Suchergebnisse

Background: Recently, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has already spread rapidly as a global pandemic, just like the H1N1 swine influenza in 2009. Evidences have indicated that the efficiency of emergency response was considered crucial to curb the spread of the emerging infectious disease. However, studies of COVID-19 on this topic are relatively few. Methods: A qualitative comparative study was conducted to compare the timeline of emergency responses to H1N1 (2009) and COVID-19, by using a set of six key time nodes selected from international literature. Besides, we also explored the spread speed and peak time of COVID-19 and H1N1 swine influenza by comparing the confirmed cases in the same time interval. Results: The government's entire emergency responses to the epidemic, H1N1 swine influenza (2009) completed in 28 days, and COVID-19 (2019) completed in 46 days. Emergency responses speed for H1N1 was 18 days faster. As for the epidemic spread speed, the peak time of H1N1 came about 4 weeks later than that of COVID-19, and the H1N1 curve in America was flatter than COVID-19 in China within the first four months after the disease emerged. Conclusions: The speed of the emergency responses to H1N1 was faster than COVID-19, which might be an important influential factor for slowing down the arrival of the peak time at the beginning of the epidemic. Although COVID-19 in China is coming to an end, the government should improve the public health emergency system, in order to control the spread of the epidemic and lessen the adverse social effects in possible future outbreaks.

Huanhuan Zhu,1 Qian Wang,1 Tiantian Zhang,2,3 Xin Liu,1 Ruiming Dai,4 Ping Wu,1 Ge Bai,1 Ying Wang,1 Ping Zhou,1 Li Luo1,3,5 1School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, People's Republic of China; 2School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, 201203, People's Republic of China; 3Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of the Ministry of Education and Key Laboratory of Health Technology Assessment of the Ministry of Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, People's Republic of China; 4Department of Scientific Research, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, 200032, People's Republic of China; 5Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, People's Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Li LuoFudan University, 130 Dong'an Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 200032, People's Republic of ChinaEmail liluo@fudan.edu.cnBackground: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was reported first in China in 2003. The world is currently coping with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). We conducted a retrospective study to compare the initial public-health emergency response (PHER) to SARS and COVID-19 in mainland China.Methods: A qualitative comparative study was conducted to compare the PHER timelines to SARS and COVID-19 by selecting six crucial time points. Besides, we explored the speed of spread, peak time and plateau period of SARS and COVID-19, respectively, by comparing the confirmed cases in the same time interval.Results: The government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) accomplished the entire initial PHER to SARS in 127 days and for COVID-19 in 44 days. The speed of PHER for COVID-19 was 83 days faster. The peak time of SARS arose ∼ 80 days later than that of COVID-19. Though the peak number of confirmed daily cases for COVID-19 was fivefold more than that of SARS, the onset of the stabilization period for COVID-19 was > 2 months earlier than that of SARS.Conclusion: Overall, the speed of the initial PHER to COVID-19 pandemic was faster than that for SARS. Compared with the speed of hospital reporting and government policymaking, the speed of pathogen identification improved the most. The COVID-19 pandemic curve entered a plateau period earlier than the SARS pandemic curve, which suggests that the pandemic was controlled more effectively because of a timely PHER. The PRC government should emphasize improving the ability of hospitals to restrain infectious diseases by enhancing the direct reporting system and cultivating crisis management to empower relevant individuals to make timely scientific decisions.Keywords: severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, coronavirus disease-2019, COVID-19, infectious diseases, public health, emergency response

BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was reported first in China in 2003. The world is currently coping with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). We conducted a retrospective study to compare the initial public-health emergency response (PHER) to SARS and COVID-19 in mainland China. METHODS: A qualitative comparative study was conducted to compare the PHER timelines to SARS and COVID-19 by selecting six crucial time points. Besides, we explored the speed of spread, peak time and plateau period of SARS and COVID-19, respectively, by comparing the confirmed cases in the same time interval. RESULTS: The government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) accomplished the entire initial PHER to SARS in 127 days and for COVID-19 in 44 days. The speed of PHER for COVID-19 was 83 days faster. The peak time of SARS arose ~80 days later than that of COVID-19. Though the peak number of confirmed daily cases for COVID-19 was fivefold more than that of SARS, the onset of the stabilization period for COVID-19 was >2 months earlier than that of SARS. CONCLUSION: Overall, the speed of the initial PHER to COVID-19 pandemic was faster than that for SARS. Compared with the speed of hospital reporting and government policymaking, the speed of pathogen identification improved the most. The COVID-19 pandemic curve entered a plateau period earlier than the SARS pandemic curve, which suggests that the pandemic was controlled more effectively because of a timely PHER. The PRC government should emphasize improving the ability of hospitals to restrain infectious diseases by enhancing the direct reporting system and cultivating crisis management to empower relevant individuals to make timely scientific decisions.

Xin Huang,1,* Chengqi Fan,2,* Huanhuan Zhu,1 Wenjun Le,1 Shaobin Cui,1 Xin Chen,3 Wei Li,4 Fulei Zhang,4 Yong Huang,4 Donglu Shi,1,5 Zheng Cui,1,6 Chengwei Shao,2 Bingdi Chen1 1The Institute for Translational Nanomedicine, Shanghai East Hospital, The Institute for Biomedical Engineering & Nano Science, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; 2Radiology Department of Changhai Hospital, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China; 3Department of Thyroid Surgery, The First Bethune Hospital of Jilin University, Jilin, China; 4International Joint Cancer Institute, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China; 5The Materials Science & Engineering Program, Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, College of Engineering & Applied Science, University of Cincinnati, OH, USA; 6Department of Pathology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, USA *These authors contributed equally to this work Introduction: Pancreatic cancer (PC) has a poor prognosis with high mortality, due to the lack of effective early diagnostic and prognostic tools. Materials and methods: In order to target and diagnose PC, we developed a dual-modal imaging probe using Glypican-1 (GPC-1) antibody conjugated with Gd–Au nanoclusters (NCs; Gd-Au-NC-GPC-1). GPC-1 is a type of cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycan, which is often highly expressed in PC. The probe was successfully prepared with a hydrodynamic diameter ranging from 13.5 to 24.4 nm. Results: Spectral characteristics showed absorption at 280 nm and prominent emission at 650 nm. Confocal microscopic imaging showed effective detection of GPC-1 highly expressed PC cells by Gd-Au-NC-GPC-1, which was consistent with flow cytometry results. In vitro relaxivity characterization demonstrated that the r1 value of the probe was 17.722 s−1 mM−1 Gd, which was almost 4 times higher compared with that of Gd-diethylenetriaminepentacetate (DTPA; r1 value =4.6 s−1 mM−1 Gd). Gd-Au-NC-GPC-1 exhibited similar magnetic resonance (MR) signals when compared to Gd-DTPA even at lower Gd concentrations. Much higher MR signals were registered in PC cells (COLO-357) compared with normal cells (293T). Furthermore, Gd-Au-NC-GPC-1 could effectively detect PC cells in vivo by dual-modal fluorescence imaging/magnetic resonance imaging (FI/MRI) at 30 minutes postinjection. In addition, Gd-Au-NC-GPC-1 did not show significant biotoxicity to normal cells at tested concentrations both in vitro and in vivo. Conclusion: Gd-Au-NC-GPC-1 has demonstrated to be a promising dual-modal FI/MRI contrast agent for targeted diagnosis of PC. Keywords: pancreatic cancer, Glypican-1, fluorescence imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, Gd–Au NCs