Pancreatic duct adenocarcinoma (PDAC) accounts for about 85-90% of all solid pancreatic tumors, which is well-known for poor prognosis and high morbidity. Despite the massive advent of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in recent years, surgical removal is still considered the cornerstone management option in this situation. Pancreaticoduodenectomy or Whipple procedure is generally contraindicated in metastasis or tumors that encase more than 50% of vessels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfluenza virus seasonality, synchronicity, and vaccine supply differ substantially between temperate and tropical settings, and optimal vaccination strategy may differ on this basis. Many national vaccine recommendations focus on high-risk groups, elderly populations, and healthcare workers despite previous analyses demonstrating broad benefits to vaccinating younger high-contact age groups. In this study, we parameterized an age-structured nonseasonal asynchronous epidemiological model of influenza virus transmission for a tropical low-income setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn advisory board meeting was held with experts in Vietnam (Hanoi, August 2022), to review the evidence on invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) epidemiology, clinical management, and meningococcal vaccines to reach a consensus on recommendations for meningococcal vaccination in Vietnam. IMD is a severe disease, with the highest burden in infants and children. IMD presents as meningitis and/or meningococcemia and can progress extremely rapidly.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfluenza virus seasonality, synchronicity, and vaccine supply differ substantially between temperate and tropical settings, and optimal vaccination strategy may differ on this basis. Most national vaccine recommendations focus on high-risk groups, elderly populations, and healthcare workers despite previous analyses demonstrating broad benefits to vaccinating younger high-contact age groups. Here, we parameterized an age-structured non-seasonal asynchronous epidemiological model of influenza virus transmission for a tropical low-income setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: It is well known that influenza and other respiratory viruses are wintertime-seasonal in temperate regions. However, respiratory disease seasonality in the tropics is less well understood. In this study, we aimed to characterise the seasonality of influenza-like illness (ILI) and influenza virus in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMuch of the world experiences influenza in yearly recurring seasons, particularly in temperate areas. These patterns can be considered repeatable if they occur predictably and consistently at the same time of year. In tropical areas, including southeast Asia, timing of influenza epidemics is less consistent, leading to a lack of consensus regarding whether influenza is repeatable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) differs in its spatio-temporal distribution in Vietnam with the highest incidence seen during the summer months in the northern provinces. AES has multiple aetiologies, and the cause remains unknown in many cases. While vector-borne disease such as Japanese encephalitis and dengue virus and non-vector-borne diseases such as influenza and enterovirus show evidence of seasonality, associations with climate variables and the spatio-temporal distribution in Vietnam differs between these.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It is well known that influenza and other respiratory viruses are wintertime-seasonal in temperate regions. However, respiratory disease seasonality in the tropics remains elusive. In this study, we aimed to characterize the seasonality of influenza-like illness (ILI) and influenza virus in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Ongoing tetanus cases and sporadic outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases associated with routine vaccination programmes remain problems in many low and middle-income countries, including Vietnam. With no human-to-human transmission or natural immunity, tetanus antibody levels indicate both individual risk of tetanus and gaps in vaccination programmes.
Methods: To investigate gaps in immunity to tetanus in Vietnam, a country with a historically high level of tetanus vaccination coverage, tetanus antibodies were measure by ELISA from samples selected from a long-term serum bank, established for the purposes of general-population seroepidemiological investigations in southern Vietnam.
