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Journal articleTornimbene B, Leiva Rioja ZB, Aderinola O, et al., 2025,
Pathways to strengthening the epidemic intelligence workforce
, BMC Proceedings, Vol: 19The evolving landscape of public health surveillance demands a proficient and diverse workforce adept in data science and analysis. This report summarises discussions from the third session of the WHO Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence Innovation Forum, focusing on workforce readiness and technological advancements in epidemic intelligence. The forum emphasizes the necessity of multidisciplinary surveillance teams equipped with advanced data skills. Digital tools play a transformative role in data collection and analysis, enabling real-time tracking, integration, and interpretation of diverse data sources. However, effective surveillance relies on inclusive representation and skill development. Collaborative surveillance and interdisciplinary training programs were emphasized as critical pathways to enhance workforce capacity, decision-making, and equity in public health. Case studies from Nigeria, Korea, the UK, and Colombia showcase the role of digital tools and contextual expertise in addressing surveillance gaps. Sustained institutional support, cross-sector partnerships, and investments in data literacy and workforce development are pivotal for creating resilient and inclusive public health systems.
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Journal articleDe Nardi A, Marini G, Dorigatti I, et al., 2025,
Quantifying West Nile virus circulation in the avian host population in Northern Italy.
, Infect Dis Model, Vol: 10, Pages: 375-386West Nile virus (WNV) is one of the most threatening mosquito-borne pathogens in Italy where hundreds of human cases were recorded during the last decade. Here, we estimated the WNV incidence in the avian population in the Emilia-Romagna region through a modelling framework which enabled us to eventually assess the fraction of birds that present anti-WNV antibodies at the end of each epidemiological season. We fitted an SIR model to ornithological data, consisting of 18,989 specimens belonging to Corvidae species collected between 2013 and 2022: every year from May to November birds are captured or shot and tested for WNV genome presence. We found that the incidence peaks between mid-July and late August, infected corvids seem on average 17% more likely to be captured with respect to susceptible ones and seroprevalence was estimated to be larger than other years at the end of 2018, consistent with the anomalous number of recorded human infections. Thanks to our modelling study we quantified WNV infection dynamics in the corvid community, which is still poorly investigated despite its importance for the virus circulation. To the best of our knowledge, this is among the first studies providing quantitative information on infection and immunity in the bird population, yielding new important insights on WNV transmission dynamics.
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Journal articleFu M, Lambert G, Cook A, et al., 2025,
Quality of life in patients with HBV infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis
, JHEP Reports, Vol: 7, ISSN: 2589-5559Background & AimsDespite nearly 250 million people worldwide estimated to have chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in HBV-related disease has not been well characterised. We aimed to summarise existing data on HBV-related HRQOL and quantify summary utility values by stage of disease.MethodsEmbase, Global Health, PubMed, and Web of Science were searched for articles investigating HBV HRQOL. Meta-analyses for utility scores were pooled by stage of disease and utility instrument; meta-regression was further adjusted for the effect of current health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (CHE/GDP) as a proxy of the importance of healthcare perceived by different countries.ResultsTwenty-two articles from nineteen studies, comprising 10,311 patients, were included. 74% of studies were performed in the Western Pacific Region, and 47% used the EuroQoL-5D-3L instrument. HRQOL was found to decrease with advancing stages of HBV-related disease. Meta-regression showed the following predicted mean utility scores for the different stages of chronic HBV infection: non-cirrhotic 0.842, compensated cirrhosis 0.820 (p=0.474 compared to non-cirrhotic), decompensated cirrhosis 0.722 (p=0.001) and hepatocellular carcinoma 0.749 (p=0.008). The type of tool used affected HRQOL and studies in populations where there was a higher CHE/GDP were associated with higher predicted utility values.ConclusionsChronic HBV infection impairs patients' HRQOL, even when there is no evidence of cirrhosis, and HRQOL is particularly impaired in the advanced stages of decompensated cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. These results have important implications for global hepatitis elimination efforts and are useful for economic analyses. However, further research is needed, particularly in high-burden, low-income settings where data is lacking.Impact and ImplicationsThis study's findings from 22 articles and 10,311 patients contribute to the
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Journal articleRawson TM, Al-Hassan M, Brzeska-Trafny I, et al., 2025,
Comment on: Resistance profiles of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales in a large centre in England: are we already losing cefiderocol?
, J Antimicrob Chemother -
Journal articleWalker P, Djaafara B, Sherrard-Smith E, et al., 2025,
Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in malaria transmission across Indonesia: analysis of routine surveillance data 2010-2019
, BMC Medicine, ISSN: 1741-7015 -
ReportWinskill P, Haile L, Ruybal-Pesántez S, et al., 2025,
Rapid response modelled estimates of the effect of the US global aid freeze on President’s Malaria Initiative impact in sub-Saharan Africa
The current freeze on US global aid has the potential to disrupt critical live-saving activities of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). Disruptions or cessation of planned PMI activities in 2025, with no mitigation, could result in an estimated additional 84,200 (95% CI: 69,300, 98,100) malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa over the course of 2025. Empirical observations and modelled scenarios highlight the speed at which malaria can resurge following the cessation of core interventions.
