OBJECTIVES: To estimate the number and risk of imported infections resulting from people visiting Asian and Latin American countries.METHODS: The dataset of visitors to 5 Asian countries with dengue were analyzed for 2016 and 2017, and in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, imported cases of zika virus infection were also reported. For zika virus, a single imported case was reported from Brazil in 2016, and 2 imported cases reported from the Maldives in 2017. To understand the transmissibility in 5 Southeast Asian countries, the estimate of the force of infection, i.e., the hazard of infection per year and the average duration of travel has been extracted. Outbound travel numbers were retrieved from the World Tourism Organization, including business travelers.RESULTS: The incidence of imported dengue in 2016 was estimated at 7.46, 15.00, 2.14, 4.73 and 2.40 per 100,000 travelers visiting Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, respectively. Similarly, 2.55, 1.65, 1.53, 1.86 and 1.70 per 100,000 travelers in 2017, respectively. It was estimated that there were 60.1 infections (range: from 16.8 to 150.7 infections) with zika virus in Brazil, 2016, and 345.6 infections (range: from 85.4 to 425.5 infections) with zika virus in the Maldives, 2017.CONCLUSION: This study emphasizes that dengue and zika virus infections are mild in their nature, and a substantial number of infections may go undetected. An appropriate risk assessment of zika virus infection must use the estimated total size of infections.
Asia, Southeastern ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Brazil ; Commerce ; Dataset ; Dengue ; Humans ; Incidence ; Indian Ocean Islands ; Indonesia ; Korea ; Latin America ; Malaysia ; Philippines ; Risk Assessment ; Thailand ; Vietnam ; Zika Virus ; Zika Virus Infection

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is an acute, febrile zoonotic disease that is caused by the RVF virus (RVFV). RVF is mainly prevalent on the Arabian Peninsula, the African continent, and several islands in the Indian Ocean near southeast Africa. RVFV has been classified by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) as a category A pathogen. To avoid biological safety concerns associated with use of the pathogen in RVFV neutralization assays, the present study investigated and established an RVFV pseudovirus-based neutralization assay. This study used the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) lentiviral packaging system and RVFV structural proteins to successfully construct RVFV pseudoviruses. Electron microscopy observation and western blotting indicated that the size, structure, and shape of the packaged pseudoviruses were notably similar to those of HIV lentiviral vectors. Infection inhibition assay results showed that an antibody against RVFV inhibited the infective ability of the RVFV pseudoviruses, and an antibody neutralization assay for RVFV detection was then established. This study has successfully established a neutralization assay based on RVFV pseudoviruses and demonstrated that this method can be used to effectively evaluate antibody neutralization.
Africa ; Animals ; Blotting, Western ; HIV ; Indian Ocean ; Islands ; Methods ; Microscopy, Electron ; Product Packaging ; Rift Valley fever virus ; Rift Valley Fever ; Zoonoses

As the government has a plan to terminate medical internships and to start the New Resident program, postgraduate medical students should encounter the new residency training program without the internship from 2015. To keep pace with this significant change, the Korean Neuropsychiatry association launched the task force team to manage this problem. The task force team has examined the psychiatry residency training programs from major countries, including England, Japan, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and the Unites States. In addition, we conducted a survey for teaching psychiatrists and psychiatry residents who just finished the Psychiatry Board Examination in 2013 using a premade questionnaire on the expected problems that might occur if the internship program were abolished, and some significant issues regarding resident rotation schedule to other departments. In this paper, we summarized the results of our examination and survey. Establishment of a new residency training program based on these surveys would be desirable.
Advisory Committees ; Appointments and Schedules ; Australia ; England ; Germany ; Humans ; Internship and Residency ; Japan ; Korea ; Neuropsychiatry ; New Zealand ; Psychiatry ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Students, Medical

CpG is the pair of nucleotides C and G, appearing successively, in this order, along one DNA strand. It is known that due to biochemical considerations CpG is relatively rare in most DNA sequences. However, in particular subsequences, which are a few hundred to a few thousand nucleotides long, the couple CpG is more frequent. These subsequences, called CpG islands, are known to appear in biologically more significant parts of the genome. The ability to identify CpG islands along a chromosome will therefore help us spot its more significant regions of interest, such as the promoters or 'start' regions of many genes. In this respect, I developed the CpG islands search tool, CpG Islands Detector, which was implemented in JAVA to be run on any platform. The window-based graphical user interface of CpG Islands Detector may facilitate the end user to employ this tool to pinpoint CpG islands in a genomic DNA sequence. In addition, this tool can be used to highlight potential genes in genomic sequences since CpG islands are very often found in the 5' regions of vertebrate genes.
Base Sequence ; CpG Islands ; DNA ; Genome ; Indonesia ; Nucleotides ; Vertebrates

Rapid technological developments in medicine have taken place in the Asia-Pacific region over the last decades. Radiology, in particular, has seen enormous growth with the latest medical equipment and practices being commonplace in this region. The use of radiation in medicine must be carefully considered with regard to the potential side effects, such as radiation-induced cancer. There are very limited published papers on the use of radiation in medicine in this region. Hence, in this paper, we present an overview of the use of radiation in medicine in the Asia-Pacific region.
Asia ; Developing Countries ; Humans ; Pacific Islands ; Radiation Oncology ; statistics & numerical data ; Radiotherapy ; utilization

