Assessment of farm households' perception, beliefs and attitude toward climatic risks: A case study of rural Vietnam.

Vietnam is one the most vulnerable region to climate change and extreme climatic events, such as flash floods and droughts. This present research aims to explore the farm households' beliefs, risk perception, adaptive attitude and climate change adaptation measures that they currently utilize in their farms to cope with climatic risks. Further, this study analyzed effect of climate change belief, awareness and adaptive attitudes on farmers' adaptive behavior. By using structured questionnaire, the data from 816 respondents were collected from seven provinces of Vietnam. We used ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression approach to analyze farmers' belief, perception of climatic change, and risk attitude towards climatic hazards. Results revealed that farmers in the study area are using the most common climatic risk management strategies including applying new technologies, adjustment of the seasonal calendar, and diversification. Findings further revealed that that farm households were mostly concerned about the risk in soil erosion and washout, followed by the stress of prolonging dry season and droughts. The study participants also reported a decrease in precipitation and increase in temperature and frequency and incidence of other extreme climatic events. A positive significant relationship was found between farm management practices and ecological communities. Risk perceptions and attitude toward climate change are essential factors among farm households of northern mountains of Vietnam. Thus, the climate strain linked with the institutional stress and socio-economic has serious insinuations for farm households' livelihood bases, a universal climate change adaptation scheme is required to endure farmers' livelihood.

Missed detections of influenza A(H1)pdm09 by real-time RT-PCR assay due to haemagglutinin sequence mutation, December 2017 to March 2018, northern Viet Nam.

INTRODUCTION: There are two methods of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) that have been the common methods to detect influenza infections: conventional and real-time RT-PCR. From December 2017 to March 2018, several missed diagnoses of influenza A(H1)pdm09 using real-time RT-PCR were reported in northern Viet Nam. This study investigated how these missed detections occurred to determine their effect on the surveillance of influenza. METHODS: The haemagglutinin (HA) segments of A(H1N1)pdm09 from both real-time RT-PCR positive and negative samples were isolated and sequenced. The primer and probe sets in the HA gene were checked for mismatches, and phylogenetic analyses were performed to determine the molecular epidemiology of these viruses. RESULTS: There were 86 positive influenza A samples; 32 were A(H1)pdm09 positive by conventional RT-PCR but were negative by real-time RT-PCR. Sequencing was conducted on 23 influenza (H1N1)pdm09 isolates that were recovered from positive samples. Eight of these were negative for A(H1)pdm09 by real-time RT-PCR. There were two different mismatches in the probe target sites of the HA gene sequences of all isolates (n = 23) with additional mismatches only at position 7 (template binding site) identified for all eight negative real-time RT-PCR isolates. The prime target sites had no mismatches. Phylogenetic analysis of the HA gene showed that both the positive and negative real-time RT-PCR isolates were grouped in clade 6B.1; however, the real-time RT-PCR negative viruses were located in a subgroup that referred to substitution I295V. CONCLUSION: Constant monitoring of genetic changes in the circulating influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses is important for maintaining the sensitivity of molecular detection assays.