As mass vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 accelerate worldwide, there remains only limited evidence regarding vaccine effectiveness (VE) among pregnant women. Pregnant women have been shown to be at risk for severe COVID-19, resulting in adverse obstetrics outcomes, and their immune system is known to undergo alterations during pregnancy.

Background As screening programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often do not have the resources to screen the entire population, there is frequently a need to target such efforts to easily identifiable priority groups. This study aimed to determine (1) how hypertension prevalence in LMICs varies by age, sex, body mass index, and smoking status, and (2) the ability of different combinations of these variables to accurately predict hypertension. Methods and Results We analyzed individual-level, nationally representative data from 1 170 629 participants in 56 LMICs, of whom 220 636 (18.8%) had hypertension. Hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure ≥140 mm Hg, diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mm Hg, or reporting to be taking blood pressure-lowering medication. The shape of the positive association of hypertension with age and body mass index varied across world regions. We used logistic regression and random forest models to compute the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in each country for different combinations of age, body mass index, sex, and smoking status. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the model with all 4 predictors ranged from 0.64 to 0.85 between countries, with a country-level mean of 0.76 across LMICs globally. The mean absolute increase in the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve from the model including only age to the model including all 4 predictors was 0.05. Conclusions Adding body mass index, sex, and smoking status to age led to only a minor increase in the ability to distinguish between adults with and without hypertension compared with using age alone. Hypertension screening programs in LMICs could use age as the primary variable to target their efforts.

Variation in the approaches taken to contain the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic at country level has been shaped by economic and political considerations, technical capacity, and assumptions about public behaviours. To address the limited application of learning from previous pandemics, this study aimed to analyse perceived facilitators and inhibitors during the pandemic and to inform the development of an assessment tool for pandemic response planning.

Social and cultural forces shape almost every aspect of infectious disease transmission in human populations, as well as our ability to measure, understand, and respond to epidemics. For directly transmitted infections, pathogen transmission relies on human-to-human contact, with kinship, household, and societal structures shaping contact patterns that in turn determine epidemic dynamics.

Leishmania infantum is transmitted by sand flies and causes visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in humans, as well as canine leishmaniosis (CanL) in dogs, the main reservoir of infection in Europe. The infection spread northwards in the last two decades, but case data are scarce, hindering monitoring and evaluation of incidence as is required by European WHO guidelines. We aim to identify the current geographical distribution of CanL incidence in Spain, which has been endemic for CanL, and France, where CanL is emerging. An online survey was conducted among veterinarians in Spain and France questioning CanL incidence in the years 2016-2017. These data were interpolated to estimate incidence in both countries using the geographical analysis ordinary kriging. Two hundred and seventy-three (273) veterinarians from 81 out of 148 French and Spanish districts completed the survey. The mean incidence in veterinary practices was 21 CanL cases per 1000 dogs during the past year, which was higher in Spain (31/1000 dogs/year) than in France (6/1000 dogs/year). Incidence rates were highest in south-eastern Spain, but sporadic cases were found up to the most northern regions of France. Our study confirms the northward spread of CanL in Spain and France, as the incidence rates were higher than reported in previous studies and cases were found in areas formerly considered non-endemic for L. infantum. Monitoring the reservoir of infection in dogs is essential for implementing timely and geographically-targeted interventions to prevent further spread of CanL and VL in Europe.

Strategic planning is critical for successful pandemic management. This study aimed to identify and review the scope and analytic depth of situation analyses conducted to understand their utility, and capture the documented macro-level factors impacting pandemic management.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest global test of health leadership of our generation. There is an urgent need to provide guidance for leaders at all levels during the unprecedented preresolution recovery stage.

Test-negative designs (TNDs) can be used to estimate vaccine effectiveness by comparing the relative rates of the target disease and symptomatically similar diseases among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. However, the diagnostic tests used to identify the target disease typically suffer from imperfect sensitivity and specificity, leading to biased vaccine effectiveness estimates.