The finding could explain several mysteries, including why children are unlikely to die from COVID-19.

Mizoram has registered a 10 per cent drop in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in 2019-20 fiscal, making it to the second spot in the country after Nagaland. State health minister R Lalthangliana said the IMR has dropped from 15 per cent to 5 per cent (per 1000 live births), citing the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin. With 10-point drop in IMR in 2019-20, Mizoram is the best-performing state in the country, he said. Over the past three years, the state has achieved 27- point drop in IMR. The minister attributed the achievement to efforts of healthcare workers and support of people. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had on Saturday congratulated Mizoram and Lalthangliana on the achievement. The state had recorded 21 per cent IMR in 2016-2017, with 405 infants dying before attaining the age of one. During 2017-18, it fell to 20 per cent, and the following year to 15 per cent. According to Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin released recently, Nagaland tops ..

Vijayan said while the national average for IMR was 32 per 1,000 births, the state has only seven.

COVID-19 lockdown has affected the livelihood of many people worldwide. A study published on 3 April in a journal named JAMA Psychiatry says that in addition to the COVID-19 deaths due to infection or illness, people are also dying of suicides

Mortality increases if COVID-19 positive person delays in visiting hospital...

TIRUVARUR The mortality due to COVID-19 virus infection in Tamil Nadu is 0.67%, according to Food Minister R. Kamaraj.Disclosing this at a special med

The State’s IMR has been on the decreasing trend.

Greening urban areas can reduce the number of people dying from heat-related health problems, according to a recent study. The researchers found that doubling vegetation cover in central Melbourne could reduce heat-related mortality of the elderly by up to 28% during heat waves.

Droughts and temperature rises caused by climate change may already be increasing the die-off of forests, according to a new study. To combat this threat researchers have called for greater knowledge on the status of the forests and the ways in which climate change could have an impact on forest ecosystems.

Increased black smoke pollution was associated with increased mortality rates almost a month after exposure in a recent study. The researchers studied death rates in relation to pollution concentrations over a 22-year period in the city of Glasgow, UK, and found significantly higher mortality rates among residents at 13-18 and 19-24 days after increased exposure to black smoke.

Researchers have estimated that, annually, almost 3 000 deaths (i.e. 20% of mortality) in Barcelona, Spain, are premature, and would be preventable if residents lived in urban environments that met international exposure recommendations for physical activity, air pollution, noise, heat and access to green spaces. The results emphasise the need to reduce motorised traffic, promote active and public transport, and provide adequate green space to encourage exercise and mitigate the impacts of environmental hazards in cities.

The NOAA suspects the infectious morbillivirus is responsible for the unusually high number of dolphin strandings and deaths this month.

Margaret Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with Christina L. Cifra, MD. Dr. Cifra is a Pediatric Intensivist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa.

Margaret Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with Aaron C. Spicer, MD, MAS. Dr. Spicer completed a pediatric residency and critical care fellowship and now is a resident in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Margaret Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with Michael C. McCrory, MD, MS, about the article, Time of Admission to the PICU and Mortality, published in the October 2017 issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.

Margaret Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with Stefanie G. Ames, MD, about the article Hospital Variation in Risk-Adjusted Pediatric Sepsis Mortality, published in the May 2018 issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.

Margaret M. Parker, MD, MCCM, speaks with Danny Hames, MD, on his article titled: Risk Factors for Mortality in Critically Ill Children Requiring Renal Replacement Therapy, published in the November 2019 issue of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.

Mortality rate increases if COVID-19 patient delays in visiting hospital: AIIMS-Delhi Director

Uros Seljak writes: You may be interested in our Gaussian Process counterfactual analysis of Italy mortality data that we just posted. Our results are in a strong disagreement with the Stanford seropositive paper that appeared on Friday. Their work was all over the news, but is completely misleading and needs to be countered: they claim […]

The Malheur model for fire-caused delayed mortality is presented as an easily interpreted graph (mortality-probability calculator) as part of a one-page field guide that allows the user to determine postfire probability of mortality for ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.).

A 4-year-old Douglas-fir plantation in the western Washington Cascades was monitored for 8 years after fertilization with potassium (K), nitrogen (N), and K+N to determine fertilizer effects on rates of mortality from laminated root rot (LRR) and other causes relative to a nonfertilized control.

