Predicting influenza in China from October 1, 2023, to February 5, 2024: A transmission dynamics model based on population migration.

Introduction: Since November 2023, influenza has ranked first in reported cases of infectious diseases in China, with the outbreak in both northern and southern provinces exceeding the levels observed during the same period in 2022. This poses a serious health risk to the population. Therefore, short to medium-term influenza predictions are beneficial for epidemic assessment and can reduce the disease burden.

Feasibility of eliminating tuberculosis by shortening the diagnostic delay: A retrospective analysis and modelling study in China during the pre-COVID-19 era.

Objective: Delays in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) can increase the risk of transmission, thereby posing a significant risk to public health. Early diagnosis is considered to play a crucial role in eliminating TB. Rapid testing, active case finding, and health education are effective strategies for reducing tuberculosis diagnosis delays (TDDs).

Inactivated vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 in Fujian, China during the Omicron BA.2 outbreak.

Objective: More than 90% of the Chinese population have completed 2 doses of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines in Mainland China. However, after China government abandoned strict control measures, many breakthrough infections appeared, and vaccine effectiveness against Omicron BA.2 infection was uncertain.

Trends in disease burden of hepatitis B infection in Jiangsu Province, China, 1990-2021.

Background: The incidence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) has decreased year by year in China after the expansion of vaccination, but there is still a high disease burden in Jiangsu Province of China.

Methods: The year-by-year incidence data of HBV in Jiangsu Province from 1990 to 2021 were collected. The incidence rates of males and females age groups were clustered by systematic clustering, and the incidence rates of each age group were analyzed and studied by using Joinpoint regression model and age-period-cohort effect model (APC).

Analysis of Factors Influencing the Clinical Severity of Omicron and Delta Variants.

The Omicron variant is the dominant strain circulating globally, and studies have shown that Omicron cases have milder symptoms than Delta cases. This study aimed to analyze the factors that affect the clinical severity of Omicron and Delta variants, evaluate and compare the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines with different technological platforms, and assess the vaccine effectiveness against different variants. We retrospectively collected the basic information of all local COVID-19 cases reported by Hunan Province to the National Notifiable Infectious Disease Reporting System from January 2021 to February 2023, including gender, age, clinical severity, and COVID-19 vaccination history.

Impact of public health and social measures on contact dynamics during a SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant outbreak in Quanzhou, China, March to April 2022.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of early implementation of public health and social measures (PHSMs) on contact rates over time and explore contact behavior of asymptomatic versus symptomatic cases.

Methods: We used the largest contact tracing data in China thus far to estimate the mean contacts over time by age groups and contact settings. We used bootstrap with replacement to quantify the uncertainty of contact matrixes.

Simulating potential outbreaks of Delta and Omicron variants based on contact-tracing data: A modelling study in Fujian Province, China.

Although studies have compared the relative severity of Omicron and Delta variants by assessing the relative risks, there are still gaps in the knowledge of the potential COVID-19 burden these variations may cause. And the contact patterns in Fujian Province, China, have not been described. We identified 8969 transmission pairs in Fujian, China, by analyzing a contact-tracing database that recorded a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in September 2021.

A comparative study on epidemiological characteristics, transmissibility, and pathogenicity of three COVID-19 outbreaks caused by different variants.

Objectives: The Omicron BA.2 variant is probably the main epidemic strain worldwide at present. Comparing the epidemiological characteristics, transmissibility, and influencing factors of SARS-CoV-2, the results obtained in this paper will help to provide theoretical support for disease control.

A follow up study of cycle threshold values of SARS-CoV-2 in Hunan Province, China.

Since the epidemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2), many governments have used reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect the virus. However, there are fewer measures of CT values information based on RT-PCR results, and the relationship between CT values and factors from consecutive tests is not clear enough. So in this study, we analyzed the connection between CT values and the factors based on cohort data from Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Hunan Province.

Contact pattern, current immune barrier, and pathogen virulence determines the optimal strategy of further vaccination.

Background: The current outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 has caused a serious disease burden worldwide. Vaccines are an important factor to sustain the epidemic. Although with a relatively high-vaccination worldwide, the decay of vaccine efficacy and the arising of new variants lead us to the challenge of maintaining a sufficient immune barrier to protect the population.

Transmissibility of tuberculosis among students and non-students: an occupational-specific mathematical modelling.

Background: Recently, despite the steady decline in the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic globally, school TB outbreaks have been frequently reported in China. This study aimed to quantify the transmissibility of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) among students and non-students using a mathematical model to determine characteristics of TB transmission.

Methods: We constructed a dataset of reported TB cases from four regions (Jilin Province, Xiamen City, Chuxiong Prefecture, and Wuhan City) in China from 2005 to 2019.

