COVID-19 Face Mask Classification Using Deep Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a global health disaster because its virus is spread mainly through minute respiratory droplets from coughing, sneezing, or prolonged close contact between individuals. Consequently, World Health Organization (WHO) urged wearing face masks in public places such as schools, train stations, hospitals, etc., as a precaution against COVID-19. However, it takes work to monitor people in these places manually. Therefore, an automated facial mask detection system is essential for such enforcement. Nevertheless, face detection systems confront issues, such as the use of accessories that obscure the face region, for example, face masks. Even existing detection systems that depend on facial features struggle to obtain good accuracy. Recent advancements in object detection, based on deep learning (DL) models, have shown good performance in identifying objects in images. This work proposed a DL-based approach to develop a face mask detector model to categorize masked and unmasked faces in images and real-time streaming video. The model is trained and evaluated on two different datasets, which are synthetic and real masked face datasets. Experiments on these two datasets showed that the performance accuracy rate of this model is 99% and 89%, respectively. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Meningococcal disease in North America: Updates from the Global Meningococcal Initiative.

This review summarizes the recent Global Meningococcal Initiative (GMI) regional meeting, which explored meningococcal disease in North America. Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) cases are documented through both passive and active surveillance networks. IMD appears to be decreasing in many areas, such as the Dominican Republic (2016: 18 cases; 2021: 2 cases) and Panama (2008: 1 case/100,000; 2021: <0.1 cases/100,000); however, there is notable regional and temporal variation. Outbreaks persist in at-risk subpopulations, such as people experiencing homelessness in the US and migrants in Mexico. The recent emergence of ß-lactamase-positive and ciprofloxacin-resistant meningococci in the US is a major concern. While vaccination practices vary across North America, vaccine uptake remains relatively high. Monovalent and multivalent conjugate vaccines (which many countries in North America primarily use) can provide herd protection. However, there is no evidence that group B vaccines reduce meningococcal carriage. The coronavirus pandemic illustrates that following public health crises, enhanced surveillance of disease epidemiology and catch-up vaccine schedules is key. Whole genome sequencing is a key epidemiological tool for identifying IMD strain emergence and the evaluation of vaccine strain coverage. The Global Roadmap on Defeating Meningitis by 2030 remains a focus of the GMI.

Are intravitreal injections essential during the COVID-19 pandemic? Global preferred practice patterns and practical recommendations.

Tertiary outpatient ophthalmology clinics are high-risk environments for COVID-19 transmission, especially retina clinics, where regular follow-up is needed for elderly patients with multiple comorbidities. Intravitreal injection therapy (IVT) for chronic macular diseases, is one of the most common procedures performed, associated with a significant burden of care because of the vigorous treatment regimen associated with multiple investigations. While minimizing the risk of COVID-19 infection transmission is a priority, this must be balanced against the continued provision of sight-saving ophthalmic care to patients at risk of permanent vision loss. This review aims to give evidence-based guidelines on managing IVT during the COVID-19 pandemic in common macular diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macula edema and retinal vascular disease and to report on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected IVT practices worldwide.To illustrate some real-world examples, 18 participants in the International Retina Collaborative, from 15 countries and across four continents, were surveyed regarding pre- and during- COVID-19 pandemic IVT practices in tertiary ophthalmic centers. The majority of centers reported a reduction in the number of appointments to reduce the risk of the spread of COVID-19 with varying changes to their IVT regimen to treat various macula diseases. Due to the constantly evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the uncertainty about the normal resumption of health services, we suggest that new solutions for eye healthcare provision, like telemedicine, may be adopted in the future when we consider new long-term adaptations required to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Knowledge, perception and impact of COVID-19 on practice of doctors in an insurgency affected area

Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge, perception and impact of COVID-19 on doctors practising in an insurgency-afflicted Borno State, North-Eastern Nigeria. Method: A cross-sectional study conducted using pretested Google forms questionnaire. Data were analysed using SPSS version 25. A multidimensional score with cut-off of 8 was used to rate doctors' level of knowledge and a p-value of <0.05 was considered significant.