Introduction: Contact tracing has the potential to control outbreaks without need for stringent physical distancing policies, e.g. civil lockdowns. Unlike forward contact tracing, backward identifies source of newly detected cases. This approach is particularly valuable when there high individual-level variation in number secondary transmissions (overdispersion).</ns...

Background: The study focuses on the challenges encountered during distribution of food and face-mask items first COVID-19 lock-down by various relief supply chain actors. Methods: Data were collected from forty (40) actors through online (via zoom telephones) face-to-face interviews, between January 2021 to March 2021. was coded b...

Background: Acute swelling or cellulitis may develop within a few days after placing definitive prosthesis reconnecting loose healing abutment/prosthesis, though its cause remains unclear. In this study, we propose mechanism for the underlying pathogenesis. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed symptoms and signs, onset of symptoms,...

Flaviviruses are serious human pathogens for which treatments are generally lacking. The proteolytic maturation of the 375-kDa viral polyprotein is one target for antiviral development. The flavivirus serine protease consists of the N-terminal domain of the multifunctional nonstructural protein 3 (NS3) and an essential 40-residue cofactor (NS2B(40)) within viral protein NS2B. The NS2B-NS3 prote...

Introduction: Quality improvement (QI) in healthcare results better patient outcomes, system performance, and professional development. One target of QI initiatives the perioperative period is surgical site infections (SSI), for which several risk factors have been identified. Reliable administration indicated antibiotic prophylaxis a modifiable factor particular rel...

Hepatitis C virus proteins are produced by proteolytic processing of the viral precursor polyprotein that is encoded in the largest open reading frame of the viral genome. Processing of the nonstructural viral polyprotein requires the viral serine-type proteinase present in nonstructural protein 3 (NS3). The cleavage of the junction between NS4B and NS5A is mediated by NS3 only when NS4A is pre...

Dengue virus purified inactivated vaccines (PIV) are highly immunogenic and protective over the short term, but may be poor at inducing cell-mediated immune responses and long-term protection. The dengue nonstructural protein 3 (NS3) is considered the main target for T-cell responses during viral infection. The amino (N)-terminal protease and the carboxy (C)-terminal helicase domains of DENV-2 ...

More than 170 million individuals worldwide are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), and up to an estimated 30% of chronically infected individuals will go on to develop progressive liver disease. Despite the recent advances in antiviral treatment of HCV infection, it remains a major public health problem. Thus, development of an effective vaccine is urgently required. In this study, we const...

The ccns3Sim project is an open source implementation of the CCNx 1.0 protocols for the NS3 [2] simulator. We describe the implementation and several important features including modularity and process delay simulation. The ccns3Sim implementation is a fresh NS3-specific implementation. Like NS3 itself, it uses C++98 standard, NS3 code style, NS3 smart pointers, NS3 xUnit, and integrates with t...

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) multifunctional nonstructural protein 3 (NS3) is a protease that cleaves viral and host proteins and a helicase that separates DNA and RNA structures in reactions fueled by ATP hydrolysis. Li et al. (2012) recently synthesized a series of new NS3 helicase inhibitors from the benzothiazole dimer component of the fluorescent yellow dye primuline. This study further cha...