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BackgroundThe global public health and socioeconomic impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been substantial, making herd immunity by COVID-19 vaccination an important factor for protecting people and retrieving the economy. Among all the countries, Japan became one of the countries with the highest COVID-19 vaccination rate in several months, although the vaccine confidence in Japan is the lowest worldwide. ObjectiveWe attempted to find the reasons for the rapid coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination in Japan under the lowest vaccine confidence in the world by Twitter analysis. Materials and methodsWe downloaded COVID-19 related Japanese tweets from a large-scale public COVID-19 Twitter chatter dataset within the timeline of February 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021. The daily number of vaccination cases was collected from the official website of the Prime Ministers Office of Japan. After preprocessing, we applied unigram and bigram token analysis, then calculated the cross correlation and Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between the term frequency and daily vaccination cases. Then we identified vaccine sentiments and emotions of tweets and used the topic modeling to look deeper into the dominant emotions. ResultsWe selected 190,697 vaccine-related tweets after filtering. By n-gram token analysis, we discovered the top unigrams and bigrams over the whole period. In all the combinations of the top six unigrams, tweets with both keywords "reserve" and "venue" showed the largest r = 0.912 (P < 0.001) with the daily vaccination cases. In sentiment analysis, negative sentiment overwhelmed positive sentiment, and fear was the dominant emotion across the period. For the latent Dirichlet allocation model on tweets with fear emotion, the two topics were identified as "infect" and "vaccine confidence". The expectation of the number of tweets generated from topic "infect" was larger than "vaccine confidence." ConclusionOur work indicated that awareness of the danger of COVID-19 might increase the willingness to get vaccinated; With sufficient vaccine supply, effective vaccine reservation information delivery may be an important factor for people to get vaccinated; We didnt find evidence for increased vaccine confidence in Japan during the period in our research. We recommend policymakers to share fair and prompt information about the infectious diseases and vaccination, and make efforts on smoother delivery of vaccine-reservation information.
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BackgroundThe pandemic of COVID-19 is causing a crisis in public health, food systems, and employment. Vaccination is considered as one of the most effective ways for containing the pandemic, but widespread vaccine hesitation on social media may curtail uptake progress. Fully comprehending public sentiment towards the COVID-19 vaccine is critical to building confidence on the vaccines and achieving herd immunity, especially in Japan with inadequate vaccine confidence. ObjectiveThis study aims to explore the opinion and sentiment towards the COVID-19 vaccine in Japanese tweets, before and at the beginning of large-scale vaccinations. MethodsWe collected 144,101 Japanese tweets containing COVID-19 vaccine-related keywords between August 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021. We visualized the trend of number of tweets and identified the critical events that triggered a surge and provided high-frequency unigram and bigram tokens. Also, we performed sentiment analysis and calculated the correlation of number of tweets and positive/negative sentiments with infection, death, and vaccinated cases. we also used the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model to identify topics of tweets. In addition, we conducted analysis on three vaccine brands (Pfizer/Moderna/AstraZeneca). ResultsDaily number of tweets continued growing and the growth accelerated since the large-scale vaccinations in Japan. The sentiment of around 85% tweets were neutral, and the negative sentiment overwhelmed the positive sentiment in the other tweets. Number of tweets strongly correlated (r[≥]0.5) with infection/death/vaccinated cases, and the number of negative tweets correlated strongly with the number of infection/death cases but weakened after the first vaccination in Japan. LDA identified three public-concerned topics: vaccine appointment and distribution strategy; Different vaccines development progress and approval status of countries; Side effects and effectiveness against mutated viruses. Among vaccines of the three manufactures, Pfizer won the most attention and Moderna the least. ConclusionsOur findings indicated that negative sentiment towards vaccines dominated than positive sentiment in Japan. Changes in number of tweets and sentiments might be driven by critical events related to the COVID-19 vaccine, and negative sentiment continued increasing when numerous adverse accidents occurred at the beginning of large-scale vaccinations. Under the negative sentiment, the concerns of three vaccine brands remains effectiveness and safety with slight differences. The policymakers should provide more evidence about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines and optimize the process of vaccinations.