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Journal articleHorsfield ST, Fok BCT, Fu Y, et al., 2025,
Optimizing nanopore adaptive sampling for pneumococcal serotype surveillance in complex samples using the graph-based GNASTy algorithm.
, Genome ResSerotype surveillance of Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) is critical for understanding the effectiveness of current vaccination strategies. However, existing methods for serotyping are limited in their ability to identify the co-carriage of multiple pneumococci and detect novel serotypes. To develop a scalable and portable serotyping method that overcomes these challenges, we employed Nanopore Adaptive Sampling (NAS), an on-sequencer enrichment method that selects for target DNA in real-time, for direct detection of S. pneumoniae in complex samples. Whereas NAS targeting the whole S. pneumoniae genome was ineffective in the presence of nonpathogenic streptococci, the method was both specific and sensitive when targeting the capsular biosynthetic locus (CBL), the operon that determines S. pneumoniae serotype. NAS significantly improved coverage and yield of the CBL relative to sequencing without NAS, and accurately quantified the relative prevalence of serotypes in samples representing co-carriage. To maximize the sensitivity of NAS to detect novel serotypes, we developed and benchmarked a new pangenome-graph algorithm, named GNASTy. We show that GNASTy outperforms the current NAS implementation, which is based on linear genome alignment, when a sample contains a serotype absent from the database of targeted sequences. The methods developed in this work provide an improved approach for novel serotype discovery and routine S. pneumoniae surveillance that is fast, accurate and feasible in low-resource settings. Although NAS facilitates whole-genome enrichment under ideal circumstances, GNASTy enables targeted enrichment to optimize serotype surveillance in complex samples.
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Journal articleJombart T, 2025,
Contrasting the impact and cost-effectiveness of successive intervention strategies in response to Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2018-2020
, BMJ Public Health, ISSN: 2753-4294 -
Journal articlePickles M, Gregson S, Moorhouse L, et al., 2025,
Association of life-course events with predictors of HIV risk behaviour and HIV acquisition in Manicaland, Zimbabwe: a longitudinal analysis of a population cohort.
, Lancet HIV, Vol: 12, Pages: e214-e222BACKGROUND: An individual's HIV risk, and consequently their HIV prevention needs, change over time. In this study we aimed to quantify these changes, examine which life-course events were associated with them, and investigate the extent to which those life-course events were associated with HIV acquisition. METHODS: We used longitudinal data from eight rounds of a general population cohort in Manicaland province, eastern Zimbabwe, on sociodemographic and HIV risk behaviours, as well as HIV serostatus from the first seven rounds. We first visualised how HIV risk behaviours, comprised of having multiple, concurrent, non-regular, or transactional partners, condom non-use, drug use, and visiting bars, changed for individuals over time using Sankey diagrams. We then examined whether logistic regression models incorporating life-course events-namely, changes in marital or employment status, in-migration, or birth of a child-were more strongly associated with changes in HIV risk behaviour than models using only sociodemographic variables. Finally, we compared how well sociodemographic, HIV risk behaviour, and life-course events were associated with the person's risk of HIV acquisition as follows: we used logistic regression to identify which states (divided into sociodemographic, HIV risk behaviour, and life-course events) were most strongly associated with risk of HIV acquisition; based on this we use three models (corresponding to the three divisions) to identify the top 20% of individuals predicted to be at risk of acquiring HIV by each model, and computed what proportion of the actual HIV infection events occurred in that group. FINDINGS: Between 1998 and 2021, 21 213 individuals were interviewed at least twice, contributing a total of 34 212 participant observations. In this setting, individuals had periods of HIV risk lasting less than 3 years; only 12·3% (102 of 831) of those reporting transactional sex had also reported this in the previous ro
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Journal articleAvraam D, Hadjichrysanthou C, 2025,
The impact of contact-network structure on important epidemiological quantities of infectious disease transmission and the identification of the extremes.
, J Theor Biol, Vol: 599An individual-based stochastic model was developed to simulate the spread of an infectious disease in an SEIR-type system on all possible contact-networks of size between six and nine nodes. We assessed systematically the impact of the change in the population contact structure on four important epidemiological quantities: i) the epidemic duration, ii) the maximum number of infected individuals at a time point during the epidemic, iii) the time at which the maximum number of infected individuals is reached, and iv) the total number of individuals that have been infected during the epidemic. We considered the potential relationship of these quantities as the network changes and identified the networks that maximise and minimise each of these in the case of an epidemic outbreak. Chain-like networks minimise the peak and final epidemic size, but the disease spread is slow on such contact structures which leads to the maximisation of the epidemic duration. Star-like networks maximise the time to the peak whereas highly connected networks lead to faster disease transmission, and higher peak and final epidemic size. While the pairwise relationship of most of the quantities becomes almost linear, or inverse linear, as the network connectivity increases and approaches the complete network, the relationships are non-linear towards networks of low connectivity. In particular, the pairwise relationship between the final epidemic size and other quantities is changed in a 'bow-shaped' manner. There is a strong inverse linear relationship between epidemic duration and peak epidemic size with increasing network connectivity. The (inverse) linear relationships between quantities are more pronounced in cases of high disease transmissibility. All the values of the quantities change in a non-linear way with the increase of network connectivity and are characterised by high variability between networks of the same degree. The variability decreases as network connectivity increases.
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.
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