Disparities in mobile phone ownership reflect inequities in access to healthcare.

Human movement and population connectivity inform infectious disease management. Remote data, particularly mobile phone usage data, are frequently used to track mobility in outbreak response efforts without measuring representation in target populations. Using a detailed interview instrument, we measure population representation in phone ownership, mobility, and access to healthcare in a highly mobile population with low access to health care in Namibia, a middle-income country. We find that 1) phone ownership is both low and biased by gender, 2) phone ownership is correlated with differences in mobility and access to healthcare, and 3) reception is spatially unequal and scarce in non-urban areas. We demonstrate that mobile phone data do not represent the populations and locations that most need public health improvements. Finally, we show that relying on these data to inform public health decisions can be harmful with the potential to magnify health inequities rather than reducing them. To reduce health inequities, it is critical to integrate multiple data streams with measured, non-overlapping biases to ensure data representativeness for vulnerable populations.

Habitat loss for black flying foxes and implications for Hendra virus.

Context: Environmental change impacts natural ecosystems and wildlife populations. In Australia, native forests have been heavily cleared and the local emergence of Hendra virus (HeV) has been linked to land-use change, winter habitat loss, and changing bat behavior. Objectives: We quantified changes in landscape factors for black flying foxes (Pteropus alecto), a reservoir host of HeV, in sub-tropical Queensland, Australia from 2000-2020. We hypothesized that native winter habitat loss and native remnant forest loss were greatest in areas with the most human population growth. Methods: We measured the spatiotemporal change in human population size and native 'remnant' woody vegetation extent. We assessed changes in the observed P. alecto population and native winter habitats in bioregions where P. alecto are observed roosting in winter. We assessed changes in the amount of remnant vegetation across bioregions and within 50 km foraging buffers around roosts. Results: Human populations in these bioregions grew by 1.18 M people, mostly within 50 km foraging areas around roosts. Remnant forest extent decreased overall, but regrowth was observed when policy restricted vegetation clearing. Winter habitats were continuously lost across all spatial scales. Observed roost counts of P. alecto declined. Conclusion: Native remnant forest loss and winter habitat loss were not directly linked to spatial human population growth. Rather, most remnant vegetation was cleared for indirect human use. We observed forest loss and regrowth in response to state land clearing policies. Expanded flying fox population surveys will help better understand how land-use change has impacted P. alecto distribution and Hendra virus spillover. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10980-023-01642-w.

COVID-19 Mitigation Among College Students: Social Influences, Behavioral Spillover, and Antibody Results.

By fall 2020, students returning to U.S. university campuses were mandated to engage in COVID-19 mitigation behaviors, including masking, which was a relatively novel prevention behavior in the U.S. Masking became a target of university mandates and campaigns, and it became politicized. Critical questions are whether the influences of injunctive norms and response efficacy on one behavior (i.e. masking) spill over to other mitigation behaviors (e.g. hand-washing), and how patterns of mitigation behaviors are associated with clinical outcomes. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of college students who returned to campus (N = 837) to explore these questions, and conducted COVID-19 antibody testing on a subset of participants to identify correlations between behaviors and disease burden. The results showed that college students were more likely to intend to wear face masks as they experienced more positive injunctive norms, liberal political views, stronger response efficacy for masks, and less pessimism. Latent class analysis revealed four mitigation classes: Adherents who intended to wear face masks and engage in the other COVID-19 mitigation behaviors; Hygiene Stewards and Masked Symptom Managers who intended to wear masks but only some other behaviors, and Refusers who intended to engage in no mitigation behaviors. Importantly, the Hygiene Stewards and Refusers had the highest likelihood of positive antibodies; these two classes differed in their masking intentions, but shared very low likelihoods of physical distancing from others and avoiding crowds or mass gatherings. The implications for theories of normative influences on novel behaviors, spillover effects, and future messaging are discussed.

Human movement and transmission dynamics early in Ebola outbreaks.

Human movement drives the transmission and spread of communicable pathogens. It is especially influential for emerging pathogens when population immunity is low and spillover events are rare. We digitized serial printed maps to measure transportation networks (roads and rivers) in Central and West Africa as proxies for population mobility to assess relationships between movement and Ebola transmission. We find that the lengths of roads and rivers in close proximity to spillover sites at or near the time of spillover events are significantly correlated with the number of EVD cases, particularly in the first 100 days of each outbreak. Early management and containment efforts along transportation networks may be beneficial in mitigation during the early days of transmission and spatial spread for Ebola outbreaks.