South Australia's oyster growers are given the all-clear over a potentially devastating disease.

Systematic review produced by the EPPI-Centre in 2015.This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effect of HAART and ARV monotherapy on liver disease progression and liver-related mortality in individuals co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C, including in patients with haemophilia.

DAME VERA LYNN played an instrumental role in keeping up wartime morale and is highly respected today - but unearthed accounts reveal why she will still be relevant even in the next millennium.

Sepsis is defined as the systemic, dysregulated host immune response to an infection that leads to injury to host organ systems, and, often, death. Complex interactions between pathogens and their hosts elicit microcirculatory dysfunction. Neutrophil myeloperoxidase (MPO) is critical for combating pathogens, but MPO-derived hypochlorous acid (HOCl) can react with host molecular species as well. Plasmalogens are targeted by HOCl, leading to the production of 2-chlorofatty acids (2-CLFAs). 2-CLFAs are associated with human sepsis mortality, decrease in vitroendothelial barrier function, and activate human neutrophil extracellular trap formation. Here, we sought to examine 2-CLFAs in an in vivorat sepsis model. Intraperitoneal cecal slurry sepsis with clinically relevant rescue therapies led to ~73% mortality and evidence of microcirculatory dysfunction. Plasma concentrations of 2-CLFAs assessed 8h after sepsis induction were lower in rats that survived sepsis than in non-survivors. 2-CLFA levels were elevated in kidney, liver, spleen, lung, colon and ileum in septic animals. In vivo, exogenous 2-CLFA treatments increased kidney permeability, and in in vitroexperiments 2-CLFA also increased epithelial surface expression of vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 and decreased epithelial barrier function. Collectively, these studies support a role of free 2-CLFAs as biomarkers of sepsis mortality, potentially mediated, in part, by 2-CLFA-elicited endothelial and epithelial barrier dysfunction.

Stroke mortality rates have been declining in almost every country, and that reduction could result from a decline in disease occurrence or a decline in case fatality, or both. Broadly - is that decline down to better treatment or better prevention. Olena Seminog, a researcher, and and Mike Rayner, professor of population health, both from the...

We know that exercise is good for you - the WHO recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity each week. That recommendation is built on evidence that relied on self reporting that may underestimate the amount of lower intensity exercise those people were doing, and at the...

There comes a tipping point in all campaigns when the evidence is overwhelming and the only way to proceed is with action. According to David Williams, it’s time to tackle the disproportionate effects of race on patients in the UK. David Williams, from Harvard University, developed the Everyday Discrimination Scale that, in 1997, launched a new...

Mariano J Garcia
Feb 1, 1974; 23:105-111
Original Contribution

OBJECTIVE

Diabetes in older age is heterogeneous, and the treatment approach varies by patient characteristics. We characterized the short-term all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk associated with hyperglycemia in older age.

T A Welborn
Mar 1, 1979; 2:154-160
Proceedings of the Kroc Foundation International Conference on Epidemiology of Diabetes and its Macrovascular Complications

OBJECTIVE

Haptoglobin is an acute-phase reactant with pleiotropic functions. We aimed to study whether urine haptoglobin may predict risk of mortality in people with type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE

Incorporation of comorbidity burden to inform diabetes management in older adults remains challenging. High-sensitivity cardiac troponins are objective, quantifiable biomarkers that may improve risk monitoring in older adults. We assessed the associations of elevations in high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) and T (hs-cTnT) with comorbidities and improvements in mortality risk stratification.

OBJECTIVE

The association between high glycemic variability and all-cause mortality has been widely investigated in epidemiological studies but rarely validated in glucose-lowering clinical trials. We aimed to identify the prognostic significance of visit-to-visit HbA_1c variability in treated patients in the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial population.

OBJECTIVE

The vast number of antihyperglycemic medications and growing amount of evidence make clinical decision making difficult. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety of antihyperglycemic dual and triple therapies for type 2 diabetes management with respect to major adverse cardiovascular events, severe hypoglycemia, and all-cause mortality in a real-life clinical setting.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to evaluate the association of energy and macronutrient intake at dinner versus breakfast with disease-specific and all-cause mortality in people with diabetes.

