein, an acellular vaccine immunogen, has been reported in the United States. Determining whether pertactin-deficient (PRN(-)) B. pertussis is evading vaccine-induced immunity or altering the severity of illness is needed.

Outbreak of hepatitis A in the USA associated with frozen pomegranate arils imported from Turkey: an epidemiological case study.

Background: In May, 2013, an outbreak of symptomatic hepatitis A virus infections occurred in the USA. Federal, state, and local public health officials investigated the cause of the outbreak and instituted actions to control its spread. We investigated the source of the outbreak and assessed the public health measures used.

Roles of the locus coeruleus and adrenergic receptors in brain-mediated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responses to intracerebroventricular alcohol.

Background: Alcohol activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis through its actions in both the periphery and the central nervous system (CNS). The studies presented here were designed to test the CNS-specific noradrenergic mechanisms by which alcohol stimulates HPA activity in the male rat.

Methods: We used an experimental paradigm in which a small, nontoxic amount (5 μl) of alcohol was slowly microinfused intracerebroventricularly (icv).

Risk factors for 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1)-related hospitalization and death among racial/ethnic groups in New Mexico.

Objectives: We assessed risk factors for 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1)-related hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, and death among New Mexico residents.

Methods: We calculated population rate ratios using Poisson regression to analyze risk factors for H1N1-related hospitalization. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of hospitalizations during September 14, 2009 through January 13, 2010, using logistic regression to assess risk factors for mechanical ventilation and death among those hospitalized.

The role of oestradiol in sexually dimorphic hypothalamic-pituitary-adrena axis responses to intracerebroventricular ethanol administration in the rat.

Systemic ethanol (EtOH) administration activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis of rats in a sexually dimorphic manner. The present studies tested the role played by the central nervous system (CNS) in this phenomenon. To localise the effects of the drug to the brain, we utilised an experimental paradigm whereby a small, nontoxic amount of the drug was delivered via intracerebroventricular (i.

Impact of the hormonal milieu on the neurobiology of alcohol dependence and withdrawal.

Alcoholism, or alcohol dependence, is a complex disorder with withdrawal symptoms that are often problematic for those trying to recover from their dependence. As researchers attempt to elucidate the neurobiological underpinnings of alcohol dependence and withdrawal, it is becoming clear that numerous factors, including the hormonal environment, impact the manifestations of this disorder. Of particular interest is the observation that women have fewer and less severe withdrawal symptoms than do men even though they tend to suffer greater physiological harm from excessive alcohol consumption.

Role played by brainstem neurons in regulating testosterone secretion via a direct neural pathway between the hypothalamus and the testes.

We previously reported anatomical and functional evidence for a direct, inhibitory neural pathway that regulates testosterone (T) secretion independently of the pituitary. This pathway is activated by the intracerebroventricular (icv) administration of agents that stimulate stress responses, such as IL-1beta, corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), and norepinephrine (NE), which results in a blunted T response to the administration of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Blunting of the T response is mediated by central beta-adrenergic receptor stimulation.

Interaction between norepinephrine, oxytocin, and nitric oxide in the stimulation of gonadotropin-releasing hormone release from proestrous rat basal hypothalamus explants.

In the proestrous female rat, norepinephrine, oxytocin and nitric oxide (NO) all participate in the regulation of the preovulatory gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) surge. Recent studies from our laboratory have demonstrated that oxytocin induces dose-dependent release of GnRH from proestrous basal hypothalamus explants. The present studies were undertaken to determine whether norepinephrine could also stimulate GnRH release from similar explants, to identify the receptors responsible for this effect and to investigate interactions between norepinephrine, oxytocin and NO.

Site of action of acute alcohol administration in stimulating the rat hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis: comparison between the effect of systemic and intracerebroventricular injection of this drug on pituitary and hypothalamic responses.

The peripheral injection of alcohol stimulates the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, but the ready penetration of this drug in most bodily compartments has made it difficult to identify its specific sites of action. Here we determined whether alcohol can directly influence the corticotropes. We first determined whether alcohol acted within the brain to stimulate neurons in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus, which synthesizes corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) and vasopressin (VP).

Comparison between the influence of the systemic and central injection of alcohol on Leydig cell activity.

Background: Systemic alcohol exposure lowers plasma testosterone (T) levels in adult males, but the relative role of impaired luteinizing hormone (LH)-releasing hormone synthesis and decreased pituitary LH release versus that of a direct ability of circulating alcohol to inhibit testicular steroidogenesis remains poorly understood. We had reported preliminary evidence that alcohol might stimulate a pituitary-independent, neural pathway between the hypothalamus and the testes whose activation blunts T secretion in response to human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). The present work was done to further investigate the influence of alcohol on this pathway by comparing the effect of the intragastric (i.

A hypothalamic-testicular neural pathway is influenced by brain catecholamines, but not testicular blood flow.

We previously reported the existence of a descending multisynaptic, pituitary-independent, neural pathway between the hypothalamus and the testes in the male rat. Stimulation of this pathway by the intracerebroventricular (icv) injection of IL-1beta or corticotropin-releasing factor blunts the testosterone (T) response to human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). This response is mediated at least in part by catecholamine beta-adrenergic receptor activation.

Importance of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus as a component of a neural pathway between the brain and the testes that modulates testosterone secretion independently of the pituitary.

We previously reported that in adult male rats, the intracerebroventricular (icv) injection of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) or the beta-adrenergic agonist isoproterenol (ISO) significantly inhibited the ability of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to stimulate testosterone (T) secretion. The finding that this phenomenon also took place when LH release had been blocked with an LHRH antagonist suggested that icv CRF and ISO did not alter Leydig cell function by influencing the activity of pituitary gonadotrophs. We therefore proposed the existence of a neural pathway connecting the brain to the testes, whose activation by icv CRF or ISO interfered with T secretion.

Central stimulatory influence of oxytocin on preovulatory gonadotropin-releasing hormone requires more than the median eminence.

The study was designed to determine whether the ability of central oxytocin (OT) to stimulate gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) on the afternoon of proestrus (PE) in the cycling female rat is mediated at the level of GnRH terminals within the median eminence (ME), or at higher hypothalamic levels where GnRH cell bodies and axons are located. Determining the location of this OT effect in vivo has proven difficult. Therefore, an in vitro system utilizing ME or basal hypothalamic (BH) explants containing GnRH terminals, or GnRH neurons including the cell bodies, axons and terminals, respectively, were harvested from regular cycling female rats at 15:00 h on PE or diestrus (DI).

Serotonergic antagonists impair arousal-induced phase shifts of the circadian system of the syrian hamster.

Single episodes of arousal of Syrian hamsters 2 h before projected activity onset (i.e., CT 10) phase-advanced their free-running circadian rhythm of wheel-running.