Exploring Social Media for Early Detection of Depression in COVID-19 Patients

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial damage to global health. Even though three years have passed, the world continues to struggle with the virus. Concerns are growing about the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of infected individuals, who are more likely to experience depression, which can have long-lasting consequences for both the affected individuals and the world. Detection and intervention at an early stage can reduce the risk of depression in COVID-19 patients. In this paper, we investigated the relationship between COVID-19 infection and depression through social media analysis. Firstly, we managed a dataset of COVID-19 patients that contains information about their social media activity both before and after infection. Secondly, We conducted an extensive analysis of this dataset to investigate the characteristic of COVID-19 patients with a higher risk of depression. Thirdly, we proposed a deep neural network for early prediction of depression risk. This model considers daily mood swings as a psychiatric signal and incorporates textual and emotional characteristics via knowledge distillation. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed framework outperforms baselines in detecting depression risk, with an AUROC of 0.9317 and an AUPRC of 0.8116. Our model has the potential to enable public health organizations to initiate prompt intervention with high-risk patients. © 2023 ACM.

Political economy of vaccine diplomacy: explaining varying strategies of China, India, and Russia's COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy

The COVID-19 pandemic and global responses to this crisis reveal the changing landscape of global health governance. As countries around the world struggle to secure COVID-19 vaccines for their citizens, some non-Western powers have actively distributed vaccines internationally – an act broadly recognized as vaccine diplomacy. While existing literature suggests that geopolitical concerns affect the selection of recipient countries, it has yet to explain other aspects of vaccine diplomacy. Why are some countries focused on vaccine sales while others are more open to donation? Why do some prefer bilateral to multilateral channels in distributing vaccines? Through comparative analysis of China, India, and Russia, this article shows that political economic factors, in addition to geopolitics, shape the ways non-Western powers conduct vaccine diplomacy. We argue that these countries adjust their strategies in line with their relative advantages in development, manufacturing, and delivery of vaccines. Each country has unique strengths and weakness, which gives rise to the varied patterns in vaccine diplomacy. Our findings suggest that their strategies of vaccine diplomacy are enabled as well as constrained by their economic realities, and the rise of these countries in this field does not necessarily mean an outright challenge to the existing international system. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Review of International Political Economy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Spatial Epidemiology of COVID-19 Pandemic: Disease Risk, Prognosis, and Complications

Why do some populations display a higher attack and mortality rate from the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic than others? Are there geographic, environmental, behavioral, genetic, and comorbidity differences that influence spatial dynamics of COVID-19 transmission and outcomes? Where are the regional and country-level hotspots, and what drives those hotspots? These are some of the questions the current chapter strives to answer. The dynamics of transmission and consequences of COVID-19 are not homogeneous but instead have a geographical and spatial clustering. Population-level genetic, vaccination rates, health care disparities, SARS-CoV-2 variants, and meteorological factors are all underlying determinants of the disease dynamics globally, regionally, nationally, and locally. Disease surveillance frameworks to control, mitigate, and prevent the SARS- CoV-2 infections, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, are critical. Lastly, we highlight the spatial differences in the consequences of the pandemic focusing on behavioral and post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Reclassification of COVID-19 Related ICD-10 Codes in Mexico: A Real-World Data Analysis of 1,937,360 Hospital Discharges from the Ministry of Health

