Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection severely affects the immune status of the infected person. This is a slow process, which, apart from the acute HIV illness in some, does not affect the infected person’s health in the early stages of the disease. As the disease progresses to a more advanced stage, many of the common infections begin to appear at a higher frequency, and for prolonged durations. As the immune deficiency advances further, it predisposes the person to a variety of life threatening cancers and opportunistic infections, otherwise rare in a healthy person. Clinical manifestation of any of these conditions marks the state of the infected person as a case of full blown AIDS. This includes many types of leukaemia and lymphomas. The first reported case of plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL) in Fiji in an HIV seropositive person is reported here.

OBJECTIVES: Prompt detection is a cornerstone in the control and prevention of infectious diseases. The Integrated Disease Surveillance Project of India identifies outbreaks, but it does not exactly predict outbreaks. This study was conducted to assess temporal correlation between Google Trends and Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) data and to determine the feasibility of using Google Trends for the prediction of outbreaks or epidemics. METHODS: The Google search queries related to malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya, and enteric fever for Chandigarh union territory and Haryana state of India in 2016 were extracted and compared with presumptive form data of the IDSP. Spearman correlation and scatter plots were used to depict the statistical relationship between the two datasets. Time trend plots were constructed to assess the correlation between Google search trends and disease notification under the IDSP RESULTS: Temporal correlation was observed between the IDSP reporting and Google search trends. Time series analysis of the Google Trends showed strong correlation with the IDSP data with a lag of −2 to −3 weeks for chikungunya and dengue fever in Chandigarh (r > 0.80) and Haryana (r > 0.70). Malaria and enteric fever showed a lag period of −2 to −3 weeks with moderate correlation. CONCLUSIONS: Similar results were obtained when applying the results of previous studies to specific diseases, and it is considered that many other diseases should be studied at the national and sub-national levels.
Communicable Diseases ; Dataset ; Dengue ; Disease Notification ; Disease Outbreaks* ; Epidemiological Monitoring ; India* ; Malaria ; Public Health Surveillance ; Typhoid Fever