The Effect of Contact Investigations and Public Health Interventions in the Control and Prevention of Measles Transmission: A Simulation Study.

Background: Measles cases continue to occur despite its elimination status in the United States. To control transmission, public health officials confirm the measles diagnosis, identify close contacts of infectious cases, deliver public health interventions (i.e.

Comparison of Surgical Outcome After Ahmed Valve Implantation for Patients With and Without Fluocinolone Intravitreal Implant (Retisert).

Purpose: To determine whether long-term, slow-release exposure to corticosteroids with Retisert promotes better surgical outcomes after Ahmed valve implantation.

Patients: This comparative retrospective cohort study included 17 study eyes (10 patients) with uncontrolled uveitis requiring Retisert and Ahmed implantation, and 55 control eyes (51 patients) with other types of medically uncontrolled glaucoma that only received Ahmed.

Materials And Methods: Main outcome measures were intraocular pressure (IOP), glaucoma eye drops per day, best-corrected visual acuity, early complications, and late complications at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months.

Correction: Evaluating Subcriticality during the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

The permuted locus trial--Well suited for emerging pathogens?

The recent Ebola virus epidemic was waning by the time stakeholders were ready to field vaccines for testing but an evidence-based response to a novel pathogen will surely be required again. Here, we present a design for such a randomized controlled trial. The permuted locus trial was originally intended for studying the influence of water wells on trachoma.

Evaluating Subcriticality during the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa.

The 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak is the largest and most widespread to date. In order to estimate ongoing transmission in the affected countries, we estimated the weekly average number of secondary cases caused by one individual infected with Ebola throughout the infectious period for each affected West African country using a stochastic hidden Markov model fitted to case data from the World Health Organization. If the average number of infections caused by one Ebola infection is less than 1.

The role of vaccination coverage, individual behaviors, and the public health response in the control of measles epidemics: an agent-based simulation for California.

Background: Measles cases continue to occur among susceptible individuals despite the elimination of endemic measles transmission in the United States. Clustering of disease susceptibility can threaten herd immunity and impact the likelihood of disease outbreaks in a highly vaccinated population. Previous studies have examined the role of contact tracing to control infectious diseases among clustered populations, but have not explicitly modeled the public health response using an agent-based model.

Self-reported Calcium Supplementation and Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

Importance: Despite widespread use of calcium supplementation among elderly people, little is known about the association between such consumption and the prevalence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in the United States.

Objective: To investigate the association between self-reported supplementary calcium consumption and the prevalence of AMD in a representative US sample.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study included 3191 participants 40 years and older in the 2007-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) who were evaluated for the presence or absence of AMD by fundus photography.

The epidemiology and surveillance workforce among local health departments in California: mutual aid and surge capacity for routine and emergency infectious disease situations.

Objective: Public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigations are critical public health functions for identifying threats to the health of a community. We conducted a survey of local health departments (LHDs) in California to describe the workforce that supports public health surveillance and epidemiologic functions during routine and emergency infectious disease situations.

Methods: The target population consisted of the 61 LHDs in California.

Conflicts of interest during contact investigations: a game-theoretic analysis.

The goal of contact tracing is to reduce the likelihood of transmission, particularly to individuals who are at greatest risk for developing complications of infection, as well as identifying individuals who are in need of medical treatment of other interventions. In this paper, we develop a simple mathematical model of contact investigations among a small group of individuals and apply game theory to explore conflicts of interest that may arise in the context of perceived costs of disclosure. Using analytic Kolmogorov equations, we determine whether or not it is possible for individual incentives to drive noncooperation, even though cooperation would yield a better group outcome.

A randomized clinical trial comparing methotrexate and mycophenolate mofetil for noninfectious uveitis.

Objective: To compare the relative effectiveness of methotrexate and mycophenolate mofetil for noninfectious intermediate uveitis, posterior uveitis, or panuveitis.

Design: Multicenter, block-randomized, observer-masked clinical trial.

Participants: Eighty patients with noninfectious intermediate, posterior, or panuveitis requiring corticosteroid-sparing therapy at Aravind Eye Hospitals in Madurai and Coimbatore, India.

Identifying postelimination trends for the introduction and transmissibility of measles in the United States.

The continued elimination of measles requires accurate assessment of its epidemiology and a critical evaluation of how its incidence is changing with time. National surveillance of measles in the United States between 2001 and 2011 provides data on the number of measles introductions and the size of the resulting transmission chains. These data allow inference of the effective reproduction number, Reff, and the probability of an outbreak occurring.

Antibiotic use as a tragedy of the commons: a cross-sectional survey.

Background: Many believe antibiotic use results in a tragedy of the commons, since overuse may lead to antibiotic resistance and limiting use would benefit society. In contrast, mass antibiotic treatment programs are thought to result in community-wide benefits. A survey was conducted to learn the views of infectious disease experts on the individual- and societal-level consequences of antibiotic use.

Effect of the one-child policy on influenza transmission in China: a stochastic transmission model.

Background: China's one-child-per-couple policy, introduced in 1979, led to profound demographic changes for nearly a quarter of the world's population. Several decades later, the consequences include decreased fertility rates, population aging, decreased household sizes, changes in family structure, and imbalanced sex ratios. The epidemiology of communicable diseases may have been affected by these changes since the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases depend on demographic characteristics of the population.

Incidence of scleritis and episcleritis: results from the Pacific Ocular Inflammation Study.

Purpose: To ascertain the incidence of scleritis and episcleritis in a Hawaiian population and describe variations by age, sex, and race.

Design: Retrospective, population-based cohort study.

Methods: All electronic medical records for enrollees in Kaiser Permanente Hawaii (n = 217,061) from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2007 were searched for International Classification of Diseases, 9th Edition (ICD-9) codes associated with ocular inflammation.

The epidemiology and surveillance response to pandemic influenza A (H1N1) among local health departments in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Background: Public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigations are critical public health functions for identifying threats to the health of a community. Very little is known about how these functions are conducted at the local level. The purpose of the Epidemiology Networks in Action (EpiNet) Study was to describe the epidemiology and surveillance response to the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) by city and county health departments in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

When does overuse of antibiotics become a tragedy of the commons?

Background: Over-prescribing of antibiotics is considered to result in increased morbidity and mortality from drug-resistant organisms. A resulting common wisdom is that it would be better for society if physicians would restrain their prescription of antibiotics. In this view, self-interest and societal interest are at odds, making antibiotic use a classic "tragedy of the commons".

Effectiveness of the polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine among HIV-infected persons in Brazil: a case control study.

Background: Polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine is recommended for use in HIV-infected adults in Brazil but there is uncertainty about its effectiveness in this patient population. The main objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the 23-valent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine against invasive pneumococcal infection among HIV-infected adult patients in São Paulo, Brazil.

Methods: A case-control study of 79 cases and 242 controls matched on CD4+ cell count and health care setting was conducted.

Early prediction of median survival among a large AIDS surveillance cohort.

Background: For individuals with AIDS, data exist relatively soon after diagnosis to allow estimation of "early" survival quantiles (e.g., the 0.

Treatment outcomes after highly active antiretroviral therapy: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.

This systematic review summarises the evidence for treatment efficacy and tolerability of highly active antiretroviral therapies containing two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) with a protease inhibitor (PI), compared with two NRTIs alone for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in randomised controlled trials. Three electronic databases (Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library) were searched up to December 2003. 16 randomised controlled trials met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis from 328 articles screened.