Objectives: To estimate the reclassification of COVID-19 related ICD-10 codes from admission to discharge using Real-World Data (RWD) from the 2020 Mexican Ministry of Health (MoH) hospitals discharge dataset. Method(s): In this retrospective study, we analyzed all COVID-19 related discharges in the 2020 MoH open database, according to ten ICD-10 codes that the WHO associated with COVID-19. Reclassification was defined as those COVID-19 related cases who were discharged with a different ICD-10 code compared to their ICD-10 admission code. Result(s): From a total of 1,937,360 discharges reported in the MoH's 2020 database 63,740 (3.3%), mostly men (60.8%), with a median age of 56 years, were discharged with a COVID-19 related ICD-10 code and 12,945 of these were reclassified (20.3%). Although "2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease" (U071) had the greatest frequency of reclassified discharges (12,013, 22.3%), the "other coronavirus as the cause of diseases classified elsewhere" (B972) was associated with the greatest reclassification proportion (68, 74.7%) followed by "pneumonia case confirmed as due to COVID-19" (J128) (26.0%). Codes with lower percentages were "acute respiratory distress syndrome due to COVID-19" (J80X) and "acute respiratory failure due to COVID-19" (J960) with 6.3% and 3.8%, respectively. From 63,740 discharges, 50.7% were due to clinical improvement, followed by death (38.2%), transfer to another unit (5.2%) and voluntary discharge (3.3%). The J960 code had the highest mortality (67%) followed by codes J80X (59.7%) and U071 (35.5%). Conclusion(s): In our RWD analysis, we identified that 1 in 5 COVID-19 discharges were admitted with different diagnoses, highlighting the enormous challenges faced by the Mexican MoH during the global health crisis to establish an accurate COVID-19 diagnosis and coding. Given that this is the first reclassification analysis in Mexico, the conduction of future studies is essential to gain more insights on the consequences of reclassification at a health system level.Copyright © 2023

Perinatal aspects of sars-cov-2 infection during pregnancy: A potential cause for concern

Ever since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, uncertainty regarding clinical presentation and differences among various subpopulations exist. With more than 209,870,000 confirmed cases and more than 4,400,000 deaths worldwide, we are facing the new era of health crisis which will undoubtedly impair global health, economic and social circumstances. In the past year, numerous genetic mutations which code SARS-CoV-2 proteins led to the occurrence of new viral strains, with higher transmission rates. Apart from the implementation of vaccination, the effect of SARS-CoV-2 on pregnancy outcome and maternal fetal transmission remains an important concern. Although neonates diagnosed with COVID-19 were mostly asymptomatic or presented with mild disease, the effect on early pregnancy is yet to be evident. While positive finding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in some samples such as amniotic fluid, placental tissue, cord blood and breast milk exists, additional research should confirm its association with transplacental transmission.Copyright © 2022, Dr. Mladen Stojanovic University Hospital. All rights reserved.

Diversity in medical publications: a cross-sectional evaluation of COVID- 19 vaccine research

Objective: Representing diverse perspectives in medical publications is of great importance. We assessed diversity among investigators, study participants, authors and tweeters of recent publications on COVID-19 vaccine trials, a topic likely to have significant global implications. Research design and methods: Primary publications reporting on COVID vaccine randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were identified via PubMed (n=302 hits, 23 September 2022). The 100 articles with the greatest impact (Altmetric score) were selected for evaluation. National affiliation of authors and investigators, and demographics of participants were collected. Geographic locations of Tweets mentioning the publications were collected via Altmetric. Result(s): In our preliminary analysis, as expected, selected publications most frequently appeared in top-tier journals, e.g. New England Journal of Medicine (n=24) and Lancet (n=19), and had high Altmetric scores (median 886, range 30-29,153). Articles included authors from mean 2.2 countries, most frequently the USA (n=43 articles), the UK (n=31) and China (n=23). Investigators' locations were often not reported, but most frequent were the UK (n=2711 investigators), USA (n=1029) and South Africa (n=269). There was a gender balance among participants across the studies (mean 49.4% female). The most frequent ethnic groups were white, Hispanic and Asian. Tweets mentioning the publications most commonly came from the USA (8.1%), the UK (3.1%) and Japan (2.9%). Conclusion(s): Despite COVID-19 being a global health emergency, most authors, investigators and readers of high impact COVID-19 vaccine RCT publications were from a small group of countries, with some notable exceptions. Numerous studies did not report the geographic location of investigators or participant ethnicity. Consistent and transparent reporting would support the drive towards greater diversity and representation in medical research.

