Design and Development of an Internationally Applicable Educational Video to Increase Community Awareness in Regions with High Prevalence of Melioidosis and Diabetes

"A Friendly Conversation." Developing an eHealth Intervention to Increase COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination Literacy Among Women with Criminal and Legal System Involvement

Many women leaving jails are ill-prepared to follow recommended COVID-19 mitigation practices, including testing and vaccination. Low COVID-19-related health literacy, exposure to disinformation, and mistrust in authorities put women at increased risk. Research on this population has shown significant use of mobile devices for communication and web access and public Wi-fi for the internet. Using inductive (formative empirical research with the community) and deductive (theory-based) practices, we designed, developed, and pilot-tested a multimedia, culturally tailored web-based electronic health (eHealth) application to increase COVID-19-specific health literacy and promote testing and vaccination among women with criminal and legal system involvement (CLSI). The intervention included a serialized animated multimedia component and a telenovela-style series, complementing each other and addressing knowledge needs identified in the formative research phase of the project. The eHealth intervention was pilot-tested with 13 CLSI women by using online activity logs and semi-structured telephone interviews. Findings confirmed that eHealth interventions employing multimodal information delivery had increased chances of engaging audiences, especially when developed with input from the target population and are culturally tailored. In addition, using a web-based delivery optimized for mobile made the intervention accessible on various devices and decreased the risk of technical problems.

Travel-associated melioidosis: a narrative review

BACKGROUND

Melioidosis, caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, may be considered a neglected tropical disease that remains underdiagnosed in many geographical areas. Travellers can act as the sentinels of disease activity, and data from imported cases may help complete the global map of melioidosis.

METHODS

A literature search for imported melioidosis for the period 2016-22 was performed in PubMed and Google Scholar.

RESULTS

In total, 137 reports of melioidosis associated with travel were identified. The majority were males (71%) and associated with exposure in Asia (77%) (mainly Thailand, 41%, and India, 9%). A minority acquired the infection in the Americas-Caribbean area (6%), Africa (5%) and Oceania (2%). The most frequent comorbidity was diabetes mellitus (25%) followed by underlying pulmonary, liver or renal disease (8, 5 and 3%, respectively). Alcohol/tobacco use were noted for seven and six patients, respectively (5%). Five patients (4%) had associated non-human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related immunosuppression, and three patients (2%) had HIV infection. One patient (0.8%) had concomitant coronavirus disease 19. A proportion (27%) had no underlying diseases. The most frequent clinical presentations included pneumonia (35%), sepsis (30%) and skin/soft tissue infections (14%). Most developed symptoms <1 week after return (55%), and 29% developed symptoms >12 weeks after. Ceftazidime and meropenem were the main treatments used during the intensive intravenous phase (52 and 41% of patients, respectively) and the majority (82%) received co-trimoxazole alone/combination, for the eradication phase. Most patients had a favourable outcome/survived (87%). The search also retrieved cases in imported animals or cases secondary to imported commercial products.

CONCLUSIONS

As post-pandemic travel soars, health professionals should be aware of the possibility of imported melioidosis with its diverse presentations. Currently, no licensed vaccine is available, so prevention in travellers should focus on protective measures (avoiding contact with soil/stagnant water in endemic areas). Biological samples from suspected cases require processing in biosafety level 3 facilities.