Silk may be used to repair damaged spinal cords: study

Lower neighbourhood socioeconomic status and greater household crowding increase the risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, warn researchers.

"Our study shows that neighbourhood socioeconomic status and household crowding are strongly associated with risk of infection," said study lead author Alexander Melamed from Columbia University in the US.

"This may explain why Black and Hispanic people living in these neighbourhoods are disproportionately at risk for contracting the virus," Melamed added.

For the findings, published in the journal JAMA, the researchers examined the relationships between COVID-19 infection and neighbourhood characteristics in 396 women who gave birth during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak in New York City. Since March 22, all women admitted to the hospitals for delivery have been tested for the virus, which gave the researchers the opportunity to detect all infections -- including infections with no symptoms -- in a defined population

The strongest predictor of COVID-19 infection among these women was residence in a neighbourhood where households with many people are common.The findings showed that women who lived in a neighbourhood with high household membership were three times more likely to be infected with the virus. Neighbourhood poverty also appeared to be a factor, the researchers said.Women were twice as likely to get COVID-19 if they lived in neighbourhoods with a high poverty rate, although that relationship was not statistically significant due to the small sample size.

The study revealed that there was no association between infection and population density.

"New York City has the highest population density of any city in the US, but our study found that the risks are related more to density in people's domestic environments rather than density in the city or within neighbourhoods," says co-author Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman."

The knowledge that SARS-CoV-2 infection rates are higher in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and among people who live in crowded households could help public health officials target preventive measures," the authors wrote.

Recently, another study published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, showed that dense areas were associated with lower COVID-19 death rates.

New Delhi, Mar 16: A recent survey across 140 districts of the country shows that about 54 per cent of Indians are finding travelling to be unsafe as the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeps globally.

The big worry that people have is community transmission, something that researchers from around the world have approximated at 10 per cent of total infections and more common in places like Wuhan in China, South Korea, Iran and Italy.

The months of March to June have historically been high travel season for most Indians, largely due to the summer vacations in schools. "But it seems that Indians do not want to take a chance with this rather scary virus and are either cancelling or postponing their travel plans," concluded the survey by LocalCircles.

The survey gathered more than 22,000 responses from participants in tier one, two and three cities. It said 48 per cent Indians plan to cancel their international business travel for the next four months.

Besides, nearly 38 per cent of respondents said they had to pay cancellation fee to the website, travel agent, airline or railways.

"These are testing times for the entire travel and tourism industry -- airlines, hotels, travel agents as well as small tour and taxi operators. The best solution at this point is to adjust cost structures, stay flexible and work with a collective approach to minimise the period of impact to both citizens and business," said LocalCircles.

Jan 31: Cervical cancer could be eliminated worldwide as a public health issue within the next 100 years, according to two studies which may lead to better strategies for screening and vaccination against the malignant disease.

According to the studies, published in the journal The Lancet, more than 74 million cervical cancer cases, and 60 million deaths could be averted, and the disease eliminated in the 78 countries which have the highest disease burden.

The researchers, including those from Laval University in Canada, said cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer among women in low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) with 2,90,000 (51 per cent) of the 5,70,000 new cases worldwide reported in women living in LMICs.

In the current studies, the scientists used the WHO draft strategy of cervical cancer elimination which defines plans for vaccination against the disease's causative agent, the human papillomavirus (HPV).

These plans, they explained, call for 90 per cent of girls to be vaccinated against HPV by 2030, and for 70 per cent of women to be screened for cervical cancer once or twice in their lifetime.

About 90 per cent of women with precancerous lesions, or cervical cancer are also advised to receive appropriate treatment, according to the WHO draft strategy, the scientists said.

In the second study, the research team analysed the impact of three elements of the WHO strategy on deaths from cervical cancer -- modelling the impact of scaling up cancer treatment, as well as vaccination and screening

"Our findings emphasise the importance of acting immediately to combat cervical cancer on all three fronts," said Karen Canfell from the University of Sydney in Australia, who co-led both the studies.

"In just 10 years, it's possible to reduce deaths from the disease by a third and, over the next century, more than 60 million women's lives could be saved. This would represent an enormous gain in terms of both quality of life, and lives saved," Canfell said.

By adding the two screening tests, and with the treatment of precancerous cervical lesions, cases of the cancer may drop by 97 per cent, and 72 million cervical cancer cases could be averted over the next century, the researchers said.

Scaling-up of appropriate cancer treatment could avert 62 million cervical cancer deaths, the study noted.

"For the first time, we've estimated how many cases of cervical cancer could be averted if WHO's strategy is rolled out and when elimination might occur," said Marc Brisson, study co-author from Laval University.

"Our results suggest that to eliminate cervical cancer it will be necessary to achieve both high vaccination coverage, and a high uptake of screening and treatment, especially in countries with the highest burden of the disease," Brisson added.

Based on the results of the studies, WHO's cervical cancer elimination strategy has been updated which will be presented for adoption at the World Health Assembly in May 2020, the scientists noted.

"If the strategy is adopted and applied by member states, cervical cancer could be eliminated in high income countries by 2040, and across the globe within the next century, which would be a phenomenal victory for women's health," Brisson said.

"However, this can only be achieved with considerable international financial and political commitment, in order to scale-up prevention and treatment," he added.