Deep CNN and LSTM Architecture-Based Approach for COVID-19 Detection

The severe acute respiratory syndrome(SARS-CoV2) led to a pandemic of respiratory disease, namely COVID19. The disease has scaled worldwide and has become a global health concern. Unfortunately, the pandemic not just cost several individuals their lives but also, resulted in many people losing their jobs and life savings. In times like these, ordinary people become fearful of their resources in a world that gives its best resources to the wealthiest beings. Following the pandemic, the world suffered greatly and survival was rather difficult. As a result, numerous analytical techniques were developed to address this issue, with the key one being the discovery that the efficacy of clinically tested vaccines is actually quite poor. When researchers and medical professionals were unable to find a cure, radiologists and engineers created techniques to detect infected chests with the help of X-rays. Our proposed solution involves a CNN + LSTM model which has secured an accuracy of 98% compared to 95% of the trusted VGG-16 architecture. Our model's area under the curve (AUC) scores reached 99.458% while using RMSprop. A crucial feature of image processing till depth is accessible through scanning features from the layers of images using CNN. Our model uses 5 convolution blocks to detect the features. The coordination of activator functions, learning rates, and flattening has enabled accurate in-point predictions. With merely X-rays, models like ours ensure that anyone can easily detect covid-19. The best results obtained were at a learning rate =0.01 with RMSprop and Adam functions. The model has good fortune in detecting any other lung disease which occurs in the near future, as our data collectively rounds up to 4.5 gigabytes of data providing higher precision. © 2023 IEEE.

Managing risk in commercial property development projects during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from China

The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest global health crisis in years. China is the first market primarily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with unprecedented lockdown measures bringing real estate and other economic activities to a standstill. This study has two objectives: (1) to identify the risks critical to the risk management of commercial real estate (CRE) development projects based on the project life cycle stages and (2) to identify the stages most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the risk factors at different stages. Three rounds of the Delphi study were conducted with nine experts involved in the construction project. The findings indicate that the construction, lease and sale phases are prone to significant risks. Additionally, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) identified ‘health and safety risk' as the most critical risk factor during the construction phase and ‘marketing and payback risk' as the most critical risk factor during the lease and sale phase. This study enhanced the effectiveness of risk management practices for implementing CRE development projects in China.

COVID-19 during Pregnancy: Prevalence, Predictors, and Impact on the Newborn

Background: The recent pandemic prompted a number of clinical trials to assess the efficacy and safety of medication use for the treatment for COVID-19. As pregnant women are excluded or vastly underrepresented in clinical research, there is a paucity of data on how pregnancy and perinatal outcomes are impacted by such medications. Considering that pregnant women are at increased risk for COVID-19 infection and that pregnancy is also associated with an increased risk of developing severe COVID-19, it is of utmost importance to assess the effect of gestational medications use for COVID-19 on pregnancy outcomes. Objective(s): The aims of this systematic review were to (1) determine and quantify COVID-19-specific and repurposed medication use during pregnancy, and (2) provide an overview of the pregnancy and neonatal outcomes that have occurred in COVID-19-positive pregnant women exposed to COVID-19-specific or repurposed medications compared to use in pregnant women without COVID-19;neonatal outcomes compared between COVID-19 positive pregnant women treated and untreated with these medications. Method(s): A systematic literature search was conducted in Ovid and executed in the following databases: MEDLINE, Embase, and Global Health. Search strategies applied combined database-specific subject headings and keywords relevant to the topic. Some subject headings used in databases were pregnancy outcome, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, pharmaceutical preparations, drugs, and prescription. Some keywords used for the searches were pregnancy outcome, neonatal outcome, coronavirus disease 2019, drug, medication, and treatment. For each database, keywords were searched within the , keyword heading word or heading words, and title fields. Restrictions were applied regarding the date of publication and searches were limited to English publications. Study selection was accomplished by two independent investigators (NSK, NAB). Only original research articles were considered for inclusion. Included studies investigated pregnancy or neonatal outcomes in women with COVID-19 receiving medication to treat COVID-19. A standardized extraction form was used to independently extract relevant information. Result(s): The literature search yielded a total of 344 records. After deduplication, 69 records were removed. The title and of 275 publications were screened.

