Background Brucellosis is a major public health problem that seriously affects developing countries and could cause significant economic losses to the livestock industry and great harm to human health. Reasonable prediction of the incidence is of great significance in controlling brucellosis and taking preventive measures. Methods Our human brucellosis incidence data were extracted from Shanxi Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention. We used seasonal-trend decomposition using Loess (STL) and monthplot to analyse the seasonal characteristics of human brucellosis in Shanxi Province from 2007 to 2017. The autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, a combined model of ARIMA and the back propagation neural network (ARIMA-BPNN), and a combined model of ARIMA and the Elman recurrent neural network (ARIMA-ERNN) were established separately to make predictions and identify the best model. Additionally, the mean squared error (MAE), mean absolute error (MSE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) were used to evaluate the performance of the model. Results We observed that the time series of human brucellosis in Shanxi Province increased from 2007 to 2014 but decreased from 2015 to 2017. It had obvious seasonal characteristics, with the peak lasting from March to July every year. The best fitting and prediction effect was the ARIMA-ERNN model. Compared with those of the ARIMA model, the MAE, MSE and MAPE of the ARIMA-ERNN model decreased by 18.65, 31.48 and 64.35%, respectively, in fitting performance; in terms of prediction performance, the MAE, MSE and MAPE decreased by 60.19, 75.30 and 64.35%, respectively. Second, compared with those of ARIMA-BPNN, the MAE, MSE and MAPE of ARIMA-ERNN decreased by 9.60, 15.73 and 11.58%, respectively, in fitting performance; in terms of prediction performance, the MAE, MSE and MAPE decreased by 31.63, 45.79 and 29.59%, respectively. Conclusions The time series of human brucellosis in Shanxi Province from 2007 to 2017 showed obvious seasonal characteristics. The fitting and prediction performances of the ARIMA-ERNN model were better than those of the ARIMA-BPNN and ARIMA models. This will provide some theoretical support for the prediction of infectious diseases and will be beneficial to public health decision making.

In recent years, the incidence of human brucellosis (HB) in the Shanxi province has ranked to be the top five among the 31 China provinces. HB data in Shanxi province between 2011 and 2016 were collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Spatial and temporal distribution of HB was evaluated using spatial autocorrelation analysis and space-time scan analysis. The global Moran’s I index ranged from 0.37 to 0.50 between 2011 and 2016 (all P < 0.05), and the “high-high” clusters of HB were located at the northern Shanxi, while the “low-low” clusters in the central and southeastern Shanxi. The high-incidence time interval was between March and July with a 2-fold higher risk of HB compared to the other months in the same year. One most likely cluster and three secondary clusters were identified. The radius of the most likely cluster region was 158.03 km containing 10,051 HB cases. Compared to the remaining regions, people dwelling in the most likely region were reported 4.50-fold ascended risk of incident HB. HB cases during the high-risk time interval of each year were more likely to be younger, to be males or to be farmers or herdsman than that during the low-risk time interval. The HB incidence had a significantly high correlation with the number of the cattle or sheep especially in the northern Shanxi. HB in Shanxi showed unique spatio-temporal clustering. Public health concern for HB in Shanxi should give priority to the northern region especially between the late spring and early summer.

Background China’s 1-3-7 approach was extensively implemented to monitor the timeframe of case reporting, case investigation and foci response in the malaria elimination. However, activities before diagnosis and reporting (before ‘1’) would counteract the efficiency of 1-3-7 approach but few data have evaluated this issue. This study aims to evaluate the timelines between onset of fever and diagnosis at healthcare facilities in Shanxi Province. Methods Routine data were extracted from IDIRMS and NMISM database from 2013 to 2018. Time intervals between onset of fever and healthcare-seeking and between healthcare-seeking and diagnosis were calculated. Each of the documented malaria cases was geo-coded and paired to the county-level layers of polygon. Results A total of 90 cases were reported in 2013–2018 in Shanxi Province, and 73% of cases reported at provincial health facilities. All malaria cases were imported from Africa (90%) and Southeast Asia (10%) especially around the Chinese Spring Festival (n = 46, 51%). The median days between fever and healthcare-seeking and between healthcare-seeking and diagnosis of malaria were 3 and 2, respectively. Conclusions The current “1-3-7” approach is well executed in Shanxi Province, but delays intervals observed in case finding before 1-3-7 approach occurred in all levels of facilities in Shanxi Province, which imply that more efforts are highlighted for timely case finding. Health education should be provided for improving awareness of healthcare-seeking, and various technical training aiming at the physicians should be carried out to improve diagnosis of malaria.

What is already known about this topic? Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is the most serious form of leishmaniasis. In recent years, reported cases of VL have been gradually increasing in Shanxi Province, China. What is added by this report? The report describes the epidemiology of VL from 1950 to 2019 in Shanxi Province and the recent trend of VL reemergence. What are the implications for public health practice? Measures to prevent and control VL, such as health education, improving clinical diagnostics, strengthening epidemiological investigation capacity for VL cases, monitoring surveillance, and use of other evidence-based preventive measures, should be undertaken in Shanxi Province.

Objective. To investigate the effect of comprehensive care based on appropriate Chinese medicine techniques on urinary retention and bladder function recovery after total hysterectomy in patients with cervical cancer. Methods. A total of 148 cases admitted after radical hysterectomy for cervical cancer from January 2019 to early September 2019 were used as the observation sample and were divided into control and experimental groups based on a randomized double-blind method. There were 74 cases each. The control group was given comprehensive care, and the experimental group was given comprehensive care based on appropriate Chinese medicine techniques. The intervention period was 2 weeks after surgery. The recovery rate of bladder function and the occurrence of urinary retention were compared between the two groups, and the duration of postoperative retention of urinary catheter, the amount of residual urine, and the feeling of urination were counted. Results. The experimental group had better urinary catheter retention time, time to first spontaneous voiding, time to get out of bed, and time to anal discharge than the control group; the experimental group had a higher rate of good bladder function recovery than the control group and better bladder recovery time, residual urine volume, and incidence of urinary retention than the control group; the patients in the experimental group had better UDI-6 scores. Conclusion. The implementation of comprehensive care based on appropriate Chinese medicine techniques can relieve patients’ difficulty in urination and improve their quality of life.