There needs to be ‘massive investment’ in frontline services: IRIS study - CTV News

For years, Doan Quang Dung, an applied epidemiologist at the Queensland Health Department in Australia, worked within the limits of his laboratory bench: specimens, reagents, a microscope. Then COVID-19 shifted his world, and the period of forced reflection drove him “to look beyond the lab, and at populations that were most at risk of disease.” What began as curiosity during a crisis became a mission, and it led him to the World Health Organization’s Field Epidemiology Fellowship Programme (FEFP) in the Western Pacific.  “FEFP provided an eye-opening transition from the controlled lab to the ‘boots on the ground’ reality of field epidemiology, where I worked with complex datasets to uncover the causes and effects of disease,” he shared. This year, that programme turns 20. From mentorship to a regional engine FEFP was established in 2006, to help countries detect and respond rapidly to emerging infections and other acute public health events. Initially individual and mentorship-based, in 2011 it became more structured.

A new palliative care resource honours the knowledge of frontline workers and builds on it. A new national palliative and end-of-life care resource is providing frontline workers with tools and strategies to better support people who are aging with serious illness alongside poverty and homelessness. The University of Victoria-led collective of researchers, frontline workers, and palliative care practitioners today launched the Palliative Care Is… curriculum at the Montreal International Congress on Palliative Care.  Kelli Stajduhar, a professor in UVic's School of Nursing and the Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health, says their research over the last decade has shown that frontline workers are often the main point of contact and trusted source of support for people experiencing homelessness.  "They walk alongside people experiencing cancers, lung disease, and heart conditions in the homeless service settings, but often aren’t recognized or supported in the care work they do," Stajduhar says.  “We often recognize doctors and nurses as part of the care team, but these frontline workers can be left out, and their knowledge and experience excluded.”

Bioengineer.org news storyFor people living with HIV, modern antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to levels below what standard laboratory tests can detect. Yet some patients on long-term treatment experience a curious phenomenon: a single test result showing a small, transient amount of virus in the blood, followed by an immediate return to undetectable levels. These events, known as viral blips, have puzzled clinicians and researchers for years, raising questions about whether they represent harmless statistical noise, brief bursts of viral production from hidden reservoirs, or early warnings of impending treatment failure. A new nationwide Swedish study, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, offers one of the most comprehensive answers to date. Drawing on the Swedish national InfCareHIV cohort, researchers analyzed data from 4,210 treatment-naïve adults who began antiretroviral therapy from 1 January 2007 onward, with follow-up data extracted through 30 September 2020. The median observation time was 5.5 years, with some individuals followed for as long as 13.7 years.