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether low baseline diastolic blood pressure (DBP) modifies the effects of intensive systolic blood pressure (SBP) lowering on cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge . . . "Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been . . . "

OBJECTIVE

To determine the effect of fitness on the association between BMI and mortality among patients with diabetes.

Yicheng Li, Adrian E. Raftery.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 381--408.

Abstract:
Smoking is one of the leading preventable threats to human health and a major risk factor for lung cancer, upper aerodigestive cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Estimating and forecasting the smoking attributable fraction (SAF) of mortality can yield insights into smoking epidemics and also provide a basis for more accurate mortality and life expectancy projection. Peto et al. ( Lancet 339 (1992) 1268–1278) proposed a method to estimate the SAF using the lung cancer mortality rate as an indicator of exposure to smoking in the population of interest. Here, we use the same method to estimate the all-age SAF (ASAF) for both genders for over 60 countries. We document a strong and cross-nationally consistent pattern of the evolution of the SAF over time. We use this as the basis for a new Bayesian hierarchical model to project future male and female ASAF from over 60 countries simultaneously. This gives forecasts as well as predictive distributions that can be used to find uncertainty intervals for any quantity of interest. We assess the model using out-of-sample predictive validation and find that it provides good forecasts and well-calibrated forecast intervals, comparing favorably with other methods.

There have been no previous large studies of congenital heart disease in very low birth weight infants.

This study characterized the frequency, mortality rate, and lesion distribution of serious congenital heart disease in very low birth weight infants by using a large international multicenter database. (Read the full article)

Very low birth weight (VLBW) male neonates appear to have increased mortality. VLBW female neonates appear to have better long-term outcomes.

VLBW male neonates have increased mortality and poorer neurological outcome. This gender difference appears to disappear at weeks' gestation. (Read the full article)

Previous analyses have suggested that center volume is associated with outcome in children undergoing heart surgery. There are limited data regarding factors that may mediate this volume–outcome relationship.

A multicenter analysis of 35 776 children revealed that the higher mortality observed at lower volume centers may be related to a higher rate of mortality in those with postoperative complications, rather than a higher rate of complications alone. (Read the full article)

Although China has the largest birth population in the world and a number of multicenter studies of neonatal respiratory failure are reported, there is a paucity of data regarding outcome measurement of very premature neonates requiring respiratory care and surfactant therapy.

This study is the largest survey, to date, in a Chinese network of 55 NICUs that presents the incidence, morbidity, and mortality rates, with risk factors of neonatal respiratory failure, with special emphasis on surfactant-treated very immature infants. (Read the full article)

The presumed causes of neonatal deaths globally have remained unchanged over the past decade and include infections (~30%), prematurity (~30%), and asphyxia (~25%). Great uncertainty surrounds these estimates and, in addition, cases are likely misclassified as stillbirths.

These observational findings indicate that asphyxia accounts for a much higher percentage (60% of early deaths). Prematurity (18%), low birth weight (8%), and overt infection are much less common. The 5-minute Apgar score is an unreliable indicator of birth asphyxia. (Read the full article)

Disparities in outcomes of ethnic minority children have been reported, and have been ascribed to having barriers to access to health care. Minority parents have indicated that difficulties in access are because of problems with transportation and being non-English speaking.

This population-based study of Texas infants with severe congenital heart disease reports that neither home distance from a cardiac center nor Hispanic children having a Latin American–born parent were risk factors for first-year mortality. (Read the full article)

Infants weighing 501 to 1500 g are at high risk for mortality and for neonatal morbidities associated with both short- and long-term adverse consequences.

Mortality and major neonatal morbidity in survivors decreased for infants 501 to 1500 g between 2000 and 2009. However, in 2009, a high proportion of these infants still either died or survived after experiencing ≥1 major neonatal morbidity. (Read the full article)

Because most childhood tuberculosis cases are sputum smear-negative, diagnosis relies largely upon clinical presentation, tuberculin skin testing, and chest radiograph. Diagnostic limitations contribute to treatment delays and high mortality. However, childhood tuberculosis (TB) mortality risk factors are not well documented.

This study demonstrates that false-negative TST is common in children with active TB and is associated with increased risk of death. A negative TST should not delay anti-TB therapy. Improved diagnostic modalities are urgently needed in resource-limited settings. (Read the full article)