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The body after death
Published in Peter Hutton, Ravi Mahajan, Allan Kellehear, Death, Religion and Law, 2019
Peter Hutton, Ravi Mahajan, Allan Kellehear
Procedures to prevent cross-infection and the recording of certain infections continue after death as they did in life. There are no exact rules set out as to what constitutes a hazard, but it is reasonable if the deceased had a notifiable disease to treat the body as potentially infective. Notifiable diseases are those infections that have to be reported to the local professional appointed as the ‘Proper Officer’. Such people can be appointed through a variety of organizations, but are now usually employed by the Health Protection Agency. A list of notifiable diseases and statutory responsibilities is published by Public Health England.4 The list of notifiable diseases is given in Table 32.1.
Communicable diseases
Published in Liam J. Donaldson, Paul D. Rutter, Donaldsons' Essential Public Health, 2017
Liam J. Donaldson, Paul D. Rutter
Local authorities in England are empowered to take action to control notifiable diseases within their boundaries. They are required to appoint a proper officer for this function. Some delegate this authority to their local health protection team, while others retain the function in-house. The local authority can appoint more than one proper officer and can define the limits of their responsibilities, so it does not follow that all proper officers of this function have the same powers. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland make their own different arrangements; for example, Scotland has retained a central health protection function.
Extensions of the Chao estimator for covariate information: Poisson case
Published in Dankmar Böhning, Peter G.M. van der Heijden, John Bunge, Capture-Recapture Methods for the Social and Medical Sciences, 2017
Alberto Vidal-Diez, Dankmar Böhning
Private veterinary surgeons (PVS) regularly send animal submissions to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to determine the cause of death based on a post-mortem examination, to test an animal sample to confirm a disease or to find out whether an animal needs further testing. The PVS might choose to submit or not submit a sample depending on the disease. Only notifiable diseases are compulsory to investigate and report to the authorities. The APHA could miss submissions for several reasons, for instance, a PVS might have facilities to run some diagnostic tests, or he/she might not submit a sample because there is history of a confirmed disease in the farm and the animal presents similar symptoms. The cost is also an important factor, as farmers might not even call a PVS when they believe that the disease is not going to spread to other animals. In fact, the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) used to subsidise some diagnostic tests but the current economic climate is leading to move all costs to farmers. Our objective is to evaluate the completeness of the farm submissions in Great Britain to understand which proportion of the general picture is being explained. In 2009, the number of farms with cattle was estimated to be 60,571 farms; 48,535 of those farms did not have any submissions that year. From the 12,036 farms that submitted, we aim to estimate the total number of farms with unknown disease that did not submit.
Factors Associated with Sexually Transmitted Infections among Users of Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing Centers in Portugal
Published in International Journal of Sexual Health, 2022
Eleonora C. V. Costa, Tânia Barbosa, M. Soares, Teresa McIntyre, M. Graça Pereira
In Portugal, STIs are part of a list of compulsory notifiable diseases that are communicated to the Ministry of Health. According to the last published national report, in Portugal, in the year of 2016, there were 1040 notified cases of HIV, 773 cases of syphilis, 474 of gonorrhea, 281 cases of hepatitis C, 195 cases of infections by Chlamydia trachomatis, and 181 cases of hepatitis B, with a higher prevalence in the male population (Gaspar et al., 2017). Regarding HIV rates, and according to the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), 2017), Portugal still has one of the highest rates in the European Union and an increase in the proportion of male cases. Undiagnosed STIs are public health threats as they contribute to increase transmission of HIV, and increased incidence of the diseases (Truong et al., 2015). The Portuguese Ministry of Health recommends screening users of pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV (PrEP) for syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea at treatment onset and quarterly thereafter but these recommendations do not imply screening of asymptomatic people otherwise not on PrEP (Geral da Saúde & Saúde, 2018). Flow in the system is associated with the fact that the occurrence of STIs may be misrepresented by under-reporting and some studies underlie the need to increase the percentage of STIs notified to the Health Authority (Oliveira et al., 2018).
Study of cerebrospinal fluid levels of lactate, lactate dehydrogenase and adenosine deaminase in the diagnosis and outcome of acute meningitis
Published in Neurological Research, 2022
Lovelina Singh, Mahendra Javali, Anish Mehta, R. Pradeep, R. Srinivasa, P. T. Acharya
Meningitis is a notifiable disease, but its exact rate of incidence is not known. An estimated global figure has revealed that there were approximately 420,000 deaths associated with meningitis from 1990 to 2010 [1]. Bacteria and enteroviruses remain the major causes of meningitis [2]. Acute meningitis refers to cases with a duration of symptoms of less than one week. Early initiation of antibiotic therapy plays a crucial role in the improvement of the outcome of acute meningitis [3]. Pyogenic (bacterial) meningitis, tuberculous meningitis (TBM), and viral meningitis are commonly encountered. Fungal meningitis can result in chronic meningitis and is relatively uncommon. Cryptococcal meningitis is a form of fungal meningitis that is commonly encountered by immunosuppressed patients (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) [3,4].
The need for pertussis vaccination among older adults and high-risk groups: a perspective from advanced economies of the Asia Pacific region
Published in Expert Review of Vaccines, 2021
Leong Hoe Nam, Cheng-Hsun Chiu, Jung Yeon Heo, Margaret Ip, Ki-Suck Jung, Robert Menzies, Rodney Pearce, Philippe Buchy, Jing Chen, Michael Nissen, Kyu-Bin Oh
Pertussis is a notifiable disease in all 6 of the countries/regions we assessed. Yet, there is evidence of substantial under-diagnosis in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan (and probably Hong Kong for which very little data are available) from seroprevalence studies indicating high rates of pertussis infection in adults, with the highest rates in older adults. As a result, there are important data gaps in terms of understanding the age-groups and populations most affected, the incidence of complications, and the economic burden caused by pertussis. Few countries recommend Tdap vaccination for adults and uptake in those countries is sub-optimal. Increasing disease awareness, establishing vaccination registries, and establishing recommendations are key factors to increase Tdap vaccination rates and promote healthy aging.Figure 2 provides a summary of the main findings of this review.