Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic response on GI infection surveillance trends in England, January 2020–April 2022

Love, Nicola K.; Douglas, Amy; Gharbia, Saheer; Hughes, Helen; Morbey, Roger; Oliver, Isabel; Smith, Gillian E.; Elliot, Alex J.

doi:10.1017/s095026882300136x

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 26 publications

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“…The hypothesis was that the increased infection control focus during the pandemic period might have affected the occurrence of non-respiratory infections as well. Civilian assessments had pointed in this direction before [36]. The assessment led to a number of results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of COVID-19-Associated Infection Control on the Pattern of Infections Imported by German Soldiers and Police Officers Returning from Predominantly Tropical Deployment Sites

Wiemer,

Halfter,

Müseler

et al. 2023

Infectious Disease Reports

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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, German public health authorities launched various infection control procedures. In line with this, anti-pandemic infection control was also implemented for German military and police deployments. The presented study assessed the impact of this increased infection control effort on deployment-associated infections in a holistic approach. To do so, the results of post-deployment assessments offered to German soldiers and police officers at the Department of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases of the Bundeswehr Hospital Hamburg obtained during the pandemic period were compared to the results recorded during the pre-pandemic period in an exploratory, hypothesis-forming comparative study. In total, data from 1010 military deployments and 134 police deployments, predominantly to the African or the Eastern Mediterranean WHO regions, were included in the analyses. In the main results, a significant decrease in gastroenteritis in deployed soldiers (20.1% versus 61.3%, p < 0.0001) and at least a trend in the same direction in deployed police officers (25.7% versus 35.4%, p = 0.4026) were shown for the pandemic period, while no consistent tendency into the one or the other direction was detectable for febrile illness on deployment. In contrast to the finding of less frequently reported deployment-associated gastroenteritis, the detection rates of enteric microorganisms after deployment, including poor hygiene-related colonization with apathogenic protozoa, remained unchanged. Regarding non-enteric infections, the numbers of serologically confirmed malaria cases on deployment and as expected, due to increased airway protection, Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific immune-conversion dropped significantly with p = 0.0037 and p = 0.009, respectively. As a side finding, soldiers and police officers with post-deployment medical assessments were more likely to be older and male during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period. In summary, only minor changes in deployment-associated infection and colonization rates were seen in response to the increased infection control procedures during the pandemic period, apart from respiratory infections. In particular, the clinical finding of less gastroenteritis on deployment was not matched by a concordant decline in poor hygiene-related enteric colonization with apathogenic protozoa in the soldiers’ guts, indicating that the fecal–oral transmission risk remained basically the same.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of COVID-19-Associated Infection Control on the Pattern of Infections Imported by German Soldiers and Police Officers Returning from Predominantly Tropical Deployment Sites

Wiemer,

Halfter,

Müseler

et al. 2023

Infectious Disease Reports

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Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic on pathogens transmitted via food in the Netherlands

Pijnacker,

Mughini-Gras,

Verhoef

et al. 2024

Epidemiol. Infect.

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The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the transmission of many pathogens. The aim was to determine the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the incidence of diseases transmitted via food. Weekly incidence rates for nine foodborne pathogens were collected from national surveillance registries. Weekly pathogen incidence during lockdown weeks of 2020 and 2021 were compared with corresponding weeks in 2015–2019. The same analyses were performed to determine the effect of self-defined expected impact levels of measures (low, intermediate and high). Eight out of 9 diseases showed a significant decrease in case number in 2020, except for listeriosis, which remained unchanged. The largest decrease was observed for rotavirus gastronteritis A (−81%), norovirus gastroenteritis (−78%), hepatitis A (−75%) and shigellosis (−72). In 2021, lower case numbers were observed for 6 out of 9 diseases compared with 2015-2019, with the largest decrease for shigellosis (−5/%) and hepatitis E (−47%). No significant change was observed for listeriosis, STEC infection and rotavirus gastroenteritis. Overall, measures with increased expected impact level did not result in a larger decrease in number of cases, except for Campylobacter, and norovirus and rotavirus gastroenteritis. Disease transmitted via food significantly decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a more pronounced effect during 2020 than 2021.

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Trends in shigellosis notifications in England, January 2016 to March 2023

Charles,

Sinka,

Simms

et al. 2024

Epidemiol. Infect.

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We reviewed all diagnoses of Shigella species notified to the UK Health Security Agency from January 2016 to March 2023. An overall increase in notifications of shigellosis was seen between 2016 (n = 415/quarter) and 2023 (n = 1 029/quarter). However, notifications dramatically declined between March 2020 and September 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 208/quarter) highlighting the impact of travel and social distancing restrictions on transmission. S. sonnei diagnoses were more affected by lockdown restrictions than S. flexneri, most likely due to a combination of species-specific characteristics and host attributes. Azithromycin resistance continued to be associated with epidemics of sexually transmissible S. flexneri (adult males = 45.6% vs. adult females = 8.7%) and S. sonnei (adult males = 59.5% vs. adult females = 14.6%). We detected resistance to ciprofloxacin in S. sonnei from adult male cases not reporting travel at a higher frequency (79.4%) than in travel-associated cases (61.7%). Extensively drug-resistant Shigella species associated with sexual transmission among men almost exclusively had ESBL encoded by blaCTX-M-27, whereas those associated with returning travellers had blaCTX-M-15. Given the increasing incidence of infections and AMR, we recommend that enhanced surveillance is used to better understand the impact of travel and sexual transmission on the acquisition and spread of MDR and XDR Shigella species.

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Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic response on GI infection surveillance trends in England, January 2020–April 2022

Cited by 5 publications

References 26 publications

Effects of COVID-19-Associated Infection Control on the Pattern of Infections Imported by German Soldiers and Police Officers Returning from Predominantly Tropical Deployment Sites

Effects of COVID-19-Associated Infection Control on the Pattern of Infections Imported by German Soldiers and Police Officers Returning from Predominantly Tropical Deployment Sites

Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic on pathogens transmitted via food in the Netherlands

Trends in shigellosis notifications in England, January 2016 to March 2023

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