BackgroundAedes control interventions are considered the cornerstone of dengue control programmes, but there is scarce evidence on their effect on disease. We set-up a cluster randomized controlled trial in Santiago de Cuba to evaluate the entomological and epidemiological effectiveness of periodical intra- and peri-domiciliary residual insecticide (deltamethrin) treatment (RIT) and long lasting insecticide treated curtains (ITC).Methodology/Principal findingsSixty three clusters (around 250 households each) were randomly allocated to two intervention (RIT and ITC) and one control arm. Routine Aedes control activities (entomological surveillance, source reduction, selective adulticiding, health education) were applied in the whole study area. The outcome measures were clinical dengue case incidence and immature Aedes infestation. Effectiveness of tools was evaluated using a generalized linear regression model with a negative binomial link function.Despite significant reduction in Aedes indices (Rate Ratio (RR) 0.54 (95%CI 0.32–0.89) in the first month after RIT, the effect faded out over time and dengue incidence was not reduced. Overall, in this setting there was no protective effect of RIT or ITC over routine in the 17months intervention period, with for house index RR of 1.16 (95%CI 0.96–1.40) and 1.25 (95%CI 1.03–1.50) and for dengue incidence RR of 1.43 (95%CI 1.08–1.90) and 0.96 (95%CI 0.72–1.28) respectively. The monthly dengue incidence rate (IR) at cluster level was best explained by epidemic periods (Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR) 5.50 (95%CI 4.14–7.31)), the IR in bordering houseblocks (IRR 1.03 (95%CI 1.02–1.04)) and the IR pre-intervention (IRR 1.02 (95%CI 1.00–1.04)).ConclusionsAdding RIT to an intensive routine Aedes control programme has a transient effect on the already moderate low entomological infestation levels, while ITC did not have any effect. For both interventions, we didn’t evidence impact on disease incidence. Further studies are needed to evaluate impact in settings with high Aedes infestation and arbovirus case load.

Despite recent advances in diagnosis, tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the ten leading causes of death worldwide. Here, we engineered Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) proteins (ESAT6, CFP10, and MTB7.7) to self-assemble into core-shell nanobeads for enhanced TB diagnosis.Respective purified Mtb antigen-coated polyester beads were characterized and their functionality in TB diagnosis was tested in whole blood cytokine release assays. Sensitivity and specificity were studied in 11 pulmonary TB patients (PTB) and 26 healthy individuals composed of 14 Tuberculin Skin Test negative (TSTn) and 12 TST positive (TSTp). The production of 6 cytokines was determined (IFNγ, IP10, IL2, TNFα, CCL3, and CCL11). To differentiate PTB from healthy individuals (TSTp + TSTn), the best individual cytokines were IL2 and CCL11 (>80% sensitivity and specificity) and the best combination was IP10 + IL2 (>90% sensitivity and specificity). We describe an innovative approach using full-length antigens attached to biopolyester nanobeads enabling sensitive and specific detection of human TB.

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The findings suggest that the burden of pneumococcal disease and colonization in Cuba could be significantly affected after vaccine introduction.

Background The Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) framework comprehensively evaluates the impact of exposure to risk factors on health populations using the counterfactual causal approach. Methods We propose a framework, Comparative Disease Assessment (CDA), for assessing the impact of exposure to morbidity from some diseases on health outcomes, particularly death from other (relevant) diseases. This framework has been developed following the ideas of the CRA framework and using the widely accepted concept that exposure to morbidity is usually a risk factor for health outcomes (morbidity/mortality) related to other diseases. Our framework uses a counterfactual and not a categorical approach when attributing the burden of health outcomes to potential causes. Results This paper describes the different steps and assumptions required to implement the CDA framework, and an illustrative example is used considering diabetes mellitus morbidity as a risk factor for death from heart diseases. Conclusions One advantage of the CDA framework is that it can be applied using multi-causal death registries. Some assumptions are needed to implement it in order to avoid biases, but at least it can provide preliminary estimations of the impact of exposure to diseases as risk factors for deaths from other diseases. Another main advantage is that the burden of deaths is no longer attributed to a single cause, the underlying cause, as it is almost always done. Finally, this framework provides information on the pattern of comorbidity in a (sub)population of subjects who is about to die. These patterns can be used as a reference for alternative patterns of the general population or patterns of other specific subpopulations.