Healthcare professionals are "corona saviors" not "warriors".

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the role of doctors and healthcare professionals came into highlight as they are at the forefront since the onset of the pandemic, keeping themselves and their families at risk just to treat this disease and save lives. However, healthcare workers are not warriors. Let our healthcare professionals be called as "Corona Saviors" instead of "Corona Warriors" without any prejudice; they are the "Angels of Saviors of Health."

College students' COVID-19 vaccine beliefs and intentions: Implications for interventions.

On college campuses, effective management of vaccine-preventable transmissible pathogens requires understanding student vaccination intentions. This is necessary for developing and tailoring health messaging to maximize uptake of health information and vaccines. The current study explored students' beliefs and attitudes about vaccines in general, and the new COVID-19 vaccines specifically. This study provides insights into effective health messaging needed to rapidly increase COVID-19 vaccination on college campuses-information that will continue to be informative in future academic years across a broad scope of pathogens. Data were collected from 696 undergraduate students ages 18-29 years old enrolled in a large public university in the Northeast during fall 2020. Data were collected via an online survey. Overall, we found COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in college students correlated strongly with some concerns about vaccines in general as well as with concerns specific to COVID-19 vaccines. Taken together, these results provide further insight for message development and delivery and can inform more effective interventions to advance critical public health outcomes on college campuses beyond the current pandemic.

A longitudinal study of the impact of university student return to campus on the SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among the community members.

Returning university students represent large-scale, transient demographic shifts and a potential source of transmission to adjacent communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this prospective longitudinal cohort study, we tested for IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in a non-random cohort of residents living in Centre County prior to the Fall 2020 term at the Pennsylvania State University and following the conclusion of the Fall 2020 term. We also report the seroprevalence in a non-random cohort of students collected at the end of the Fall 2020 term. Of 1313 community participants, 42 (3.2%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies at their first visit between 07 August and 02 October 2020. Of 684 student participants who returned to campus for fall instruction, 208 (30.4%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies between 26 October and 21 December. 96 (7.3%) community participants returned a positive IgG antibody result by 19 February. Only contact with known SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals and attendance at small gatherings (20-50 individuals) were significant predictors of detecting IgG antibodies among returning students (aOR, 95% CI 3.1, 2.07-4.64; 1.52, 1.03-2.24; respectively). Despite high seroprevalence observed within the student population, seroprevalence in a longitudinal cohort of community residents was low and stable from before student arrival for the Fall 2020 term to after student departure. The study implies that heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 transmission can occur in geographically coincident populations.

Large university with high COVID-19 incidence is not associated with excess cases in non-student population.

Large US colleges and universities that re-opened campuses in the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021 experienced high per capita rates of COVID-19. Returns to campus were controversial because they posed a potential risk to surrounding communities. A large university in Pennsylvania that returned to in-person instruction for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters reported high incidence of COVID-19 among students. However, the co-located non-student resident population in the county experienced fewer COVID-19 cases per capita than reported in neighboring counties. Activity patterns from mobile devices indicate that the non-student resident population near the university restricted their movements during the pandemic more than residents of neighboring counties. Respiratory virus prevention and management in student and non-student populations requires different, specifically targeted strategies.

Ecology, evolution and spillover of coronaviruses from bats.

In the past two decades, three coronaviruses with ancestral origins in bats have emerged and caused widespread outbreaks in humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the first SARS epidemic in 2002-2003, the appreciation of bats as key hosts of zoonotic coronaviruses has advanced rapidly. More than 4,000 coronavirus sequences from 14 bat families have been identified, yet the true diversity of bat coronaviruses is probably much greater. Given that bats are the likely evolutionary source for several human coronaviruses, including strains that cause mild upper respiratory tract disease, their role in historic and future pandemics requires ongoing investigation. We review and integrate information on bat-coronavirus interactions at the molecular, tissue, host and population levels. We identify critical gaps in knowledge of bat coronaviruses, which relate to spillover and pandemic risk, including the pathways to zoonotic spillover, the infection dynamics within bat reservoir hosts, the role of prior adaptation in intermediate hosts for zoonotic transmission and the viral genotypes or traits that predict zoonotic capacity and pandemic potential. Filling these knowledge gaps may help prevent the next pandemic.

Opportunities and constraints in women's resource security amid climate change: A case study of arid-living Namibian agro-pastoralists.