Mathematical Models Supporting Control of COVID-19.

Mathematical models have played an important role in the management of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The aim of this review is to describe the use of COVID-19 mathematical models, their classification, and the advantages and disadvantages of different types of models. We conducted subject heading searches of PubMed and China National Knowledge Infrastructure with the terms "COVID-19," "Mathematical Statistical Model," "Model," "Modeling," "Agent-based Model," and "Ordinary Differential Equation Model" and classified and analyzed the scientific literature retrieved in the search.

Study on the interaction between different pathogens of Hand, foot and mouth disease in five regions of China.

Objectives: This study aims to explore the interaction of different pathogens in Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) by using a mathematical epidemiological model and the reported data in five regions of China.

Methods: A cross-regional dataset of reported HFMD cases was built from four provinces (Fujian Province, Jiangsu province, Hunan Province, and Jilin Province) and one municipality (Chongqing Municipality) in China. The subtypes of the pathogens of HFMD, including Coxsackievirus A16 (CV-A16), enteroviruses A71 (EV-A71), and other enteroviruses (Others), were included in the data.

Feasibility of Hepatitis C Elimination in China: From Epidemiology, Natural History, and Intervention Perspectives.

Hepatitis C imposes a heavy burden on many countries, including China, where the number of reported cases and the incidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) increased yearly from 2005 to 2012, with a stable trend after 2012. The geographical distribution of HCV infections varies widely in China, with the northwest and southwest regions and the Henan Province showing a high disease burden. Elderly, men, sexually active people, drug users, migrants, blood transfusion recipients, and renal dialysis patients have become the target populations for hepatitis C prevention and control.

Computing of dynamic models by a definition-based method.

Objectives: Computing the basic reproduction number ( ) in deterministic dynamical models is a hot topic and is frequently demanded by researchers in public health. The next-generation methods (NGM) are widely used for such computation, however, the results of NGM are usually not to be the true but only a threshold quantity with little interpretation. In this paper, a definition-based method (DBM) is proposed to solve such a problem.

Feasibility of Booster Vaccination in High-Risk Populations for Controlling Coronavirus Variants - China, 2021.

Introduction: Vaccination booster shots are completely necessary for controlling breakthrough infections of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in China. The study aims to estimate effectiveness of booster vaccines for high-risk populations (HRPs).

Methods: A vaccinated Susceptible-Exposed-Symptomatic-Asymptomatic-Recovered/Removed (SEIAR) model was developed to simulate scenarios of effective reproduction number ( ) from 4 to 6.

Pentraxin 3 promotes the osteoblastic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells through the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.

Osteoblast cells are responsible for synthesizing new bone tissue, and determining how to control osteoblastic differentiation is vital to the treatment of osteoporosis. In the present study, we show that pentraxin 3 (PTX3) signaling is involved in the regulation of osteoblastic differentiation in MC3T3-E1 cells. Our data reveal that PTX3 is abundantly expressed in MC3T3-E1 cells and that its expression is inducible by the introduction of osteogenic induction medium (OIM).

Tumor necrosis factor superfamily member 13 is a novel biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis and promotes cancer cell proliferation in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Tumor necrosis factor superfamily member 13 (TNFSF13) modulates cell proliferation and apoptosis and participates in the pathogenesis of solid tumors, but its role in laryngeal cancer development is not clearly defined. In order to investigate whether TNFSF13 can be used as a biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) and the role of TNFSF13 in laryngeal cancer carcinogenesis, we conducted immunohistochemistry and ELISA assays to evaluate the expression level of TNFSF13 in laryngeal cancer patients and the contrast. We also conducted experiments on the functional study of TNFSF13 in vitro.

A lanthanum chelate possessing an open-channel framework with water nanotubes: properties and desalination.

A new type of thermally stable chelate {La(H2O)4[La(1,3-pdta)(H2O)]3}n · 12nH2O (1) [1,3-H4pdtaCH2[CH2N(CH2CO2H)2]2] with an open-channel shows significant and unusual solvent transport properties and demonstrates a use for low-pressure desalination, which is constructed by cheap and available lanthanum salt and 1,3-propanediaminetetraacetate. The chelate could be converted reversibly to its trihydrate {La(H2O)4[La(1,3-pdta)(H2O)]3}n · 3nH2O (1a), dehydrated product {La(H2O)4[La(1,3-pdta)(H2O)]3}n (1b) and ethanol adduct {La(H2O)4[La(1,3-pdta)(H2O)]3}n · 3nH2O · 3nEtOH (1c). The latter nano-confined ethanol shows a remarkable downfield shift (Δδ = 6.