N95 respirators are personal protective equipment most often used to control exposures to infections transmitted via the airborne route. Supplies of N95 respirators can become depleted during pandemics or when otherwise in high demand. In this paper, we offer strategies for optimizing supplies of N95 respirators in health care settings while maximizing the level of protection offered to health care personnel when there is limited supply in the United States during the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic. The strategies are intended for use by professionals who manage respiratory protection programs, occupational health services, and infection prevention programs in health care facilities to protect health care personnel from job-related risks of exposure to infectious respiratory illnesses. Consultation with federal, state, and local public health officials is also important. We use the framework of surge capacity and the occupational health and safety hierarchy of controls approach to discuss specific engineering control, administrative control, and personal protective equipment measures that may help in optimizing N95 respirator supplies.

Africa is experiencing a rapid increase in adult obesity and associated cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs). The H3Africa AWI-Gen Collaborative Centre was established to examine genomic and environmental factors that influence body composition, body fat distribution and CMD risk, with the aim to provide insights towards effective treatment and intervention strategies. It provides a research platform of over 10 500 participants, 40–60 years old, from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. Following a process that involved community engagement, training of project staff and participant informed consent, participants were administered detailed questionnaires, anthropometric measurements were taken and biospecimens collected. This generated a wealth of demographic, health history, environmental, behavioural and biomarker data. The H3Africa SNP array will be used for genome-wide association studies. AWI-Gen is building capacity to perform large epidemiological, genomic and epigenomic studies across several African counties and strives to become a valuable resource for research collaborations in Africa.

An analysis was undertaken to measure age-specific vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 2010/11 trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine (TIV) and monovalent 2009 pandemic influenza vaccine (PIV) administered in 2009/2010. The test-negative case-control study design was employed based on patients consulting primary care. Overall TIV effectiveness, adjusted for age and month, against confirmed influenza A(H1N1)pdm 2009 infection was 56% (95% CI 42–66); age-specific adjusted VE was 87% (95% CI 45–97) in <5-year-olds and 84% (95% CI 27–97) in 5- to 14-year-olds. Adjusted VE for PIV was only 28% (95% CI −6 to 51) overall and 72% (95% CI 15–91) in <5-year-olds. For confirmed influenza B infection, TIV effectiveness was 57% (95% CI 42–68) and in 5- to 14-year-olds 75% (95% CI 32–91). TIV provided moderate protection against the main circulating strains in 2010/2011, with higher protection in children. PIV administered during the previous season provided residual protection after 1 year, particularly in the <5 years age group.

This exhibit represents part of the work of the Department of Zoology in the past 5 years, and others who have contributed to it are F. Matsumura, Z. H. Abedi, T. Kimura, P. G. Fast, J. G. Towgood, J. N. Telford and N. H. Khan.

The work with the mosquito Aedes aegypti has involved study of 8 susceptible strains. The mechanism of DDT-resistance has been found to be associated with its detoxication by an enzymic process of dehydrochlorination to DDE; the amount of DDE produced has been found to be directly proportional to the resistance level, both by experiments with larvae in vivo and with larval homogenates incubated with DDT and glutathione in vitro. A secondary resistance mechanism in American strains has been a very pronounced secretion and excretion of peritrophic membrane by the larvae.

A case of non-traumatic/non-iatrogenic CSF rhinorrhoea, presenting with tension pneumocephalus and hemiparesis is described. The possible pathological processes involved in this rare case are discussed. Cases in the literature of idiopathic CSF rhinorrhoea and also those of spontaneous pneumocephalus are reviewed.

Thin Al films alloyed with three different compositions (0.1%, 1%, 5% by weight) of Yttrium were deposited by D.C. Magnetron Sputtering onto oxidized Si wafer substrates. The samples were furnace annealed at 425 °C for 30 minutes. Resistivity measured for the as-deposited and annealed Al(0. lwt% Y) were 3.07 and 2.57+/−0.25 μΩcm respectively. Al(0. lwt% Y) was also annealed by furnace annealing (FA), rapid thermal annealing (RTA) and rapid photothermal annealing (RPA). RPA gave a residual resistivity of 2.67μΩcm in 5 minutes and at a temperature of 350 C for Al(0. lwt% Y). Mean time to failure for AI(0. lwt% Y) samples at a current density of 3.2+/−0.5×106A/cm2 at 30 C was 50 hours. TEM results showed grain size variation from 0.5 to 2 μm.

The paper reports a controlled study of the impact of social skills training within a longer treatment approach to patients with anorexia nervosa. Under these circumstances social skills training was not found to be a very powerful form of intervention. Possible reasons for this are touched on.