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Background and Objective: The COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) outbreak has become a public health threat all over the world. From December 31, 2019 to March 19, 2020, 146 countries were affected. Evidence on the management approaches of current COVID-19 pandemic is still limited though the numbers of affected countries are increasing as the days go by. This study was aimed at determining the attack rate (AR) and case fatality rate (CFR) of Covid-19 in six different regions around the world in the first quarter of 2020. An attempt was also made to provide an overview of the ongoing situation of COVID-19. Methods: The design of the study was mixed approach where a retrospective analysis of surveillance data of six different regions around the world were collected from COVID-19 dashboard of World Health organization, between 31 December 2019 to 19 March 2020 (Time: 2:00 pm. BST [CET: 9 am]). Besides, other different validated sources (example: Worldometer, Center for Disease Control and Prevention) were used to assess the ongoing situation regarding COVID-19. A statistical software SPSS version 26 was used to analyze the data. Results: There were a total of 207,860 confirmed cases and 8779 deaths across six different regions around the world from 31 December 2019 to 19 March 2020, with the highest AR of 9.92/100,000 population in Europe region, followed by Asia (2.7/ 100,000), Australia (1.75/100,000), North America (1.42/100,000), South America (0.23/100,000) and Africa (0.06/100,000) regions. Study results revealed statistically significant association between attack rates and the six regions of the world (p=0.002), meaning that AR varied in the regions around the world. The CFR was high in Europe region (4.81%), followed by Asia (4.06%), Africa (2.72%), South America (1.41%), Australia (1.12%), and North America (0.69%) regions. Data reviewed from different countries revealed that the highest number of cases was confirmed in the United States, followed by Spain and Italy. The findings revealed that the reported confirmed cases varied widely in different regions of the world. Conclusion: The severity and variation in -geographical distribution of COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest that urgent response from various government and public health authorities should be taken and research regarding underlying factors determining this severity should be sought for. IMC J Med Sci 2020; 14(2): 001. EPub date: 16 August 2020 *Correspondence: Most. Zannatul Ferdous, Department of Public Health and Informatics, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh. Email: m.zannatul.ferdous@juniv.edu

BackgroundCOVID-19 is one of the most serious global public health threats creating an alarming situation. Therefore, there is an urgent need for investigating and predicting COVID-19 incidence to control its spread more effectively. This study aim to forecast the expected number of daily total confirmed cases, total confirmed new cases, total deaths and total new deaths of COVID-19 in Bangladesh for next 30 days.MethodsThe number of daily total confirmed cases, total confirmed new cases, total deaths and total new deaths of COVID-19 from 8 March 2020 to 16 October, 2020 was collected to fit an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model to forecast the spread of COVID-19 in Bangladesh from 17th October 2020 to 15th November 2020. All statistical analyses were conducted using R-3.6.3 software with a significant level of p< 0.05.ResultsThe ARIMA (0,2,1) and ARIMA (0,1,1) model was adopted for forecasting the number of daily total confirmed cases, total deaths and total confirmed new cases, new deaths of COVID-19, respectively. The results showed that an upward trend for the total confirmed cases and total deaths, while total confirmed new cases and total new death, will become stable in the next 30 days if prevention measures are strictly followed to limit the spread of COVID-19.ConclusionsThe forecasting results of COVID-19 will not be dreadful for upcoming month in Bangladesh. However, the government and health authorities should take new approaches and keep strong monitoring of the existing strategies to control the further spread of this pandemic.

Background: Female undergraduate students may undergo many health implications due to the transition from secondary to undergraduate level. Aim: The study was aimed to assess molar ratios of phytate to minerals (calcium, zinc, and iron) in the diets, and to measure the iron status of resident female students at Dhaka University. Methods: In total, 180 female students between 18–26 years of age from 3 dormitories of Dhaka University were selected for the study. Dietary intake information was collected over three consecutive days. Multiple-Pass 24-hour recall. Blood hemoglobin and serum ferritin levels were analyzed for sub-sample (20 participants from each dormitory). Results: The mean dietary intake of phytate, calcium, zinc, and iron were estimated at 347.11, 181.04, 6.59, and 7.14 mg/day, and hemoglobin and serum ferritin at 11.34 g/dl, and 18.48 ng/ml, respectively. The respective molar ratios of phytate: calcium, phytate: zinc, phytate: iron and phytate × calcium: zinc were 0.13, 5.27, 4.20, and 21.26 in the diet of the respondents. The prevalence of anemia, iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia among the respondents was found to be 51.7%, 48.4%, and 28.3%, respectively. Linear regression analysis showed that only zinc intake had positive association with hemoglobin, while iron and zinc intake had a significant positive, and phytate:iron molar ratio had a significant negative association with serum ferritin concentration ( p < 0.05). After adjusting all significant determinants of serum ferritin, no predictors have found significant. Conclusions: Larger and more specific research is needed to clearly understand the mechanism behind anemia and iron deficiency among female residential students.

