Comprehensive, age-group-based risk-reduction strategies, such as abstinence education and decision-making skills (assertiveness) training, are needed to reduce girls’ and young women’s engagement in multiple sexual partnerships. Policy interventions, such as anti-FGM legislation and initiatives like the ‘Schooling for the Female Child’ initiative aimed at reducing social inequality among girls and women, might help decrease FGM and the likelihood of health-compromising behaviours like multiple sexual partnership.

Nosocomial outbreaks leading to healthcare worker (HCW) infection and death have been increasingly reported during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

We implemented a strategy to reduce nosocomial acquisition.

We summarized our experience in implementing a multipronged infection control strategy in the first 300 days (December 31, 2019, to October 25, 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic under the governance of Hospital Authority in Hong Kong.

Of 5,296 COVID-19 patients, 4,808 (90.8%) were diagnosed in the first pandemic wave (142 cases), second wave (896 cases), and third wave (3,770 cases) in Hong Kong. With the exception of 1 patient who died before admission, all COVID-19 patients were admitted to the public healthcare system for a total of 78,834 COVID-19 patient days. The median length of stay was 13 days (range, 1-128). Of 81,955 HCWs, 38 HCWs (0.05%; 2 doctors and 11 nurses and 25 nonprofessional staff) acquired COVID-19. With the exception of 5 of 38 HCWs (13.2%) infected by HCW-to-HCW transmission in the nonclinical settings, no HCW had documented transmission from COVID-19 patients in the hospitals. The incidence of COVID-19 among HCWs was significantly lower than that of our general population (0.46 per 1,000 HCWs vs 0.71 per 1,000 population; P = .008). The incidence of COVID-19 among professional staff was significantly lower than that of nonprofessional staff (0.30 vs 0.66 per 1,000 full-time equivalent; P = .022).

A hospital-based approach spared our healthcare service from being overloaded. With our multipronged infection control strategy, no nosocomial COVID-19 in was identified among HCWs in the first 300 days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.

A hospital-based approach spared our healthcare service from being overloaded. With our multipronged infection control strategy, no nosocomial COVID-19 in was identified among HCWs in the first 300 days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.Twin studies of physical exercise for Asian twins are sparse. This study aimed to examine genetic and environmental influences on frequency of vigorous exercise (FVE) in South Korean twins, with a special emphasis on sex effects. Telephone interviews on FVE were administered to 1757 twins (mean age = 19.05 years, SD = 3.01 years). Tetrachoric correlations were significantly different between monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins in males (.40 vs. .12), but they were similar in females (.44 vs. .45), suggesting the importance of genetic factors in FVE in males and that of common environmental factors in females. A scalar sex-limitation model incorporating age as a modifier was applied to data. Anisomycin ic50 The results revealed that genetic, common and individual environmental influences did not vary significantly with age, but differed across two sexes, confirming twin correlational analyses. In the best-fitting model, additive genetic and individual environmental influences on FVE were, respectively, .35 (95% CI [.26, .39]) and .65 (95% CI [.61, .74]) in males, and common and individual environmental influences were, respectively, .45 (95% CI [.35, .53]) and .55 (95% CI [.47, .65]) in females. These results contrasted starkly with recent findings from a large sample of Chinese adult twins (age >18 years), in which most variance (≥95%) of vigorous physical activity was attributable to common environmental influences in both sexes. Replications in other Asian samples are clearly needed.The role of children’s verbal repetition of parents’ utterances on vocabulary growth has been well documented (Masur, 1999). Nevertheless, few studies have analyzed adults’ and children’s spontaneous verbal repetition around the second birthday distinguishing between the types of repetition. We analyzed longitudinally Spanish-speaking parent-child dyads during spontaneous interaction at 21, 24 and 30 months. Linguistic level was measured using the Spanish version of the MacArthur CDI (López-Ornat et al., 2005). Children’s and adults’ repetitions are about 17% of the speech. Children repeated adults’ utterances in a reduced manner whereas adults produced more extended repetitions. Adults’ rate of repetition predicted children’s linguistic level at 30 months. Children’s rate of repetition did not predict linguistic level. These results suggest that parents adapt their speech to children’s communicative abilities. Since children’s rate of repetition did not predict linguistic level, we suggest that verbal imitation plays an indirect and complex role in communicative development.Adults who were born preterm are at increased risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in later life. Infants born late preterm are the majority of preterm births; however, the effect of late preterm on risk of cardiovascular disease is unclear. The objective of this study was to assess whether vascular health and cardiac autonomic control differ in a group of late preterm newborn infants compared to a group of term-born infants.A total of 35 healthy late preterm newborn infants, with normal growth (34-36 completed weeks’ gestation) and 139 term-born infants (37-42 weeks’ gestation) were compared in this study. Aortic wall thickening, assessed as aortic intima-media thickness (IMT) by high-resolution ultrasound, and cardiac autonomic control, assessed by heart rate variability, were measured during the first week of life. Postnatal age of full-term and late preterm infants at the time of the study was 5 days (standard deviation [SD] 5) and 4 days (SD 3), respectively.Infants born late preterm show reduced aortic IMT (574 μm [SD 51] vs. 612 μm [SD 73]) and reduced heart rate variability [log total power 622.3 (606.5) ms2 vs. 1180. 6 (1114.3) ms2], compared to term infants. These associations remained even after adjustment for sex and birth weight.Infants born late preterm show selective differences in markers of cardiovascular risk, with potentially beneficial differences in aortic wall thickness in contrast to potentially detrimental differences in autonomic control, when compared with term-born control infants. These findings provide pathophysiologic evidence to support an increased risk of hypertension and sudden cardiac death in individuals born late preterm.