Underreporting or Failed Notification? Global Botulism Reporting, 2000-2022.

Botulism is a rare, potentially fatal illness caused by botulinum toxins produced by bacteria. There are no coordinated worldwide reporting mechanisms for botulism cases and therefore few reliable case frequency estimates. This study aimed to establish an international benchmark for case frequency to determine estimated global rates of underreporting of botulism cases.

Cholera: under diagnosis and differentiation from other diarrhoeal diseases.

Background: Globally 1.4 billion people are at risk from cholera in countries where the disease is endemic, with an estimated 2.8 million cases annually.

Japanese encephalitis: the vectors, ecology and potential for expansion.

Background: Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a viral disease predominantly located in South East Asia and commonly associated with transmission between amplifying hosts, such as pigs, and the mosquito Culex tritaeniorhynchus, where human infection represents a dead end in the life cycle of the virus. The expansion of JE beyond an Asiatic confine is dependent on a multitude of complex factors that stem back to genetic subtype variation. A complex interplay of the genetic variation and vector competencies combine with variables such as geography, climate change and urbanization.

Sustained delivery of salbutamol and beclometasone from spray-dried double emulsions.

The sustained delivery of multiple agents to the lung offers potential benefits to patients. This study explores the preparation of highly respirable dual-loaded spray-dried double emulsions. Spray-dried powders were produced from water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) double emulsions, containing salbutamol sulphate and/or beclometasone dipropionate in varying phases.

Sustained delivery by leucine-modified chitosan spray-dried respirable powders.

The controlled co-delivery of multiple agents to the lung offers potential benefits to patients. This study investigated the preparation and characterisation of highly respirable spray-dried powders displaying the sustained release of two chemically distinct therapeutic agents. Spray-dried powders were produced from 30% (v/v) aqueous ethanol formulations that contained hydrophilic (terbutaline sulphate) and hydrophobic (beclometasone dipropionate) model drugs, chitosan (as a drug release modifier) and leucine (aerosolisation enhancer).

Spray-dried powders for pulmonary drug delivery.

Powders for inhalation are traditionally prepared using a destructive micronization process such as jet milling to reduce the particle size of the drug to 2-5 mum. The resultant particles are typically highly cohesive and display poor aerosolization properties, necessitating the addition of a coarse carrier particle to the micronized drug to improve powder flowability. Spray-drying technology offers an alternative, constructive particle production technique to the traditional destructive approach, which may be particularly useful when processing biotechnology products that could be adversely affected by high-energy micronization processes.

Chitosan-based spray-dried respirable powders for sustained delivery of terbutaline sulfate.

In this study, we describe the preparation of highly dispersible dry powders for pulmonary drug delivery that display sustained drug release characteristics. Powders were prepared by spray-drying 30% v/v aqueous ethanol formulations containing terbutaline sulfate as a model drug, chitosan as a drug release modifier and leucine as an aerosolisation enhancer. The influence of chitosan molecular weight on the drug release profile was investigated by using low, medium and high molecular weight chitosan or combinations thereof.