Identifying COVID-19 cases in primary care settings

Case identification is an ongoing issue for the COVID-19 epidemic, in particular for outpatient care where physicians must decide which patients to prioritise for further testing. This paper reports tools to classify patients based on symptom profiles based on 236 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases and 564 controls, accounting for the time course of illness at point of assessment. Clinical differentiators of cases and controls were used to derive model-based risk scores. Significant symptoms included abdominal pain, cough, diarrhea, fever, headache, muscle ache, runny nose, sore throat, temperature between 37.5{degrees}C and 37.9{degrees}C, and temperature above 38{degrees}C, but their importance varied by day of illness at assessment. With a high percentile threshold for specificity at 0.95, the baseline model had reasonable sensitivity at 0.67. To further evaluate accuracy of model predictions, we firstly used leave-one-out cross-validation, which confirmed high classification accuracy with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.92. For the baseline model, sensitivity decreased to 0.56. Secondly, in a separate ongoing prospective study of 237 COVID-19 and 346 primary care patients presenting with symptoms of acute respiratory infection, the baseline model had a sensitivity of 0.57 and specificity of 0.89, and in retrospective notes review of 100 COVID-19 cases diagnosed in primary care, sensitivity was 0.56. A web-app based tool has been developed for easy implementation as an adjunct to laboratory testing to differentiate COVID-19 positive cases among patients presenting in outpatient settings.

Explicit characterization of human population connectivity reveals long run persistence of interregional dengue shocks.

Dengue is hyper-endemic in Singapore and Malaysia, and daily movement rates between the two countries are consistently high, allowing inference on the role of local transmission and imported dengue cases. This paper describes a custom built sparse space-time autoregressive (SSTAR) model to infer and forecast contemporaneous and future dengue transmission patterns in Singapore and 16 administrative regions within Malaysia, taking into account connectivity and geographical adjacency between regions as well as climatic factors. A modification to forecast impulse responses is developed for the case of the SSTAR and is used to simulate changes in dengue transmission in neighbouring regions following a disturbance. The results indicate that there are long-term responses of the neighbouring regions to shocks in a region. By computation of variable inclusion probabilities, we found that each region's own past counts were important to describe contemporaneous case counts. In 15 out of 16 regions, other regions case counts were important to describe contemporaneous case counts even after controlling for past local dengue transmissions and exogenous factors. Leave-one-region-out analysis using SSTAR showed that dengue transmission counts could be reconstructed for 13 of 16 regions' counts using external dengue transmissions compared to a climate only approach. Lastly, one to four week ahead forecasts from the SSTAR were more accurate than baseline univariate autoregressions.

Clinical Observation of Azelastine Combined with Fluticasone in the Treatment of Allergic Rhinitis / 中国药房

OBJECTIVE:To observe the effectiveness and safety of azelastine combined with fluticasone in the treatment of allergic rhinitis(AR). METHODS:A total of 135 AR patients were selected from 3 hospitals during Jan. 2015-Jul. 2016, and divided into azelastine group,fluticasone group and drug combination group according to random number table,with 45 cases in each group. On the basis of decongestant Oxymetazoline hydrochloride spray,azelastine group was given Azelastine hydrochloride nasal spray,1 spray each nostril,morning and night;fluticasone group was given Fluticasone propionate nasal spray,1 spray each nostril,morning and night;drug combination was given Azelastine hydrochloride nasal spray combined with Fluticasone propionate nasal spray,with the same usage and dose. Three groups were treated for consecutive 30 d. Total nasal symptom score (TNSS) and total ocular symptom score (TOSS) decline indexes,nasal minimal cross-sectional area (NMCA),total nasal resistance(TNR)and the occurrence of ADR were compared among 3 groups. RESULTS:Some pa-tients were withdrawal from the trial;finally,127 patients were included in full analysis set,and 130 patients were included in safety set. After treatment,TNSS decline index of drug combination group was significantly higher than azelastine group and fluticasone group,with statistical significance(P0.05). Before treatment, 3 groups suffered from nasal ventilation disorder to different extents,but there was no statistical significance in TNR or NMCA among 3 groups(P>0.05). After treatment,NMCA and TNR at 75,150 Pa of 3 groups were significantly lower than before,and TNR of drug combination group was significantly lower than azelastine group and fluticasone group,with statisti-cal significance(P0.05). There was no statistical significance in the incidence of ADR among 3 groups(P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS:Both azelastine and fluticasone can effec-tively relieve nasal symptom as well as improve nasal ventilation disorder in AR patients;therapeutic efficacy of drug combi-nation is better than single drug,and it doesn't increase the incidence of ADR.

Clinical Study on Oral Loratadine Combined with Physiological Seawater Nasal Irrigation in the Treat-ment of Intermittent Allergic Rhinitis / 中国药房

OBJECTIVE:To investigate clinical efficacy and safety of oral loratadine combined with physiological seawater na-sal irrigation in the treatment of intermittent allergic rhinitis. METHODS:Totally 300 patients with intermittent allergic rhinitis were chosen from the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University during Jan. 2013-Jun. 2015,and then divided into group A,B,C ac-cording to lottery method,with 100 cases in each group. Group A was given Loratadine tablets 10 mg,po,qd. Group B received nasal irrigation with physiological seawater nasal spray,every morning and evening. Group C was given oral loratadine combined with physiological seawater nasal irrigation. Treatment courses of 3 groups lasted for 28 d. Clinical efficiencies of 3 groups were compared as well as symptom and sign scores,respiration function indexes and inflammatory factor levels before and after treat-ment,and the clinical recurrences were followed up for 12 months. RESULTS:The total response rates of group A,B,C were 80.00%,78.00%,96.00%,respectively,and that of group C was significantly higher than that of group A and B,with statistical significance(P0.05). After treatment,symptom and sign scores,the rates of PEF diur-nal variation,TNF-α,INF-γ and IL-4 in 3 groups were significantly lower than before treatment,and the levels of PEF and IL-12 were significantly higher than before treatment. Above indexes of group C were significantly better than those of group A and B, with statistical significance (P0.05). CONCLUSIONS:Oral loratadine combined with physiological seawater nasal irrigation in treatment of intermittent allergic rhinitis can efficiently relieve the nasal symptoms and signs,improve expiratoryfunction,reduce the inflammatory response levels and be help-ful to reduce the long-term recurrence risk.