Males' experiences of gender-based violence in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): A review of literature

Globally, gender-based violence (GBV) continues to be a serious global health, human rights, and development issue. There is no standard definition of GBV, but it can be enacted under different forms such as physical violence, sexual violence, economic violence, psychological and emotional aggression (including coercive tactics) directed at someone because of their biological sex or gender identity. Most literature focuses on violence against females (both heterosexual and homosexual) and children, with little focus on males' perspectives. Most GBV narratives present males as perpetrators of violence. Recent statistics show that intimate partner violence (IPV) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased unemployment, substance abuse and reduced economic status. Recent country specific statistics are sparse but understanding the males' perceptions and experiences of GBV can assist with identifying appropriate interventions to deal with GBV. This critical review highlights critical knowledge gaps in the existing literature and a need for future research within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Which teachers were most affected in terms of mental health during the strict covid-19 lockdown in spain?

This study looks at the effect that the compulsory COVID-19 lockdown restrictions introduced by the Spanish government had on the quality of life of teachers working in the Spanish education system, i.e. those teaching at early years, primary, secondary, tertiary vocational training and university education levels. Participants completed a questionnaire that included the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) along with other questions relating to their wellbeing from the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS). A total of 668 teachers responded to the questionnaire, which was generated using Microsoft Forms and distributed in an online format. The results confirm significant levels of abnormal anxiety during prolonged lockdown. We perform a multivariate analysis that shows that, whatever the level of anxiety, two variables are always significant in all the contrast models: participants felt the effects of lockdown on a personal level and found it difficult to carry out their work. The results also indicate that teachers working in primary and secondary education were those most affected by the strict, prolonged lockdown and that female teachers suffered much higher levels of anxiety than male teachers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Global Health Technologies are Transforming Intellectual Property and World Trade

The nano-enabled technology of 3-D printing for medical devices presents a dynamic new avenue for meeting patient needs. 3-D printers can generate food, soaps, cosmetics, body parts, metal devices, or medicines. This technology enables continuity of health care delivery despite disruptive breaks in any supply chain due to war, shortage, or broken distribution lines due to pandemic force majeure.1 Featuring custom-tailored attributes for each device, economic efficiency by eliminating transport costs during emergencies, avoiding issues of distribution supply chains, and offering biocompatibility, 3-D printed medical devices during the COVID-19 pandemic2 provided a very attractive alternative to enduring medical supply shortages worldwide. Beyond the covid-19 pandemic exigencies, 3-D printed medical devices promise custom-tailored meals to meet medical needs that are unique for each patient's metabolism and a wide variety of tools for patient care that will change the shape of global commerce.3 3-D printing offers the alluring promise of biocompatible medical devices, matching any patient's unique anatomy, using a specific patient's imaging data, or using a standard design to make multiple identical copies of the same device, but without delays for transport or shipping and insurance costs. The global health impact of these efforts, from the standpoint of patient safety4 and overall deterrence of unnecessary or unsafe medical practices, remains unclear due to the absence of regulation and monitoring. The reality is that commerce can reduce or eliminate transport and storage costs associated with shipping and can change international trade. Yet, 3-D printing simultaneously offers great promise to meet challenges arising from the arcane role of intellectual property rights (IPR)5 in shaping the creation and transfer of nanomedicines and nanotechnologies to attain health equity and meet universal needs of health for all. These millennial technological changes may permanently alter how civil society does business for global health. © 2022, Andover House, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Global health, humanity and the COVID-19 pandemic: Philosophical and sociological challenges and imperatives

This volume interrogates global health and especially the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the role that science has played in mitigating the human experiences of pandemics and health over the centuries. Science, and the scientific method, has always been at the forefront of the human attempt at undermining the virulent consequences of sicknesses and diseases. However, the scientific image of humans in the world is founded on the presumption of possessing the complete understanding about humans and their physiological and psychological frameworks. This volume challenges this scientific assumption. Global health denotes the complex and cumulative health profile of humanity that involves not only the framework of scientific researches and practices that investigates and seeks to improve the health of all people on the globe, but also the range of humanistic issues - economic, cultural, social, ideological - that constitute the sources of inequities and threat to the achievement of a positive global health profile. This volume balances the argument that diseases and pandemics are human problems that demand both scientific and humanistic interventions. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Identification of Patients Diagnosed with Rare and Emerging Diseases Utilizing the Trinetx Network: A Case Study of African and American Trypanosomiasis

