The impact of natural climate variability on the global distribution of Aedes aegypti: a mathematical modelling study.

Background: Aedes aegypti spread pathogens affecting humans, including dengue, Zika, and yellow fever viruses. Anthropogenic climate change is altering the spatial distribution of Ae aegypti and therefore the locations at risk of vector-borne disease. In addition to climate change, natural climate variability, resulting from internal atmospheric processes and interactions between climate system components (eg, atmosphere-land and atmosphere-ocean interactions), determines climate outcomes.

Clonal Expansion of a Streptococcus pneumoniae Serotype 3 Capsule Variant Sequence Type 700 With Enhanced Vaccine Escape Potential After 13-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine Introduction.

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 3 remains a problem globally. Malawi introduced 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in 2011, but there has been no direct protection against serotype 3 carriage. We explored whether vaccine escape by serotype 3 is due to clonal expansion of a lineage with a competitive advantage.

Prediction of sustained opioid use in children and adolescents using machine learning.

Background: Opioid misuse in the paediatric population is understudied. This study aimed to develop a machine learning classifier to differentiate between occasional and sustained opioid users among children and adolescents in outpatient settings.

Methods: Data for 29,335 patients under 19 yr with recorded opioid purchases were collected from medical records.

The straight and narrow: A game theory model of broad- and narrow-spectrum empiric antibiotic therapy.

Physicians prescribe empiric antibiotic treatment when definitive knowledge of the pathogen causing an infection is lacking. The options of empiric treatment can be largely divided into broad- and narrow-spectrum antibiotics. Prescribing a broad-spectrum antibiotic increases the chances of covering the causative pathogen, and hence benefits the current patient's recovery.

Impact of Long-COVID in children: a large cohort study.

Background: The impact of long-term Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the pediatric population is still not well understood. This study was designed to estimate the magnitude of COVID-19 long-term morbidity 3-6 months after the date of diagnosis.

Methods: A retrospective study of all Clalit Health Services members in Israel aged 1-16 years who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021.

Allergic to bureaucracy? Regulatory allergenicity assessments of novel food: Motivations, challenges, compromises, and possibilities.

New sources of proteins are essential to meet the demands of the growing world population and evolving food trends. Assessing the allergenicity of proteins in novel food (NF) poses a significant food safety regulatory challenge. The Codex Alimentarius Commission presented an allergenicity assessment protocol for genetically modified (GM) foods, which can also be adapted for NF.

Opioid trends and risk factors for sustained use among children and adolescents in Israel: a retrospective cohort study.

Despite growing global concern over opioids, little is known about the epidemiology of opioid use in children and adolescents. This retrospective study investigated opioid use trends and identified risk factors associated with sustained opioid use among outpatient children and adolescents in Israel. Electronic health records of 110,955 children and adolescents were used to establish opioid purchase trends in outpatient settings between 2003 and 2021.

Distinguishing Immunologic and Behavioral Effects of Vaccination.

The interpretation of vaccine efficacy estimands is subtle, even in randomized trials designed to quantify the immunologic effects of vaccination. In this article, we introduce terminology to distinguish between different vaccine efficacy estimands and clarify their interpretations. This allows us to explicitly consider the immunologic and behavioral effects of vaccination, and establish that policy-relevant estimands can differ substantially from those commonly reported in vaccine trials.

The metabolic, virulence and antimicrobial resistance profiles of colonising Streptococcus pneumoniae shift after PCV13 introduction in urban Malawi.

Streptococcus pneumoniae causes substantial mortality among children under 5-years-old worldwide. Polysaccharide conjugate vaccines (PCVs) are highly effective at reducing vaccine serotype disease, but emergence of non-vaccine serotypes and persistent nasopharyngeal carriage threaten this success. We investigated the hypothesis that following vaccine, adapted pneumococcal genotypes emerge with the potential for vaccine escape.

False-positive HIV screening tests during the COVID-19 pandemic, a passing trend?

False-positive fourth-generation HIV screening tests are rare and are usually associated with various infections and autoimmune diseases. SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination were recently linked with false-positive HIV screening test results. However, little is known about false-positives in people who performed HIV screening tests after outbreaks of different SARS-CoV-2 strains and vaccination campaigns.

Risk averse reproduction numbers improve resurgence detection.

