ABSTRACT
We provide estimates of health priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic based on web-surveys administered in seven developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in 2022. Using the best-worst scaling method, respondents ranked the importance of seven health problems, including COVID-19 (the others were alcohol and drugs, HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, other respiratory diseases, and water-borne diseases). Respondents in most countries considered COVID-19 a serious problem but ranked other respiratory illness as more serious. Respondents’ rankings were generally consistent with relative disease prevalence when it can be reasonably well measured (i.e., malaria and TB). Differences in priorities across countries were generally larger than within-country differences. The importance respondents assigned to COVID-19 was associated with their knowledge of COVID-19. These results have implications for the allocation of health resources: policymakers may face resistance if their actions are viewed as focusing too much on COVID-19 while neglecting other, potentially serious health problems.
Subject(s)
Respiratory Tract Diseases , Hepatitis E , COVID-19 , Malaria , Respiratory InsufficiencyABSTRACT
Land subsidence is a common geological hazard. Rapid urban expansion has led to different degrees of ground subsidence within Wuhan in the past few years. The novel coronavirus outbreak in 2020 has seriously impacted urban construction and people's lives in Wuhan. Land subsidence in Wuhan has changed greatly with the resumption of work and production. We used 80 Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images covering Wuhan to obtain the land subsidence change information of Wuhan from July 2017 to September 2021 by using the small baseline subset interferometric SAR technique. Results show that the subsidence in Wuhan is uneven and concentrated in a few areas, and the maximum subsidence rate reached 57 mm/yr during the study period. Compared with land deformation before 2017, the land subsidence in Wuhan is more obvious after 2020. The most severe area of subsidence is located near Qingling in Hongshan District, with a maximum accumulated subsidence of 90 mm, and obvious subsidence funnels are observed in Qiaokou, Jiangan, Wuchang and Qingshan Districts. The location of subsidence centers in Wuhan is associated with building intensity, and most of the subsidence funnels are formed in connection with urban subway construction and building construction. Carbonate belt and soft ground cover areas are more likely to lead to karst collapse and land subsidence phenomena. Seasonal changes are observed in the land subsidence in Wuhan. A large amount of rainfall can replenish groundwater resources and reduce the rate of land subsidence. The change in water level in the Yangtze River has a certain impact on the land subsidence along the rivers in Wuhan, but the overall impact is small. An obvious uplift is observed in Caidian District in the south of Wuhan, and the reason may be related to the physical and chemical expansion effects of the expansive clay.
ABSTRACT
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a widespread outbreak of highly pathogenic COVID-19. It is therefore important and timely to characterize interactions between the virus and host cell at the molecular level to understand its disease pathogenesis. To gain insights, we performed high-throughput sequencing that generated time-series data simultaneously for bioinformatics analysis of virus genomes and host transcriptomes implicated in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Our analysis results showed that the rapid growth of the virus was accompanied by an early intensive response of host genes. We also systematically compared the molecular footprints of the host cells in response to SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Upon infection, SARS-CoV-2 induced hundreds of up-regulated host genes hallmarked by a significant cytokine production followed by virus-specific host antiviral responses. While the cytokine and antiviral responses triggered by SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV were only observed during the late stage of infection, the host antiviral responses during the SARS-CoV-2 infection were gradually enhanced lagging behind the production of cytokine. The early rapid host responses were potentially attributed to the high efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 entry into host cells, underscored by evidence of a remarkably up-regulated gene expression of TPRMSS2 soon after infection. Taken together, our findings provide novel molecular insights into the mechanisms underlying the infectivity and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2.