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The Effect of Electrical Load Shedding on Pediatric Hospital Admissions in South Africa.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:South Africa faced repeated episodes of temporary power shutdowns, or load shedding, in 2014/2015. The effect of load shedding on children's health is unknown. METHODS:We determined periods of load shedding using Twitter, Facebook, and data from the City of Cape Town. We obtained the number of unscheduled hospital admissions between June 2014 and May 2015 from Red Cross Children's Hospital, Cape Town, and weather data from the South African Weather Service. We used quasi-Poisson regression models to explore the relationship between number of hospital admissions and load shedding, adjusted for season, weather, and past admissions. Based on assumptions about the causal process leading to hospital admissions, we estimated the average treatment effect, that is, the difference in expected number of admissions per day had there been load shedding each day or on any of the preceding 2 days compared with if there had not been any load shedding. RESULTS:We found a 10% increase (95% confidence interval: 4%, 15%) in hospital admissions for days where load shedding was experienced on the same day, or no more than 2 days prior, compared with when there was no load shedding in the past 2 days. The increase was more pronounced during weekdays (12% [7%, 18%] vs. 1% [-9%, 11%]), and for specific diagnoses (e.g., respiratory system: 14% [2%, 26%]). The average treatment effect was estimated as 6.50 (5.12, 7.87) highlighting that about 6 additional admissions a day could be attributed to load shedding. CONCLUSIONS:The association we measured is consistent with our hypothesis that failures of the power infrastructure increase risk to children's health. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B409.

SUBMITTER: Gehringer C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6167164 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Effect of Electrical Load Shedding on Pediatric Hospital Admissions in South Africa.

Gehringer Christian C Rode Heinz H Schomaker Michael M

Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) 20181101 6

<h4>Background</h4>South Africa faced repeated episodes of temporary power shutdowns, or load shedding, in 2014/2015. The effect of load shedding on children's health is unknown.<h4>Methods</h4>We determined periods of load shedding using Twitter, Facebook, and data from the City of Cape Town. We obtained the number of unscheduled hospital admissions between June 2014 and May 2015 from Red Cross Children's Hospital, Cape Town, and weather data from the South African Weather Service. We used quas ...[more]

PMID: 30063542

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Project description:Background. The bacterial foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni is a common cause of acute gastroenteritis and is also associated with the postinfectious neuropathies, Guillain-Barré and Miller Fisher syndromes. This study described the use of multilocus sequence typing and DNA microarrays to examine the genetic content of a collection of South African C. jejuni strains, recovered from patients with enteritis, Guillain-Barré or Miller Fisher syndromes. Methodology/Principal Findings. The comparative genomic analysis by using multilocus sequence typing and DNA microarrays demonstrated that the South African strains with Penner heat-stable (HS) serotype HS:41 were clearly distinct from the other South African strains. Further analysis of the DNA microarray data demonstrated that the serotype HS:41 strains from South African GBS and enteritis patients are highly similar in gene content. Interestingly, the South African HS:41 strains were distinct in gene content when compared to serotype HS:41 strains from other geographical locations due to the presence of genomic islands, referred to as Campylobacter jejuni integrated elements. Only the genomic integrated element CJIE1, a Campylobacter Mu-like prophage, was present in the South African HS:41 strains whereas absent in the closely-related HS:41 strains from Mexico. A more distantly-related HS:41 strain from Canada possessed both genomic integrated elements CJIE1 and CJIE2. Conclusion/Significance. These findings demonstrated that these C. jejuni integrated elements may contribute to the differentiation of closely-related C. jejuni strains. In addition, the presence of bacteriophage-related genes in CJIE1 may probably contribute to increasing the genomic diversity of these C. jejuni strains. This comparative genomic analysis of the foodborne pathogen C. jejuni provides fundamental information that potentially could lead to improved methods for analyzing the epidemiology of disease outbreaks and their sources. Keywords: comparative genomic indexing analysis

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The Effect of Electrical Load Shedding on Pediatric Hospital Admissions in South Africa.

Publications

The Effect of Electrical Load Shedding on Pediatric Hospital Admissions in South Africa.

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