Epidemic intelligence studies: A research agenda for political scientists.

This research letter introduces readers to health intelligence by conceptualizing critical components and providing a primer for research within political science broadly considered. Accordingly, a brief review of the literature is provided, concluding with possible future research agendas. The aim is to elaborate on the importance of public health intelligence to national security studies, and to political science more generally.

Nigeria in the COVID era: Health system strengthening for national security and prosperity.

The coronavirus disease-19 pandemic has spread to all parts of the world. As of 20 May 2022, over 500 million confirmed cases have occurred with over 6 million deaths. In Nigeria, over 255,000 cases have occurred with more than 3000 deaths. The pandemic has adversely affected virtually all aspects of human endeavour, with a severe impact on the health system. The Nigerian health system was ill prepared for the pandemic, and this further weakened it. The impacts of the pandemic on the health system include disruption of health services, low motivation of the health workforce, unresponsive leadership and poor funding. The national response, though initially weak, was ramped up to expand capacity building, testing, public enlightenment, creation of isolation and treatment centres and research. The funding for the national response was from the government, private sector and multilateral donors. Nigeria must comprehensively strengthen its health system through motivating and building the capacity of its human resources for health, improved service delivery and provision of adequate funding, to be better prepared against future pandemics.

On Protection of U.S. Forces From Global Health Threats: The Role of Health Security Advisors.

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has exposed a health security gap within our nation and around the world. Recent national laws and policies have outlined the ends and means to improve health security. A decisive way is to achieve this objective is through health-related security cooperation efforts by increasing Health Services Support capacity.

Making Security Viral: Shifting Engineering Biology Culture and Publishing.

The ability to construct, synthesize, and edit genes and genomes at scale and with speed enables, in synergy with other tools of engineering biology, breakthrough applications with far-reaching implications for society. As SARS-CoV-2 spread around the world in early spring of 2020, researchers rapidly mobilized, using these tools in the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines for COVID-19. The sharing of knowledge was crucial to making rapid progress. Several publications described the use of reverse genetics for the de novo construction of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory, one in the form of a protocol. Given the demonstrable harm caused by the virus, the unequal distribution of mitigating vaccines and therapeutics, their unknown efficacy against variants, and the interest in this research by laboratories unaccustomed to working with highly transmissible pandemic pathogens, there are risks associated with such publications, particularly as protocols. We describe considerations and offer suggestions for enhancing security in the publication of synthetic biology research and techniques. We recommend: (1) that protocol manuscripts for the de novo synthesis of certain pathogenic viruses undergo a mandatory safety and security review; (2) that if published, such papers include descriptions of the discussions or review processes that occurred regarding security considerations in the main text; and (3) the development of a governance framework for the inclusion of basic security screening during the publication process of engineering biology/synthetic biology manuscripts to build and support a safe and secure research enterprise that is able to maximize its positive impacts and minimize any negative outcomes.

Psychiatric Care in Acute Care Units with Locked Doors: Nursing Care Providers' Perceptions and Experiences.

Social distancing and the recent lockdown due to COVID-19 have increased the feeling of disconnection, isolation, and suffering in vulnerable individuals and have brought forward questions regarding locked acute care psychiatric units that cannot be answered by the literature. In Greece, there is no available research on how locked ward environments are perceived and experienced by mental health professionals. The aim of the present study is to illuminate nursing care providers' perceptions of psychiatric care in units with locked doors. Fifteen nursing care providers were interviewed and inductive content analysis was employed to explore their experiences of working in locked psychiatric acute care units. Negative and positive feelings about door locking did not appear to match the specific system of practice. Some participants described how locked doors influenced their professional role by placing emphasis on control rather than care while others regarded locked doors as a symbolic way of therapeutic boundary setting. Participants had positive experiences when they perceived their working environment as caring. The therapeutic benefits of locked doors were prominent when locked doors were perceived as "invisible."

Hygiene audit in textile industry facilities against Covid-19 / Auditoria de higiene en instalaciones de la industria textil frente al Covid-19

Los trabajadores de la industria están expuestos a distintos tipos de riesgos, incluyendo la exposición laboral a agentes biológicos como virus, bacterias, hongos, parásitos, esporas o toxinas capaces de originar algún tipo de infección, enfermedad o toxicidad. Gran variedad de estos patógenos ha sido identificada sobre distintas superficies dentro de instalaciones de trabajo, persistiendo en algunos casos luego de las jornadas de limpieza habituales, e incluso sobreviviendo por largos períodos de tiempo. Los hallazgos preliminares indican que los procesos de higiene en dos industrias permitieron disminuir de manera estadísticamente significativa la presencia de E. Coli y Sars-Cov-2, en las superficies dentro de las instalaciones. Por el contrario, en una tercera industria se observó que los procesos de higiene y limpieza no lograron reducir eficazmente la presencia de los patógenos La auditoría de higiene en instalaciones de industrias textiles debe incluir la capacidad de hallar e identificar los peligros biológicos que aún estén presentes en superficies, una vez ejecutados los protocolos rutinarios de limpieza y desinfección establecidos por la organización. Para esta labor proponemos la práctica complementaria de tres procedimientos: la determinación microbiológica, mediante torundas o placas de contacto, la determinación visual con luz ultravioleta, para comprobar el grado de eficacia de la limpieza, y la determinación específica, consistente en la detección de ARN de virus SARS-CoV-2 (causante del COVID-19) en muestras ambientales de superficies por el método de PCR en tiempo real(AU)

Industrial workers are exposed to different types of risks, including occupational exposure to biological agents such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, spores or toxins capable of causing some type of infection, disease or toxicity. A great variety of these pathogens have been identified on different surfaces within work facilities, persisting in some cases after the usual cleaning days, and even surviving for long periods of time. Preliminary findings indicate that hygiene processes in two industries allowed a statistically significant decrease in the presence of E. Coli and Sars-Cov-2, on surfaces within the facilities. On the contrary, in a third industry it was observed that hygiene and cleaning processes failed to effectively reduce the presence of pathogens Hygiene audit in textile industry facilities should include the ability to find and identify biological hazards that are still present on surfaces, once the routine cleaning and disinfection protocols established by the organization have been executed. For this work, we propose the complementary practice of three procedures: microbiological determination, using swabs or contact plates, visual determination with ultraviolet light, to verify the degree of cleaning efficiency, and specific determination, consisting of RNA detection. of SARS-CoV-2 virus (causing COVID-19) in environmental samples of surfaces by the real-time PCR method(AU)