PurposeDiabetes mellitus is becoming a growing concern worldwide. Hence, the purpose of this study is to assess the magnitude of poor glycemic control and to identify the determinants of poor glycemic control among diabetic patients attending a tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachThis cross-sectional study was conducted among 732 diabetes patients seeking care at the outpatient department of Bangladesh Institute of Health Sciences Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Information, including glycemic status, was collected from patients’ medical records using a structured questionnaire.FindingsAbout 87.6% of the patients were found to have poor glycemic control (glycosylated hemoglobin = 7%). Variables that were significant in bivariate analysis were put into a multivariate model where the factors associated with poor glycemic control were patients aged 41–60 years (odds ratio (OR)=2.26; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.19–4.32,p= 0.013), suffering from diabetes for > 7 years (OR = 1.84; 95% CI: 1.12–2.99,p= 0.015), using insulin (OR = 2.34; 95% CI: 1.23–4.47;p= 0.010) or diet alone (OR = 0.20; 95% CI: 0.05–0.80,p= 0.023) as a type of diabetes treatment and proper use of medicine (OR = 0.37; 95% CI: 0.17–0.82,p= 0.015).Originality/valueThe high prevalence of poor glycemic control among diabetic patients is evident; therefore, strategic management and proper attention focusing on the predictors of poor glycemic control are necessary to reduce the long-term complications of diabetes.

PurposeThis research aimed to study patterns of energy drinks (ED) consumption among university students and to identify the determinants for their preferences.Design/methodology/approachThis cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 students from various departments of Jashore University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh, by convenience sampling. A self-administered, structured questionnaire was used to collect data.FindingsAbout 52.3 per cent of the students were between 21 and 23 years of age, and half of them were male. More than half (53 per cent) of the students had consumed ED at least once in their lifetime. Only 22.1 per cent of these consumers had any knowledge of the ingredients in ED, and 4.3 per cent did not know the possible negative impacts. Bivariate analysis was performed to identify the variables significantly associated with ED consumption among students. The risks of ED consumption were found to be: male gender (Odds Ratio (OR) = 4.04; 95 per cent Confidence Interval (CI) = 2.36–6.92), father educated up to SSC (OR = 18.47; 95 per cent CI = 2.30–148.90) or college and above (OR = 17.01; 95 per cent CI = 2.31–135.60), smoker (OR = 3.87; 95 per cent CI = 1.61–9.35) and doing irregular physical activity (OR = 2.43; 95 per cent CI = 1.23–4.78).Originality/valueED consumption among university students is high, but their perception regarding the ingredients and potential health hazards is opaque. Therefore, it is imperative that at both community and individual levels, interventions should focus on educating and empowering individuals to make firm and positive decisions concerning their dietary habits and health.

In computer vision, real-time object detection and recognition is considered as a challenging task in uncontrolled environments. In this research work, an improved real-time object detection and recognition technique from web camera video is introduced. Objects such as people, vehicles, animals, etc. are detected and recognized by this technique. Single Shot Detector (SSD) and You Only Look Once (YOLO) models are used in our paper shown promising results in the task of object detection and recognition for getting better performance. Our system can detect objects even in adverse as well as uncontrolled environments like excess or lack of light, rotation, mirroring and a variety of backgrounds, etc. Here, the convolutional neural network (CNN) has been used for the purpose of classifying the object. Our investigated technique is able to gain real-time performance with satisfactory detection as well as classification results and also provides better accuracy. The percentage of accuracy in the detection and classification of an object through our investigated model is about 63–90%.

