Advancing child health and educational equity during the COVID-19 pandemic through science and advocacy

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the changing role of scientists, clinicians, ethicists, and educators in advocacy as they rapidly translate their findings to inform practice and policy. Critical efforts have been directed towards understanding child well-being, especially with pandemic-related educational disruptions. While school closures were part of early widespread public health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, they have not been without consequences for all children, and especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In a recent Isr J Health Policy Res perspective, Paltiel and colleagues demonstrate the integral role of academic activism to promote child well-being during the pandemic by highlighting work of the multidisciplinary academic group on children and coronavirus (MACC). In this commentary, we explore parallels to MACC’s work in an international context by describing the efforts of a multidisciplinary team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, to aggregate data, conduct analyses, and offer training tools intended to minimize health and educational inequities for children throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As both MACC and our work collectively demonstrates, multidisciplinary partnerships and public-facing data-driven initiatives are crucial to advocating for children's equitable access to quality health and education. This will likely not be the last pandemic that children experience in their lifetime. As such, efforts should be made to apply the lessons learned during the current pandemic to strengthen multidisciplinary academic-public partnerships which will continue to play a critical role in the future.

Immunotherapy-Related Publications in Colorectal Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis

Patients with microsatellite-instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatched repair-deficient colorectal cancer (CRC) appear to be responsive to checkpoint inhibitors. This study aimed to assess research trends in CRC immunotherapy. Publication patterns of articles covering immunotherapies in CRC in the Web of Science Core Collection database were retrospectively examined using VOS viewer software (version 1.6.16) prior to 25 May 2021. Ultimately, 3977 records were identified that were published between 1975 and 2021, which received a total of 128,681 citations (an average of 32.36 citations per item), with a noticeable rise in 2014. The majority of articles were published in the US (35.8%), China (17.7%), and Germany (9.4%). Publications mainly originated from the Institut National de la Santé Et De La Recherche Medicale Inserm, followed by the University of Texas System and Harvard University; however, Johns Hopkins University received the most citations (18,666 for 69 publications). The Journal of Clinical Oncology issued the most publications (n = 146), while the most referenced item (7724 citations) was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012. The most common keywords were associated with tumors (expression and microsatellite instability) or immune system components (t-cells/dendritic cells). The findings demonstrate the scientific community’s interest in the MSI-H subtype of colorectal tumors and how immunotherapy may be employed more successfully to treat metastatic CRC.

الكتاب في فقرة

الدين والقيم محورية التزكية الروحية في بناء المجتمع، محمد حلمي عبد الوهاب، القاهرة: نيوبوك للنشر والتوزيع، ط1، 2020، 160 صفحة القيم الوطنية في المناهج التعليمية، مفتاح بن هدية، عمّان: دار الأيام للنشر والتوزيع، ط1، 2020، 288 صفحة القيم الأخلاقية في المجتمع العربي بين النظرية والممارسة، مجموعة من الباحثين، تنسيق: نسيسة فاطمة الزهراء، عمّان: دار الأيام للنشر والتوزيع، ط1، 2020، 3 مجلدات، 898 صفحة المسلمون والغرب والتأسيس القرآني للمشترك الإنساني، أحمد الفراك، فرجينيا: المعهد العالمي للفكر الإسلامي، ط1، 2021، 392 صفحة المشترك الإنساني والتواصل الحضاري والديني أية أرضية؟ وأي أفق؟، مجموعة مؤلفين، تنسيق أحمد الفراك وعبد الباسط المستعين، عمّان: دار ركاز للنشر والتوزيع، ط1، 2021، 515 صفحة قيمنا الإسلامية والتسارع الحضاري كيف نتعامل مع معطيات الحضارة المعاصرة، يوسف الملّا، القاهرة: دار السلام للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع والترجمة، ط1، 2020، 336 صفحة إدارة الجودة الشاملة في التعليم، خالد الصرايرة ورضا المواضيه وخالد الزيديين، عمّان: دار وائل للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع، ط1، 2019، 223 صفحة القيم الأخلاقية الواردة في كتب التربية الإسلامية "كتب المرحلة المتوسطة من التعليم الأساسي بلبنان"، شيرين خورشيد، بيروت: نشر خاص، 2019، 280 صفحة تطوير تقويم أداء كليات جامعة الملك سعود في ضوء مدخل القيمة المضافة، عبد اللطيف ابن عبد الله، القاهرة: المنظمة العربية للتنمية الإدارية، ط1، 2019، 223 صفحة حوكمة المؤسسات في ضوء الفكر المعاصر، سامح عامر وياسمين السنطيل، الأردن: دار الفكر للنشر والتوزيع، ط1، 2020، 408 صفحة أنثروبولوجيا الفقه الإسلامي: التعليم والأخلاق والاجتهاد الفقهي في الأزهر، آريا نكسا، بيروت: مركز نهوض للدراسات والبحوث، ط1، 2021م، 511 صفحة منظومة القيم المقاصدية وتجلياتها التربوية، فتحي حسن ملكاوي، عمّان: المعهد العالمي للفكر الإسلامي، ط1، 2020م، 287 صفحة The Value of Critical Knowledge, Ethics and Education: Philosophical History Bringing Epistemic and Critical Values to Values, by Ignace Haaz, geneva: net, June 2019, 234 pages. Islamic Law and Ethics, Edited by David R. Vishanoff , Herndon: The International Institute of Islamic Thought, June, 2020, 222 pages. Value and the Humanities: The Neoliberal University and Our Victorian Inheritance (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Economics, by Zoe Hope Bulaitis, Edinburgh: Palgrave Macmillan, June 2020, 326 How to Market a university: Building Value in a Competitive Environment, by Teresa Flannery, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, January 2021, 256 Higher Expectations: Can Colleges Teach Students What They Need to Know in the 21st Century? by Derek Bok, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, August 2020, 232 Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, by Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness, UK: Oxford University Press, June 2021, 176 Teaching the Whole Student: Engaged Learning With Heart, Mind, and Spirit, Editing by David Schoem & Christine Modey, & Edward P. St. John, Stylus Publishing, May 2017, 292

