Pneumonia is a significant and costly public health problem in Thailand. This surveillance system allows precise assessment and monitoring of radiologically confirmed pneumonia and lays the groundwork for the introduction of new vaccines against pneumonia pathogens.
SignificanceDengue hemorrhagic fever poses a major problem for public health officials in Thailand. The number and location of cases vary dramatically from year to year, which makes planning prevention and treatment activities before the dengue season difficult. We develop statistical models with biologically motivated covariates to make forecasts for each Thai province every year. The forecasts from our models have less error than those of a baseline model on out-of-sample data. Furthermore, the forecasts from a model based on incidence occurring before the start of the rainy season successfully order provinces by outbreak risk. These early, accurate forecasts of dengue hemorrhagic fever incidence could help public health officials determine where to allocate their resources in the future.
With several candidate dengue vaccines under development, this is an important time to help stakeholders (e.g., policy makers, scientists, clinicians, and manufacturers) better understand the potential economic value (cost-effectiveness) of a dengue vaccine, especially while vaccine characteristics and strategies might be readily altered. We developed a decision analytic Markov simulation model to evaluate the potential health and economic value of administering a dengue vaccine to an individual (≤ 1 year of age) in Thailand from the societal perspective. Sensitivity analyses evaluated the effects of ranging various vaccine (e.g., cost, efficacy, side effect), epidemiological (dengue risk), and disease (treatment-seeking behavior) characteristics. A ≥ 50% efficacious vaccine was highly cost-effective [< 1× per capita gross domestic product (GDP) ($4,289)] up to a total vaccination cost of $60 and cost-effective [< 3× per capita GDP ($12,868)] up to a total vaccination cost of $200. When the total vaccine series was $1.50, many scenarios were cost saving.
With poultry outbreaks of avian influenza H5N1 continuing in Thailand, preventing human infection remains a priority. We surveyed residents of rural Thailand regarding avian influenza knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Results suggest that public education campaigns have been effective in reaching those at greatest risk, although some high-risk behavior continues.
In Thai provinces where avian influenza outbreaks in poultry had been confirmed in the preceding 6 months, serum from 322 poultry farmers was tested for antibodies to avian influenza virus subtype H5N1 by microneutralization assay. No study participant met the World Health Organization serologic criteria for confirmed infection.
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