Background: The current West Africa epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD), which began from Guinea in December 2013, has been the longest and deadliest Ebola outbreak to date. With the propagation of the internet, public health officials must now compete with other official and unofficial sources of information to get their message out. Aims: This study aimed at critically appraising videos available on one popular internet video site (YouTube) as a source of information for Ebola virus disease (EVD). Materials and Methods: Videos were searched in YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) using the keyword "Ebola outbreak" from inception to November 1, 2014 with the default "relevance" filter. Only videos in English language under 10 min duration within first 10 pages of search were included. Duplicates were removed and the rest were classified as useful or misleading by two independent reviewers. Video sources were categorized by source. Inter-observer agreement was evaluated with kappa coefficient. Continuous and categorical variables were analyzed using the Student t-test and Chi-squared test, respectively. Results: One hundred and eighteen out of 198 videos were evaluated. Thirty-one (26.27%) videos were classified as misleading and 87 (73.73%) videos were classified as useful. The kappa coefficient of agreement regarding the usefulness of the videos was 0.68 (P < 0.001). Independent users were more likely to post misleading videos (93.55% vs 29.89%, OR = 34.02, 95% CI = 7.55-153.12, P < 0.001) whereas news agencies were most likely to post useful videos (65.52% vs 3.23%, OR = 57.00, 95% CI = 7.40-438.74, P < 0.001). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that majority of the internet videos about Ebola on YouTube were characterized as useful. Although YouTube seems to generally be a useful source of information on the current outbreak, increased efforts to disseminate scientifically correct information is desired to prevent unnecessary panic among the among the general population.
11 February 2022 in Open Forum Infectious Diseases
We provide an elaborate review of cases published between January 2005 and April 2021 on hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) in HIV patients. Seventy articles describing 81 adult patients (age ≥19 years) were included. The median age was 40 years, and 78% were males. Only 65% were known to have HIV before presentation. CD4 count was ≥200 cells/mm3 in 23%, and HIV viral load was <200 copies/mL in 41%. The lack of meticulous reporting of ≥5 of 8 criteria for HLH diagnosis was evident in a third of cases. At least 1 infectious agent—other than HIV—was believed to trigger HLH in 78% of patients. The most common were Epstein-Barr virus (26%), human herpesvirus 8 (21%), and Histoplasma capsulatum (17%). Sixty percent survived. Among those, 93% received treatment for identified secondary trigger(s), while 51% received HLH-directed therapy. There was significant heterogeneity in the treatment regimens used for HLH.
Objectives: To determine incidence trends of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) from population-based studies from multiple countries. Methods: A contemporary systematic review was conducted using Ovid Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (1991+), Ovid Embase (1974+), Ovid Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE) (1946+ including epub ahead of print, in-process & other non-indexed citations), and Web of Science Core Collection (Science Citation Index Expanded 1975+ and Emerging Sources Citation Index 2015+). Two authors (J.R.H. and J.A.Q.M.) independently reviewed all studies and included those that reported population-based incidence of SAB in patients aged 18 years and older. Results: Twenty-six studies met inclusion criteria with the highest number (n=6) of studies conducted in Canada. The incidence of SAB ranged from 9.3 to 65 cases/100,000/year. The median age of patients with SAB ranged from 62 to 72 years and SAB cases were more commonly observed in men than in women. The most common infection sources were intravascular catheters and skin and soft tissue infections. SAB incidence trends demonstrated high variability for geographic regions and calendar years. Overall, there was no change in the incidence trend across all studies during the past two decades. Conclusion: Multiple factors, both pros, and cons are likely responsible for the overall stable SAB incidence in countries included in this systematic review. Some of these factors vary in geographic location and prompt additional investigations from countries not included in the current review so that a more global characterization is defined.