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Objective To report the frequency of asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2 in pediatric patients undergoing invasive medical procedures in a tertiary pediatric hospital. Methods From June to October 2020, a SARS-CoV-2 real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test was performed for all pediatric patients scheduled to undergo an elective invasive procedure. None of the patients was symptomatic. The cycle threshold (Ct) values of the ORF1ab gene were recorded for all patients. Results A total of 700 patients were screened for SARS-CoV-2 infection. The median age was 5.7 y old. In total, 46.6% (n = 326) of the patients were male, and 53.4% (n = 374) were female. The most common underlying diseases were hematooncological (25.3%), gastrointestinal (24.9%), and genitourinary (10.3%). The main scheduled surgical-medical procedures were surgical treatment for acquired congenital diseases, biopsy sampling, local therapy administration, organ transplantation, and the placement of central venous catheters, among others. The SARS-CoV-2 rRT-PCR test was positive in 9.4% (66), and the median Ct value was 35.8. None of the patients developed COVID-19. Conclusions The frequency of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection was detected in less than 10% of pediatric patients scheduled to undergo an elective invasive procedure in a tertiary hospital. This frequency is higher than those in reports from different countries.

Health personnel (HP) have been universally recognized as especially susceptible to COVID-19. In Mexico, our home country, HP has one of the highest death rates from the disease. From the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, an office for initial attention for HP and a call center were established at a COVID-19 national reference pediatric hospital, aimed at early detection of COVID-19 cases and stopping local transmission. The detection and call center implementation and operation, and tracing methodology are described here. A total of 1,042 HP were evaluated, with 221 positive cases identified (7.7% of all HP currently working and 26% of the HP tested). Community contagion was most prevalent (46%), followed by other HP (27%), household (14%), and hospitalized patients (13%). Clusters and contact network analysis are discussed. This is one of the first reports that address the details of the implementation process of contact tracing in a pediatric hospital from the perspective of a hybrid hospital with COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 areas.

Background: Dengue fever, a diseases caused by Dengue virus (DENV) and transmitted to humans by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, has been hyper-endemic in Singapore for several decades. In the absence of an effective vaccine or specific treatment to mitigate the infections, control of Aedes mosquitoes plays a critical role in controlling the disease. In recent years, Singapore's vector control operations have been overwhelmed by geographical expansion of dengue transmission as well as increasing magnitude of epidemics. At the same time, they have been hampered by the lack of tools to assess the impending risk of dengue fever outbreaks spatially and manpower insufficiency.Methods & Materials: To help operation department allocate limited resources, we developed a predictive risk map for dengue transmission using the Random Forest algorithm, incorporating various risk factors and accounting for temporal and spatial lag effects of the factors. A wide range of factors representing the characteristics of past dengue situation (total number of cases in previous year and number of non-resident cases in previous year), human population (estimated population density), vector population (estimated ratio of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes out of all Aedes moquitoes-breeding percentage) and environment (vegetation index, connectivity index and ratio of residential area) were examined and incorporated in the model.Results: Validation using most recent data showed that the observed and the predicted risk ranks had a Pearson correlation of 0.87 (P < 0.001) and a weighted Kappa agreement of 0.814 (P < 0.001) when categorised to risk groups. In addition, the model was able to estimate the partial effects and relative importance of individual risk factors, which can strengthen our understanding of the risk factors of dengue transmission.Conclusion: Our risk map has strong predictive capability, hence may be an important tool in guiding targeted vector control interventions for dengue. http://dx.Background: Nosocomial infections (NI) are significant cause of mortality and hospital costs.. Annual costs have approximately estimated of US$6·8 billion in the USA. Hand hygiene is the most important measure to prevent NI reducing them a 30% on average and to reduce MRSA attack rate. There is spare information about this in middle income countries. The aim was to explore the impact of the program in hospital costs, nosocomial infections and MRSA attack rate and clonality.Methods & Materials: Program "Vamos por el CIEN-Go for 100" (CIEN Spanish acronif of infection control by integration and innovative strategies"): based on the WHO hand hygiene multimodal strategy but focalizing education and awareness for every hospital sector and adding periodically innovative strategies. Here we analyze 2013-2015. Direct costs of this program were evaluated monthly.Active nosocomial infections surveillance was done. A collection of 43 S. aureus clinical isolates from pediatric patients (one isolate per patient) was collected from January 2012 to...

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