Objectives: Due to large sample sizes, electronic medical records (EMR) databases have the potential to provide pivotal insights into patients diagnosed with rare, orphan, or emerging diseases. This study aimed to explore the patient profile of African and American trypanosomiasis, both vector-borne parasitic diseases, pre-and post the COVID-19 pandemic using the TriNetX Network. Method(s): From Jan 1, 2018 - Nov 30, 2019 (pre-COVID) and Jan 1, 2020 - Nov 30, 2021 (post-COVID) patients were queried from the TriNetX Global health research network, inclusive of 88 million patients from the United States (US), Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. Eligible patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis code of African trypanosomiasis or American trypanosomiasis were identified (2280 patients on 22-Dec-2022) and analyzed separately, pre- and post-COVID. Result(s): We identified 340 patients pre- and 960 patients post-COVID with African trypanosomiasis and 960 patients pre- and 190 patients post-COVID with American trypanosomiasis. Most patients resided in the US. Pre-COVID African trypanosomiasis patients had a mean age of 38 and were 59% female while post-COVID patients had a mean age of 34 and were 57% female. Pre-COVID American trypanosomiasis patients had a mean age of 49 and were 57% female while post-COVID patients had a mean age of 49 and were 53% female. Top co-diagnoses included diseases of the respiratory (85%, 84%) and nervous systems (82%, 79%) for patients with African trypanosomiasis and diseases of the digestive (69%, 54%) and circulatory systems (68%, 61%) for patients with American trypanosomiasis in both the pre- and post-COVID cohorts, respectively. Conclusion(s): Using real-world EMR data we were able to obtain patient profiles for a rare disease (African trypanosomiasis) and a common, emerging disease (American trypanosomiasis). This informationsupportsutilizing EMR data for describing patient populations in rare, orphan, or emerging diseases, which may aid drug development for these indications.Copyright © 2023

Nanobiosensors Potentialities for Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in the Environment

The worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is a devastating and distressing scenario that highlights humanity's inability to build fast diagnostic tools for emerging infectious diseases. However, the majority of existing approaches have a significant probability of false negatives, leading in patient diag-nostic errors and prolonging therapy. Nanoparticles have shown significant improve-ment and have the potential to be used as a platform for quickly and accurately identifying viral infection. The relevance of nanoparticles is potential platforms for COVID-19 diagnostics was emphasized in this research. In addition, nanomaterials have surface chemistry, which may be beneficial for the bioconjugation of molecules, large surface potential, and a significant amplification impact on signals. Due to various potential benefits, metallic nanomaterials like gold, silver nanoparticles, and carbon-based nanomaterials (carbon nanotube and graphene), nanogels, and photonic crystals are utilized for biosensing applications. In compared to traditional techniques for identifying severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), this study covers the most relevant aspects of nanobiosensor-based diagnostics tech-niques. Additionally, major potential challenges and prospects associated with the advancement of these distinct sensors for SARS-CoV-2 detection are discussed in detail. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Trauma Informed Educational Practices: An Educational Innovation for Graduate Nursing Students

[...]the most recognized definition, as espoused by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration fSAMHSA. 2014). is the response of an individual to an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is perceived as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening. Examples of circumstances that are potentially traumatic include emotional, physical, or sexual abuse;sudden separation from a loved one;childhood neglect;family members with a mental health condition;poverty;and discrimination (Center for Health Care Strategies. 2017). Findings of the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study indicated that exposure to trauma increases the likelihood of health-risk behaviors as well as a person's lifetime risk for chronic health conditions such as autoimmune disorders, depression, heart disease, liver disease, lung disease, obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, and substance use disorders. (2022) assert that there is a significant need to incorporate traumainformed practices within graduate nursing curriculum to address mental health concerns that graduate nursing students struggle with during their programs of study.

Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis due to vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia in middle-income countries.