OBJECTIVE: We describe the composition and variation of women's resource strategies in an arid-living Southern African agro-pastoralist society to gain insights into adaptation to climate-change-induced increased aridity. METHODS: Using cross-sectional data from 210 women collected in 2009 across 28 agro-pastoralist villages in Kaokoveld Namibia, we conducted principal-component (PC) analysis of resource variables and constructed profiles of resource strategies from the major PCs. Next, we explored associations between key resource strategies and demographic measures and fitness proxies. RESULTS: The first two PCs accounted for 43% of women's overall resource variation. PC1 reflects women's ability to access market resources via livestock trading, while PC2 captured women's direct food access. We found that market strategies were more common among married women and less common among women who have experienced child mortality. Women with higher subsistence security were more likely to be from the OvaHimba tribe and had a higher risk of gonorrhea exposure. We also qualitatively explored drought-induced pressure on women's livestock. Finally, we show that sexual networks were attenuated during drought, indicating strain on social support. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlight how agro-pastoralist women manage critical resources in unpredictable environments, and how resource strategies distribute among the women in our study. Goats as a commodity to obtain critical resources suggests that some women have flexibility during drought when gardens fail and cattle die. However, increased aridity and drought may eventually overwhelm husbandry practices in this region.

Transient disease dynamics across ecological scales.

Analyses of transient dynamics are critical to understanding infectious disease transmission and persistence. Identifying and predicting transients across scales, from within-host to community-level patterns, plays an important role in combating ongoing epidemics and mitigating the risk of future outbreaks. Moreover, greater emphases on non-asymptotic processes will enable timely evaluations of wildlife and human diseases and lead to improved surveillance efforts, preventive responses, and intervention strategies. Here, we explore the contributions of transient analyses in recent models spanning the fields of epidemiology, movement ecology, and parasitology. In addition to their roles in predicting epidemic patterns and endemic outbreaks, we explore transients in the contexts of pathogen transmission, resistance, and avoidance at various scales of the ecological hierarchy. Examples illustrate how (i) transient movement dynamics at the individual host level can modify opportunities for transmission events over time; (ii) within-host energetic processes often lead to transient dynamics in immunity, pathogen load, and transmission potential; (iii) transient connectivity between discrete populations in response to environmental factors and outbreak dynamics can affect disease spread across spatial networks; and (iv) increasing species richness in a community can provide transient protection to individuals against infection. Ultimately, we suggest that transient analyses offer deeper insights and raise new, interdisciplinary questions for disease research, consequently broadening the applications of dynamical models for outbreak preparedness and management. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12080-021-00514-w.

SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence in a University Community: A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Student Return to Campus on Infection Risk Among Community Members.

BACKGROUND: Returning university students represent large-scale, transient demographic shifts and a potential source of transmission to adjacent communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: In this prospective longitudinal cohort study, we tested for IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in a non-random cohort of residents living in Centre County prior to the Fall 2020 term at the Pennsylvania State University and following the conclusion of the Fall 2020 term. We also report the seroprevalence in a non-random cohort of students collected at the end of the Fall 2020 term. RESULTS: Of 1313 community participants, 42 (3.2%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies at their first visit between 07 August and 02 October 2020. Of 684 student participants who returned to campus for fall instruction, 208 (30.4%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies between 26 October and 21 December. 96 (7.3%) community participants returned a positive IgG antibody result by 19 February. Only contact with known SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals and attendance at small gatherings (20-50 individuals) were significant predictors of detecting IgG antibodies among returning students (aOR, 95% CI: 3.1, 2.07-4.64; 1.52, 1.03-2.24; respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Despite high seroprevalence observed within the student population, seroprevalence in a longitudinal cohort of community residents was low and stable from before student arrival for the Fall 2020 term to after student departure. The study implies that heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 transmission can occur in geographically coincident populations.

The influence of vector-borne disease on human history: socio-ecological mechanisms.

Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) are embedded within complex socio-ecological systems. While research has traditionally focused on the direct effects of VBDs on human morbidity and mortality, it is increasingly clear that their impacts are much more pervasive. VBDs are dynamically linked to feedbacks between environmental conditions, vector ecology, disease burden, and societal responses that drive transmission. As a result, VBDs have had profound influence on human history. Mechanisms include: (1) killing or debilitating large numbers of people, with demographic and population-level impacts; (2) differentially affecting populations based on prior history of disease exposure, immunity, and resistance; (3) being weaponised to promote or justify hierarchies of power, colonialism, racism, classism and sexism; (4) catalysing changes in ideas, institutions, infrastructure, technologies and social practices in efforts to control disease outbreaks; and (5) changing human relationships with the land and environment. We use historical and archaeological evidence interpreted through an ecological lens to illustrate how VBDs have shaped society and culture, focusing on case studies from four pertinent VBDs: plague, malaria, yellow fever and trypanosomiasis. By comparing across diseases, time periods and geographies, we highlight the enormous scope and variety of mechanisms by which VBDs have influenced human history.

Lessons from managing a campus mumps outbreak using test, trace, and isolate efforts.

In 2017, Penn State University's campus experienced a mumps outbreak that coincided with unrelated restrictions on social gatherings. University Health Services implemented testing, contact tracing, and quarantine and isolation protocols. Approximately half of the supplied contact tracing information was usable, ∼70% of identified contacts were reached, and <50% of those contacted complied with quarantine protocol. Students with confirmed mumps reported ∼7.4 (1-35) contacts on average. Findings from this outbreak can inform future outbreak management on college campuses, including COVID-19, by estimating average contacts per case, planning capacity for testing and quarantine/isolation, and strategically increasing compliance with suggested interventions.

Investigating persistent measles dynamics in Niger and associations with rainfall.

Measles is a major cause of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Current immunization strategies achieve low coverage in areas where transmission drivers differ substantially from those in high-income countries. A better understanding of measles transmission in areas with measles persistence will increase vaccination coverage and reduce ongoing transmission. We analysed weekly reported measles cases at the district level in Niger from 1995 to 2004 to identify underlying transmission mechanisms. We identified dominant periodicities and the associated spatial clustering patterns. We also investigated associations between reported measles cases and environmental drivers associated with human activities, particularly rainfall. The annual and 2-3-year periodicities dominated the reporting data spectrum. The annual periodicity was strong with contiguous spatial clustering, consistent with the latitudinal gradient of population density, and stable over time. The 2-3-year periodicities were weaker, unstable over time and had spatially fragmented clustering. The rainy season was associated with a lower risk of measles case reporting. The annual periodicity likely reflects seasonal agricultural labour migration, whereas the 2-3-year periodicity potentially results from multiple mechanisms such as reintroductions and vaccine coverage heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that improving vaccine coverage in seasonally mobile populations could reduce strong measles seasonality in Niger and across similar settings.

Multidimensional impact of COVID-19 pandemic in India-Challenges and future direction.

Direct impact of COVID-19 pandemic on lives is almost well known to the world with gradual reporting of its various systemic effects from almost every country. But this disease doesn't have direct impacts only, it causes collateral damage along with some hidden effects which may or may not be reported now and many will be come in future. India, a developing country, also got affected during this pandemic and now ranks under five in relation to the number of cases being reported till now. Here in this manuscript, various hidden aspects of COVID-19 has been discussed like issues related to healthcare infrastructure, food insecurities, domestic issues, mental and physical health, effect on education, screen time, and its challenges because of new trend of distant education, human resources, effects on labor class, material management, monetary issues, economic and industrial downfall, etc., along with challenges on both side for the Government as well as general public faced during this pandemic. Manuscript has been structured on the basis of concept and design of authors and various information put here on the basis of practical scenario being seen in the community and from various data published on Government sites, published articles from journal as well as media report.

Fluctuations in anthropogenic nighttime lights from satellite imagery for five cities in Niger and Nigeria.

Dynamic measures of human populations are critical for global health management but are often overlooked, largely because they are difficult to quantify. Measuring human population dynamics can be prohibitively expensive in under-resourced communities. Satellite imagery can provide measurements of human populations, past and present, to complement public health analyses and interventions. We used anthropogenic illumination from publicly accessible, serial satellite nighttime images as a quantifiable proxy for seasonal population variation in five urban areas in Niger and Nigeria. We identified population fluxes as the mechanistic driver of regional seasonal measles outbreaks. Our data showed 1) urban illumination fluctuated seasonally, 2) corresponding population fluctuations were sufficient to drive seasonal measles outbreaks, and 3) overlooking these fluctuations during vaccination activities resulted in below-target coverage levels, incapable of halting transmission of the virus. We designed immunization solutions capable of achieving above-target coverage of both resident and mobile populations. Here, we provide detailed data on brightness from 2000-2005 for 5 cities in Niger and Nigeria and detailed methodology for application to other populations.