Coronavirus and emergency management in Nigeria

Relevance .This study examines the efforts of the Nigerian government towards managing the coronavirus infection. COVID-19 is an infectious disease that originated from Wuhang, China at the end of 2019. In the early stages, the virus infected about 300 people and caused the deaths of six people. Despite early detections and reactions by the Chinese government, the disease spread to the different countries of the world. By June 2021 more than 170 million (170,000,000) people have been infected with the disease with more than three million and sixty thousand (3,600,000) deaths. According to Johns Hopkins University in Nigeria, in June 2021, 167 thousand cases of diseases and more than 2 thousand deaths were registered. Materials and Methods . The study analyses data from open sources such as academic journals, books, newspapers and online sources. Results and Discussion. Findings of the study reveal that while the actions of the Nigerian government have been preventive, they have not curtailed the spread of the virus. Conclusion . The researchers recommend that the Nigerian government intensifies its efforts towards to limit the spread of the virus by effectively implementing lockdowns and bans on public gatherings, improve testing capacities to identify and isolate carriers of the virus.

Deviations in Predicted COVID-19 cases in the US during early months of 2021 relate to rise in B.1.526 and its family of variants

ObjectiveTo investigate the abrogation of COVID-19 case declines from predicted rates in the US in relationship to viral variants and mutations.DesignEpidemiological prediction and time series study of COVID-19 in the US by State.SettingCommunity testing and sequencing of COVID-19 in the US.ParticipantsTime series US COVID-19 case data from the Johns Hopkins University CSSE database. Time series US Variant and Mutation data from the GISAID database.Main outcome measuresPrimary outcomes were statistical modeling of US state deviations from epidemiological predictions, percentage of COVID-19 variants, percentage of COVID-19 mutations, and reported SARS-CoV-2 infections.ResultsDeviations in epidemiological predictions of COVID-19 case declines in the North Eastern US in March 2021 were highly positively related to percentage of B.1.526 (Iota) lineage (p < 10e − 7) and B.1.526.2 (p < 10 − 8) and the T95I mutation (p < 10e − 9). They were related inversely to B.1.427 and B.1.429 (Epsilon) and there was a trend for association with B.1.1.7 (Alpha) lineage.ConclusionDeviations from accurate predictive models are useful for investigating potential immune escape of COVID-19 variants at the population level. The B.1.526 and B.1.526.2 lineages likely have a high potential for immune escape and should be designated as variants of concern. The T95I mutation which is present in the B.1.526, B.1.526.2, and B.1.617.2 (Delta) lineages in the US warrants further investigation as a mutation of concern.

Bioinformatic Modelling of SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic with a Focus on Country-Specific Dynamics

Background: One of the seminal events since 2019 has been the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Countries have adopted various policies to deal with it, but they also differ in their socio-geographical characteristics and the public health care facilities. Our study aimed to investigate differences between epidemiological parameters across countries.Method: The analysed data represents SARS-CoV-2 repository provided by the Johns Hopkins University. Separately for each country, we estimated recovery and mortality rates using the SIRD model applied to the first 30, 60, 150, and 300 days of the pandemic. Moreover, a mixture of normal distributions was fitted to the number of confirmed cases and deaths during the first 300 days. The estimates of peaks’ means and variances were used to identify countries with outlying parameters.Results: For 300 days Belgium, Cyprus, France, the Netherlands, Serbia, and the UK were classified as outliers by all three outlier detection methods. Yemen was classified as an outlier for each of the four considered timeframes, due to high mortality rates. During the first 300 days of the pandemic, the majority of countries underwent three peaks in the number of confirmed cases, except Australia and Kazakhstan with two peaks.Conclusions: Considering recovery and mortality rates we observed heterogeneity between countries. Liechtenstein was the “positive” outlier with low mortality rates and high recovery rates, at the opposite, Yemen represented a “negative” outlier with high mortality for all four considered periods and low recovery for 30 and 60 days.