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to identify and compare social capital measurement tools for the convenient use in public health studies. METHOD AND RESULT: This study examined and compared social capital tools developed individually by the World Bank, the OECD, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and Korea. A comprehensive framework was constructed with six conceptual dimensions and sixteen indices. The six dimensions included Membership, Network, Trust, Information and communication, Social and civic participation, and Social cohesion and exclusion, which connoted the structural, cognitive, bonding, bridging, operative, and output elements. The indices of each tool were respectively matched to the indices of the comprehensive framework. The comprehensive tools were Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital (SC-IQ) of the World Bank with 27 questions and the European Social Survey (ESS) of the OECD with 80 questions. CONCLUSION: The SC-IQ should be utilized in public health studies due to its simplicity yet comprehensiveness as a social capital tool. The ESS should also be considered as a comprehensive tool.
Academies and Institutes ; Australia ; Canada ; Great Britain ; Ireland ; Korea ; Public Health ; United Nations ; United States ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Although seclusion and restraint are required for the treatment of mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals, these procedures involve potential violations of human rights and pose a potential risk to patients' physical condition. Nursing staffs in psychiatric hospitals often have to manage psychiatric patients who display aggressive, violent, or challenging behavior. However, the guidelines for the use of seclusion and restraint in Korea are too broad to apply in clinical situations. The guidelines in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand emphasize that patients' basic needs have to be met and stipulate that patient–staff interaction must be continued during seclusion and restraint procedures. Mental health workers in psychiatric hospitals should pay close attention to patients' verbal and non-verbal expressions while communicating with them. This study reviews the guidelines for seclusion and restraint used in foreign countries to improve current Korean guidelines and provides strategies of the nursing activities to be implemented when patients require seclusion and restraint.
Australia ; Great Britain ; Hospitals, Psychiatric ; Human Rights ; Humans ; Korea ; Mental Health ; Mentally Ill Persons ; New Zealand ; Nursing Staff ; Nursing ; Psychiatric Nursing ; United States

Indonesia and South Korea have become inseparable in various respects since the 2 countries established diplomatic relation in 1973. Indonesia is a tropical region that stretches across the equator, comprised of 5 main islands (Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Papua) and 4 archipelagoes (Riau, Bangka Belitung, Nusa Tenggara, and Maluku). As most population of Eastern Indonesia (Sulawesi, Papua and Nusa Tenggara & Maluku) live in poor areas, it is expected that there will be many parasites. Nevertheless, little is known about the status of parasites in Indonesia. This study examines the prevalences of malaria and lymphatic filaria, which are prevalent in Indonesia, as well as those of soil-transmitted-helminths (STH). As a result, the Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax case loads are almost equal. The current prevalence of P. vivax is uniformly low (<5%) in all age groups and annual parasite incidence (API) showed decreasing tendency as 0.84 per 1,000 population in 2016. However, more than 65 million people still live in malaria epidemic regions. Lymphatic filariasis remains an important public health problem and 236 cities were classified as endemic areas in 514 cities/districts in 2017. It is difficult to ascertain the current prevalence rate of STH in Indonesia, although West Sumba and Southwest Sumba in East Nusa Tenggara reported prevalence rate of more than 20%. The study also considers the (sero) prevalences of other parasites identified in Indonesia. This report should be useful not only to parasitologists but also to travelers and people with business in Indonesia.
Commerce ; Diplomacy ; Elephantiasis, Filarial ; Humans ; Incidence ; Indonesia ; Islands ; Korea ; Malaria ; Parasites ; Plasmodium falciparum ; Prevalence ; Public Health

Influenza A and B viruses cause significant human disease worldwide through regular outbreaks and epidemics of seasonal influenza, and occasional pandemics when a novel influenza A virus emerges. Whereas Australia and New Zealand have well-established systems for community and laboratory-based surveillance of influenza, most other countries of the Pacific are only beginning to develop such systems with the support of various global and regional agencies and networks. Here we describe the role of the World Health Organization Global Influenza Surveillance Network and other organizations in laboratory-based influenza surveillance in the region and review some of the available data on seasonal and pandemic influenza in the developed and developing countries of the Pacific. The particular features of the Pacific Island countries and territories as small dispersed island communities, together with the greater susceptibility of indigenous people to the severe effects of influenza, highlight the importance of developing local laboratory-based surveillance systems. Such systems will improve the understanding, detection and control of seasonal influenza while also providing early warning of the emergence of potential pandemic viruses.
Disease Outbreaks ; Humans ; Influenza, Human/epidemiology ; Influenza, Human/virology ; Pacific Islands/epidemiology ; Population Surveillance ; Seasons ; World Health Organization.

The Machado Joseph disease(MJD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with an autosomal dominant inheritance. Patients affected by MJD may present variable combinations of cerebellar ataxia, ophthalmoplegia, pyramidal tract signs, extrapyramidal signs, and peripheral neuropathy. Once, MJD was thought to be limited to the Portuguese from Azores islands, However, since the association of expanded CAG trinucleotide repeat in chromosome 14q32.1 was identified in the MJD, the genetic study has enabled clinicians to make accurate diagnosis and the patients with MJD have been reported in the families from many different races. We report members of a family, presenting with variable combinations of gait ataxia, dysarthria, ophthalmoplegia, pyramidal and extrapyramidal signs. We performed a genetic study in 3 clinically affected and 4 asymptomatic family members. Five of the seven had abnormally expanded CAG repeat number (range 71-84) on the long arm of chromosome 14, compatible with MJD.
Arm ; Azores ; Cerebellar Ataxia ; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 14 ; Continental Population Groups ; Diagnosis ; Dysarthria ; Gait Ataxia ; Humans ; Islands ; Machado-Joseph Disease* ; Neurodegenerative Diseases ; Ophthalmoplegia ; Peripheral Nervous System Diseases ; Pyramidal Tracts ; Trinucleotide Repeats ; Wills