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@#Introduction: Hospitals are a key source of information for the early identification of emerging disease outbreaks and acute public health events for risk assessment, decision-making and public health response. The objective of this study was to identify potential facilitators and barriers for event reporting from the curative sector to the preventive medicine sector in Viet Nam. Methods: In 2016, we conducted 18 semi-structured, in-depth interviews, as well as nine focus group discussions, with representatives from the curative and preventive medicine sectors in four provinces. We transcribed the interviews and focus group discussions and used thematic analysis to identify the factors that appeared to affect public health event reporting. Results: We identified five major themes. First, the lack of a legal framework to guide reporting meant hospital staff relied on internal procedures that varied from hospital to hospital, which sometimes delayed reporting. Second, participants stated the importance of an enabling environment, such as leadership support and having focal points for reporting, to facilitate reporting. Third, participants described the potential benefits of reporting, such as support provided during outbreaks and information received about local outbreaks. Fourth, some challenges prohibited timely reporting such as not perceiving reporting to be the task of the curative sector and hesitancy to report without laboratory confirmation. Finally, limited resources and specialist capacities in remote areas hindered timely detection and reporting of unusual events. Discussion: This study identified potential opportunities to promote the detection and reporting of unusual events from health-care workers to the public health sector, and thus to improve the overall health security system in Viet Nam.The influenza virus is a respiratory pathogen that is transmitted through respiratory droplets.1 During seasonal influenza epidemics, high attack rates cause a significant public health burden.2 The infection is usually self-limited in young adults but can lead to severe infections in people in high-risk groups, including elderly people (> 65 years old), pregnant women, children aged 6–59 months and adults with chronic illnesses.3
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Objective@#To document the evolution and optimization of the Zika virus (ZIKV) disease surveillance system in southern Viet Nam in 2016 and to describe the characteristics of the identified ZIKV-positive cases.@*Methods@#We established a sentinel surveillance system to monitor ZIKV transmission in eight sites in eight provinces and expanded the system to 71 sites in 20 provinces in southern Viet Nam in 2016. Blood and urine samples from patients who met the case definition at the sentinel sites were tested for ZIKV using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction at the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City (PI-HCMC). We conducted descriptive analysis and mapped the ZIKV-positive cases.@*Results@#In 2016, 2190 specimens from 20 provinces in southern Viet Nam were tested for ZIKV at PI-HCMC; 626 (28.6%), 484 (22.1%), 35 (1.6%) and 1045 (47.7%) tests were conducted in the first, second, third and fourth quarters of the year, respectively. Of these tested specimens, 214 (9.8%) were ZIKV positive with 212 (99.1%) identified in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, the highest positivity rate was those in age groups 30–39 years (30.0%) and 40–59 years (31.6%). Of the 214 ZIKV-positive patients, 210 (98.1%) presented with rash, 194 (90.7%) with fever, 149 (69.6%) with muscle pain, 123 (57.5%) with joint pain and 66 (30.8%) with conjunctivitis.@*Discussion@#The surveillance system for ZIKV disease underwent several phases of optimization in 2016, guided by the most up-to-date local data. Here we demonstrate an adaptable surveillance system that detected ZIKV-positive cases in southern Viet Nam.
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Objective@#The purpose of this survey was to estimate the prevalence of viral load (VL) suppression and emergence of HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) among individuals receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 36 months or longer in Viet Nam using a nationally representative sampling method.@*Methods@#The survey was conducted between May and August 2014 using a two-stage cluster design. Sixteen ART clinics were selected using probability proportional to proxy size sampling, and patients receiving ART for at least 36 months were consecutively enrolled. Epidemiological information and blood specimens were collected for HIV-1 VL and HIVDR testing; HIVDR was defined by the Stanford University HIVDR algorithm.@*Results@#Overall, 365 eligible individuals were recruited with a mean age of 38.2 years; 68.4% were men. The mean time on ART was 75.5 months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 69.0–81.9 months), and 93.7% of the patients were receiving non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based regimens. Of the 365 individuals, 345 (94.7%, 95% CI: 64.1–99.4%) had VL below 1000 copies/mL and 19 (4.6%, 95% CI: 2.8-–7.5) had HIVDR mutations.@*Discussion@#Our nationally representative survey found a high level of VL suppression and a low prevalence of HIVDR among individuals who received ART for at least 36 months in Viet Nam. Continued surveillance for HIVDR is important for evaluating and improving HIV programs.
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Antiretroviral therapy (ART) retention and 5 early-warning indicators (EWIs) of HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) were abstracted at 27 adult and 4 pediatric clinics in Vietnam in 2009. Of 4531 adults and 313 children, 81.2% and 84.4% respectively were still on ART at 12 months. More than 90% of the clinics monitored achieved the World Health Organization (WHO) targets for lost-to-follow-up (LTFU), ART prescribing practices, and ARV supply continuity. Only 83.9% of the clinics met the target for first-line ART retention and 79.3% met the target for clinic appointment-keeping. Clinic factors (i.e. number of patients, administrative level, and geographical region) were associated with ART retention and LFTU. Data were useful in guiding public health action to optimize ART services.