Mothers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward exclusive breastfeeding are crucial to both child and mother's health and wellbeing. Hence, This study aimed to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices of exclusive breastfeeding among lactating mothers as well as the predictors of their exclusive breastfeeding practice.This cross-sectional study included 397 mothers having infants aged 0-6 months who sought care at Noakhali Sadar Upazila, Noakhali, Bangladesh. A field-tested and validated Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) questionnaire was utilized to collect information from participants.Of those evaluated; 29.0% of mothers could not define exclusive breastfeeding accurately, 11.3% and 59.3% did not know the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for babies and mothers, respectively. More than half (51.4%) of the mothers reported feeling good about exclusive breastfeeding for six months, did not find difficulties to breastfeed exclusively for six months (39.5%) and on-demand (58.2%). The mothers had an overall favorable attitude towards exclusive breastfeeding; however, 38.3% of mothers did not exclusively breastfeed their children. Literate mothers tended to exclusively breastfeed more (AOR: 3.06, 95% CI: 1.01-9.32; P = 0.049) than illiterate mothers. Mothers having one baby were more likely to breastfeed exclusively (AOR: 3.07, 95% CI: 1.21-7.78; P = 0.018) than mothers having more than one baby. Moreover, mothers with higher knowledge and favorable attitude had more than two times (AOR: 2.58, 95% CI: 1.315.07; P = 0.006) and forty-three times (AOR: 43.18, 95% CI: 21.513-86.66; P0.001) the higher tendency of exclusive breastfeeding compared to others.Despite having satisfactory knowledge and attitude, the practice of exclusive breastfeeding among mothers was poor. We recommend that interventions must be focused more on ensuring exclusive breastfeeding practice among mothers in addition to improving their knowledge and attitudes.

Purpose Energy drink (ED) consumption has become a common trend, especially among the youth. Hence, the purpose of this study was undertaken to assess the ED consumption pattern among the university students and investigate the independent predictors for their preference of such drinks. Design/methodology/approach It was a cross-sectional study conducted among 323 students from various departments of Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh. Findings Among students, about 57 per cent were male, and mostly between 21-23 years. About 31 per cent of the students had never consumed ED, while 69 per cent had consumed such drinks at least once in their lifetime. Only 31.4 per cent of the ever consumer had knowledge of its components, and 14.3 per cent of them did not know the negative effects of ED. Bivariate analysis identified the variables that were significantly associated with students’ consumption of ED. Taking the significant factors into a multivariate model, the risks of ED consumption were male gender (OR = 3.82; 95 per cent CI = 2.24 − 6.52), longer study duration in university (OR = 1.02; 95 per cent CI = 1.00 − 1.03) and doing regular physical activity (OR = 1.69; 95 per cent CI = 1.04 − 2.75). Originality/value High consumption of ED among university students is evident, yet their perception regarding components and potential health hazards of such drinks is opaque. This study results suggest the necessity of formulating policy and intervention strategies concentrating on the predictors of ED consumption to promote consciousness about ingredients and related health effects of ED among students of all levels in Bangladesh and other countries as well.

The efficacy of nisin (25-75 ppm) and effect of storage time on quality attributes of micro-filtered coconut water during refrigerated storage (4°C) for 8 days was investigated in terms of total viable counts, colour, turbidity and overall sensory acceptance. All treatments significantly retarded the bacterial growth in coconut water during storage when compared to the control sample (p < 0.05). The samples treated with 50 and 75 ppm nisin had significantly lower aerobic microbial counts than the control (p < 0.05) without affecting colour, turbidity and sensory acceptability. The treated samples also had the significantly higher scores in overall acceptance than the control sample after 7 days of storage.50 ppm Nisin was suggested to be applied in micro-filtered coconut water without effects on colour, turbidity, and sensory acceptability by a reduction in changes of the microbial growth during the refrigerated storage.

To evaluate adolescents' attitudes towards soft drinks and identify the underlying factors that are associated with their consumption of such drinks.A cross-sectional study was conducted among 213 adolescents aged between 10 and 19years living in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire was used to assess their socio-demographic and soft drinks consumption-related characteristics, and their attitudes towards soft drinks. Structural equation modelling was employed to identify the potential factors associated with soft drink consumption among adolescents.More than 80% of the adolescents consumed soft drinks at least once a week. Overall, adolescents had a positive attitude toward soft drinks. Results revealed that adolescent's attitudes, gender, accessibility of soft drinks at school/college, distance from home to shop, outside food intake habit and parents' soft drinks consumption were the factors associated with their consumption of soft drinks.High proportion of adolescents consumed soft drinks. Thus, a community and individual level nutrition education programme with targeted behaviour change might be helpful to reduce the consumption of sweetened beverages among adolescents.