The effective reproduction number R is a prominent statistic for inferring the transmissibility of infectious diseases and effectiveness of interventions. R purportedly provides an easy-to-interpret threshold for deducing whether an epidemic will grow (R>1) or decline (R<1). We posit that this interpretation can be misleading and statistically overconfident when applied to infections accumulated from groups featuring heterogeneous dynamics.

Should I Rest or Should I Go Now? A Randomized Cross-Over Trial Comparing Fixed and Self-Selected Rest Durations in High-Intensity Interval Training Cycling Sessions.

Background: In high-intensity interval training (HIIT), the rest durations between intervals are commonly prescribed using a fixed approach (e.g., 30 s between intervals).

Global transmission suitability maps for dengue virus transmitted by Aedes aegypti from 1981 to 2019.

Mosquito-borne viruses increasingly threaten human populations due to accelerating changes in climate, human and mosquito migration, and land use practices. Over the last three decades, the global distribution of dengue has rapidly expanded, causing detrimental health and economic problems in many areas of the world. To develop effective disease control measures and plan for future epidemics, there is an urgent need to map the current and future transmission potential of dengue across both endemic and emerging areas.

Bayesian network modeling of patterns of antibiotic cross-resistance by bacterial sample source.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is a major healthcare burden, aggravated when it extends to multiple drugs. While cross-resistance is well-studied experimentally, it is not the case in clinical settings, and especially not while considering confounding. Here, we estimated patterns of cross-resistance from clinical samples, while controlling for multiple clinical confounders and stratifying by sample sources.

Prediction of ciprofloxacin resistance in hospitalized patients using machine learning.

Background: Ciprofloxacin is a widely used antibiotic that has lost efficiency due to extensive resistance. We developed machine learning (ML) models that predict the probability of ciprofloxacin resistance in hospitalized patients.

Methods: Data were collected from electronic records of hospitalized patients with positive bacterial cultures, during 2016-2019.

Modelling COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections in highly vaccinated Israel-The effects of waning immunity and third vaccination dose.

In August 2021, a major wave of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant erupted in the highly vaccinated population of Israel. The transmission advantage of the Delta variant enabled it to replace the Alpha variant in approximately two months. The outbreak led to an unexpectedly large proportion of breakthrough infections (BTI)-a phenomenon that received worldwide attention.

The impact of cross-reactive immunity on the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Introduction: A key feature of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with different transmission characteristics. However, when a novel variant arrives in a host population, it will not necessarily lead to many cases. Instead, it may fade out, due to stochastic effects and the level of immunity in the population.

Polymorphisms predicting phylogeny in hepatitis B virus.

Hepatitis B viruses (HBVs) are compact viruses with circular genomes of ∼3.2 kb in length. Four genes () generating seven products are encoded on overlapping reading frames.

The Association Between High Ambient Temperature and Mortality in the Mediterranean Basin: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Purpose Of Review: The Mediterranean basin is highly vulnerable to climate change. This study is aimed at quantifying the risk of mortality associated with exposure to high ambient temperature in the Mediterranean basin in the general population and in vulnerable sub-populations.

Recent Findings: We retrieved effect estimates from studies linking temperature and mortality in the Mediterranean basin, between 2000 and 2021.

The time-varying association between previous antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance.

Objectives: The objective of the study was to estimate how the time elapsed from previous antibiotic use is associated with antibiotic resistance.

Methods: Data comprised electronic medical records of all patients in an Israeli hospital who had a positive bacterial culture from 2016 to 2019. These included susceptibility testing results and clinical and demographic data.

Seeing Effort: Assessing Coaches' Prediction of the Number of Repetitions in Reserve Before Task-Failure.

Background: A key role of resistance training (RT) coaches is to personalize programs based on their trainees' abilities and goals. Specifically, coaches often assess how many repetitions in reserve (RIR) their trainees have until task-failure. Coaches can then modify the number of repetitions assigned per set accordingly.

Assessing COVID-19 vaccination strategies in varied demographics using an individual-based model.

Background: New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are constantly discovered. Administration of COVID-19 vaccines and booster doses, combined with the application of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs, is often used to prevent outbreaks of emerging variants. Such outbreak dynamics are further complicated by the population's behavior and demographic composition.