A population-based study of severity of injuries in recreational mountain biking - Discontinued rise following efforts.

BACKGROUND: During the recent years, an increase in the number of people practicing recreational mountain biking has been observed. The high-risk sport can cause severe injuries. The most severe injuries involve paralysis and head traumas. These injuries occur to recreational bikers as well as professionals. The purpose of this study is to describe the development in severe injuries and the effort of increasing the safety of mountain biking for recreational bikers. METHOD: Register-based study with the population of residents in the municipality of Odense who were injured in a mountain bike incident between 2005 and 2021. Data was obtained from the register of the emergency department, where all contacts are registered. The incidence risk for men and women has been calculated, as well as the distribution between age groups and the mechanism of the fall. RESULTS: A total of 303 severe injuries during the study period illustrates an increase in both the number of injuries and the number of severe injuries. Most of the injuries occur among men aged 40-49. The proportion of severe injuries rises to around 40 % after 2015. The incidence risk was 59 per 10.000 (95 % CI: 53-66) in total, for men 68 per 10.000 (95 % CI: 61-77), and for women 22,6 per 10.000 (95 % CI: 16-31,5). CONCLUSION: There has been an increase in the number of severe injuries, non-severe injuries, and the proportion of MTB injuries from 2005 to 2020. After 2020, there is a decrease in the number of severe injuries.

Distribution of pathogenic Leptospira in environmental water and soils of selected recreational forests in Perak, Malaysia

@#Leptospirosis is an emerging zoonotic disease endemic in tropical regions. Aiming at assessing the potential infection risks via recreational exposure, the molecular prevalence of pathogenic Leptospira in 14 amenity forests in five selected districts of the state of Perak was determined. Water and soil samples along streams and waterfalls were subjected to culture of leptospires and the pathogenic Leptospira spp. was detected by lipL32-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Twenty out of 154 samples (13%) that tested positive for leptospires were mostly soils and still water recorded with tolerable temperatures (22.226.5°C) and pHs (5.73-6.70). The localised prevalence was highly varied among eight positive forests (6.7-41.7%), particularly higher in Kampar and Kinta districts which are the more populated urban areas. The importance of public health surveillance should not be underrated given the high prevalence of Leptospira spp. in forests in close proximity to indigenous settlements, even where the places are clean. Overall, this study discovered a wide distribution of pathogenic Leptospira spp. in recreational areas.

Mosses of Gunung Senyum Recreational Forest, a tropical limestone forest in Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia.

Gunung Senyum Recreational Forest harbours 59 species, two subspecies and five varieties of mosses in 32 genera and 16 families that had been identified from a total of 589 specimens collected from the area. These figures represent 11.8% out of the 558 taxa, 20.2% out of the 158 genera and 34.7% out of the 46 families of mosses reported for Peninsular Malaysia. The total also represents 14.9% of the 442 taxa, 24.0% of the 133 genera and 40.0% of the 40 families of mosses recorded in Pahang. The largest family of mosses found in this limestone forest is Calymperaceae followed by Fissidentaceae. There are two new records for Pahang, Calymperespallidum Mitt. and Taxitheliumbinsteadii Broth. & Dixon. The analysis of species similarities of mosses found in the study area with some other selected areas showed that Gunung Senyum Recreational Forest had a high percentage of species similarity with Perlis State Park at Wang Kelian, another limestone forest, at 38%. Corticol is the main habitat utilised by mosses in Gunung Senyum Recreational Forest with 47 taxa, followed by the lignicol and calcicol each with 35 and 26 taxa, respectively.

Microhabitat Factors Influenced the Prevalence of Pathogenic Leptospira spp. in Small Mammal Host.

Leptospirosis, a widespread zoonotic disease, is a public health problem, especially in major urban centres, and is mainly reported to be associated with rats. In Malaysia, focus has been primarily given to the Leptospira prevalence in rodents per se, but there is lack of information on the microhabitat structure of the outbreak areas. We aimed to determine the diversity of small mammal species, microhabitat types, and their prevalence of pathogenic Leptospira spp. in the outbreak areas, which were categorized as urban, semi-urban, and recreational forests. Sampling involved deploying 100 to 300 live traps at each study site. Kidney samples were extracted from selected individuals, for screening of pathogenic Leptospira spp. by PCR. Out of 537 individuals from 15 small mammal species captured, 4 species were recorded from urban, 13 from semi-urban, and 11 from recreational forest sites. From 389 individuals screened, 58 were tested positive for pathogenic Leptospira. Recreational forests recorded the highest prevalence with 19.4% (n = 93), followed by urban, 16.6% (n = 163) and semi-urban sites with 9.8% (n = 133). Seven rodent species were tested positive for pathogenic Leptospira from all areas. R. norvegicus was found to harbour the highest prevalence (66.7%) in urban, R. rattus (53.8%) in semi-urban, whereby M. whiteheadi (44.4%) in recreational forest sites. Microhabitat analysis revealed that rubbish quantity contributed especially strongly to a high prevalence of Leptospira. This study contributes to understanding of the host and microhabitat preferences of Leptospira, which is important in controlling the spread of this disease in human's landscapes.

Molecular characterization of pathogenic Leptospira sp. in small mammals captured from the human leptospirosis suspected areas of Selangor state, Malaysia.

Leptospirosis is caused by the spirochetal bacterium Leptospira of which rodents are considered the most important reservoir. This study aims to determine and characterize virulent Leptospira species among rodents and small mammals found in human settlements and recreational spots within the Hulu Langat and Gombak districts of Selangor, Malaysia; regions that frequently report probable human leptospirosis cases. Molecular analysis revealed an overall Leptospira detection rate of 14.3% among the 266 small mammals captured, and the human settlements were found to have the highest number of isolates (15.1%), followed by recreational sites (14.5%). The molecular characterization conducted based on the lipL32, secY genes and MLST revealed that the strains belonged to four different species, including; Leptospira interrogans (29; 76.3%; ST50, ST238, ST243), L. kirschneri (5; 13.15%; ST110), L. borgpetersenii (3; 8%; ST143) and L. weilii (1; 2.63%; ST242). The study revealed genotypes of circulating strains among small mammals in Malaysia, which include Leptospira locus ST110 L. kirschneri, ST 50 L. interrogans, ST143 L. borgpetersenii and ST242 L. weilii. Among the small mammals studied, 17/105 (16.2%) Rattus norvegicus, 7/59 (11.9%) of Rattus rattus, 5/24 (20.8%) of Maxomys whiteheadi, 4/18 (22.2%) of Sundamys muelleri, 2/22 (9%), Tupaia gliss, 2/16 (12.5%) Rattus tiomanicus and 1/4 (25%) of Suncus murinus carried pathogenic leptospires. The data from the present study may imply that, in addition to rodents, other small mammals also serve as maintenance hosts for Leptospira. Hence, much remains unknown about Leptospira maintenance hosts, and there is need for further investigation to ascertain the prevailing serovars of pathogenic Leptospira in Malaysia. This will assist in the development of efficient diagnostic assays with improved microscopic agglutination test (MAT) panels, and in the implementation of suitable prevention and control measures.