BACKGROUND: Adenovirus-based COVID-19 vaccines are extensively used in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Remarkably, cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis due to vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (CVST-VITT) have rarely been reported from LMICs. AIMS: We studied the frequency, manifestations, treatment, and outcomes of CVST-VITT in LMICs. METHODS: We report data from an international registry on CVST after COVID-19 vaccination. VITT was classified according to the Pavord criteria. We compared CVST-VITT cases from LMICs to cases from high-income countries (HICs). RESULTS: Until August 2022, 228 CVST cases were reported, of which 63 were from LMICs (all middle-income countries [MICs]: Brazil, China, India, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey). Of these 63, 32 (51%) met the VITT criteria, compared to 103 of 165 (62%) from HICs. Only 5 of the 32 (16%) CVST-VITT cases from MICs had definite VITT, mostly because anti-platelet factor 4 antibodies were often not tested. The median age was 26 (interquartile range [IQR] 20-37) versus 47 (IQR 32-58) years, and the proportion of women was 25 of 32 (78%) versus 77 of 103 (75%) in MICs versus HICs, respectively. Patients from MICs were diagnosed later than patients from HICs (1/32 [3%] vs. 65/103 [63%] diagnosed before May 2021). Clinical manifestations, including intracranial hemorrhage, were largely similar as was intravenous immunoglobulin use. In-hospital mortality was lower in MICs (7/31 [23%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 11-40]) than in HICs (44/102 [43%, 95% CI 34-53], p = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS: The number of CVST-VITT cases reported from LMICs was small despite the widespread use of adenoviral vaccines. Clinical manifestations and treatment of CVST-VITT cases were largely similar in MICs and HICs, while mortality was lower in patients from MICs.

Monkeypox: A review of a zoonotic disease of global public health concern.

Background: The rising circulation of the monkeypox virus while the COVID-19 is still ongoing in non-endemic countries is a significant global health threat. In this article, we have discussed the epidemiology, aetiology, and pathogenesis of the monkeypox virus to provide our current knowledge of the disease. Also, we discussed the ongoing efforts of the international health organizations to curtail the present epidemic and we finally provide recommendations for early detection and response. Methods: We did a rapid literature search on PubMed, EMBASE, World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other trusted databases for recent articles (1958-2022) published in English-focusing on the outbreaks of monkeypox disease, epidemiology, pathogenesis, aetiology, prevention, and control in endemic and non-endemic countries. Keywords such as "Monkeypox", "Monkeypox virus", "Poxviridae", "Orthopoxvirus", "Smallpox", and "Smallpox Vaccine" were considered in our search based on MESH medical subject headings. Results: Our review highlights four important findings. First, a cumulative of 1285 monkeypox cases have been documented and reported by the WHO in non-endemic countries as of June 8, 2022. Second, international travel contributes to the increase in cases in non-endemic countries. Third, the origin of the outbreak, the pattern of transmission, and the risk of infections is not fully understood. Fourth, there is an ongoing effort by the WHO, CDC, and other international health organization to control the spread of the monkeypox disease. Conclusion: Our findings underline the need to reassess research priorities on the origin, transmission pattern, and risk factors for infection of monkeypox. Also, we provide recommendations under the One Health spectrum to prevent further spread of the disease.

Affectionate touch and diurnal oxytocin levels: An ecological momentary assessment study.

Background: Affectionate touch, which is vital for mental and physical health, was restricted during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study investigated the association between momentary affectionate touch and subjective well-being, as well as salivary oxytocin and cortisol in everyday life during the pandemic. Methods: In the first step, we measured anxiety and depression symptoms, loneliness and attitudes toward social touch in a large cross-sectional online survey (N = 1050). From this sample, N = 247 participants completed ecological momentary assessments over 2 days with six daily assessments by answering smartphone-based questions on affectionate touch and momentary mental state, and providing concomitant saliva samples for cortisol and oxytocin assessment. Results: Multilevel models showed that on a within-person level, affectionate touch was associated with decreased self-reported anxiety, general burden, stress, and increased oxytocin levels. On a between-person level, affectionate touch was associated with decreased cortisol levels and higher happiness. Moreover, individuals with a positive attitude toward social touch experiencing loneliness reported more mental health problems. Conclusions: Our results suggest that affectionate touch is linked to higher endogenous oxytocin in times of pandemic and lockdown and might buffer stress on a subjective and hormonal level. These findings might have implications for preventing mental burden during social contact restrictions. Funding: The study was funded by the German Research Foundation, the German Psychological Society, and German Academic Exchange Service.