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-nah-10.1177_0260106021991633 for Molar ratios of dietary phytate to minerals and iron status of female residential students in University of Dhaka, Bangladesh by Marjia Sultana, Towhid Hasan and Nazma Shaheen in Nutrition and Health

In the present era, the applications of computer vision is increasing day by day. Computer vision is related to the automatic recognition, exploration and extraction of the necessary information from a particular image or a group of image sets. This paper addresses the method to detect the desired object from an image. Usually, a template of the desired object is used in detection through a matching technique named Template Matching. But it works well when the template image is cropped from the original one, which is not always invariant due to various transformations in the test images. To cope with this difficulty and to develop a generalized approach, we investigate in detail another technique which is known as HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradient) approach. In HOG, the image is divided into overlapping blocks of template size and then compare each block’s normalized HOG with the normalized HOG of the template to find the best match of the object. We perform experiments with a large number of images and have found satisfactory performance.

Diabetes mellitus is a degenerative disease being responsible for about 1.5 million deaths globally. In Bangladesh, the stress of diabetes is on rising and resulting in serious health implications along with significant economic crisis. Due to undesirable and inherent side effects, researchers are now shifting from the conventional therapy and trying to prevent and manage diabetes through traditional medicine. World Health Organization (WHO) also recommends the practice of customary herbal medicine for diabetes management, and support and encourage the augmentation of research to evaluate the hypoglycemic properties of the diverse medicinal plant species. Consequently, in the current review, the antihyperglycemic potency of some Bangladeshi medicinal plants has been evaluated and verified utilizing human as well as experimental animals. The results elucidate the glucose-lowering effects of the plants via different cellular mechanisms, including restoration of pancreatic β-cell, controlling the action of carbohydrate metabolizing enzymes, enhancing peripheral glucose utilization, increase in muscle glycogen store as well as activation of the insulin signaling cascade. In summary, this work may invigorate the researchers for more specific and focused research to provide a better and broad understanding of the antihyperglycemic mechanism and can act as an effective tool for choosing the plants with robust potential for unbolting of novel antidiabetic agents.

Osteoporosis is the most common systemic skeletal disease characterized by increased bone fragility. There lies an incongruity among research regarding combined supplementation of calcium (Ca) plus vitamin D and loss of bone health. Hence, the present review is aimed to highlight the current development of osteoporosis research and try to solve the inconsistency among the present knowledge. Electronic databases like PubMed, Cochrane Library, and EMBASE were searched from their inception to December 2018 using terms “calcium,” “vitamin D,” and “osteoporosis.” A systemic approach was followed to reach a final of 23 studies assessing the synergetic effect of calcium and vitamin D on osteoporosis and fractures risk. Among the included studies, nineteen have revealed that calcium and vitamin D decrease bone resorption, reduce the incidence of fractures, increase bone mineral density (BMD) and overall bone health. However, no significant osteogenic response was reported in five trials after supplementation with calcium and vitamin D together. Osteoporosis results in a reduced quality of life, increased disability-adjusted life span, and big economic burden to health care systems of countries. Early diagnosis before the occurrence of fractures and by assessing BMD and with early treatment, osteoporosis can be prevented. It is not entirely possible to draw a conclusion regarding beneficial effects of calcium plus vitamin D supplementation; future research based on the fundamentals of bone biology focusing on molecular genetics, and influencing factors of the acquisition of bone mass during growth and bone loss can alleviate present controversies.

Heart disease is considered as one of the major causes of death throughout the world. It cannot be easily predicted by the medical practitioners as it is a difficult task which demands expertise and higher knowledge for prediction. This paper addresses the issue of prediction of heart disease according to input attributes on the basis of data mining techniques. We have investigated the heart disease prediction using KStar, J48, SMO, Bayes Net and Multilayer Perceptron through Weka software. The performance of these data mining techniques is measured by combining the results of predictive accuracy, ROC curve and AUC value using a standard data set as well as a collected data set. Based on performance factor SMO and Bayes Net techniques show optimum performances than the performances of KStar, Multilayer Perceptron and J48 techniques.