Anthrax is a priority zoonosis for control in Vietnam. The geographic distribution of anthrax remains to be defined, challenging our ability to target areas for control. We analyzed human anthrax cases in Vietnam to obtain anthrax incidence at the national and provincial level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrior vaccination can alternately enhance or attenuate influenza vaccine immunogenicity and effectiveness. Analogously, we found that vaccine immunogenicity was enhanced by prior A(H3N2) virus infection among participants of the Ha Nam Cohort, Viet Nam, but was attenuated by prior vaccination among Australian Health Care Workers (HCWs) vaccinated in the same year. Here, we combined these studies to directly compare antibody titers against 35 A(H3N2) viruses spanning 1968-2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudies of successive vaccination suggest that immunological memory against past influenza viruses may limit responses to vaccines containing current strains. The impact of memory induced by prior infection is rarely considered and is difficult to ascertain, because infections are often subclinical. This study investigated influenza vaccination among adults from the Ha Nam cohort (Vietnam), who were purposefully selected to include 72 with and 28 without documented influenza A(H3N2) infection during the preceding 9 years (Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry 12621000110886).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe relationship between age and seroprevalence can be used to estimate the annual attack rate of an infectious disease. For pathogens with multiple serologically distinct strains, there is a need to describe composite exposure to an antigenically variable group of pathogens. In this study, we assay 24,402 general-population serum samples, collected in Vietnam between 2009 to 2015, for antibodies to eleven human influenza A strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: An A/H5N1 vaccine (IVACFLU-A/H5N1) was accepted for use in Vietnam; however, antibody persistence after vaccination has not been well characterized. We examined post-vaccination antibody persistence and related risk factors in individuals enrolled in the phase II IVACFLU-A/ H5N1 vaccine trial in Ninh Hoa, Vietnam, who received a 15-μg dose (2 injections 21 days apart).
Methods: We used a longitudinal study design to follow 86 participants, without a control group.
The evolution of influenza viruses is fundamentally shaped by within-host processes. However, the within-host evolutionary dynamics of influenza viruses remain incompletely understood, in part because most studies have focused on infections in healthy adults based on single timepoint data. Here, we analyzed the within-host evolution of 82 longitudinally sampled individuals, mostly young children, infected with A/H1N1pdm09 or A/H3N2 viruses between 2007 and 2009.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo assess the role of in-flight transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we investigated a cluster of cases among passengers on a 10-hour commercial flight. Affected persons were passengers, crew, and their close contacts. We traced 217 passengers and crew to their final destinations and interviewed, tested, and quarantined them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: One hundred days after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first reported in Vietnam on 23 January, 270 cases were confirmed, with no deaths. We describe the control measures used by the government and their relationship with imported and domestically acquired case numbers, with the aim of identifying the measures associated with successful SARS-CoV-2 control.
Methods: Clinical and demographic data on the first 270 SARS-CoV-2 infected cases and the timing and nature of government control measures, including numbers of tests and quarantined individuals, were analyzed.
Background: The median duration of hospital stays due to COVID-19 has been reported in several studies on China as 10-13 days. Global studies have indicated that the length of hospitalisation depends on different factors, such as the time elapsed from exposure to symptom onset, and from symptom onset to hospital admission, as well as specificities of the country under study. The goal of this paper is to identify factors associated with the median duration of hospital stays of COVID-19 patients during the second COVID-19 wave that hit Vietnam from 5 March to 8 April 2020.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The extent to which influenza recurrence depends upon waning immunity from prior infection is undefined. We used antibody titers of Ha-Nam cohort participants to estimate protection curves and decay trajectories.
Methods: Households (270) participated in influenza-like-illness (ILI) surveillance and provided blood at intervals spanning laboratory-confirmed virus transmission.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
April 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is spreading fast globally. Vietnam's strict containment measures have significantly reduced the spread of the epidemic in the country. This was achieved through the use of emergency control measures in the epidemic areas and integration of resources from multiple sectors including health, mass media, transportation, education, public affairs, and defense.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Tuberculosis (TB) is a major global health burden, with an estimated quarter of the world's population being infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched the "End TB Strategy" in 2014 emphasising knowing the epidemic. WHO ranks Vietnam 12th in the world of high burden countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Many studies have shown associations between rising temperatures, El Niño events and dengue incidence, but the effect of sustained periods of extreme high temperatures (i.e., heatwaves) on dengue outbreaks has not yet been investigated.
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