Understanding the COVID-19 Infodemic: Analyzing User-Generated Online Information During a COVID-19 Outbreak in Vietnam.

OBJECTIVES: Online misinformation has reached unprecedented levels during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study analyzed the magnitude and sentiment dynamics of misinformation and unverified information about public health interventions during a COVID-19 outbreak in Da Nang, Vietnam, between July and September 2020. METHODS: We analyzed user-generated online information about five public health interventions during the Da Nang outbreak. We compared the volume, source, sentiment polarity, and engagements of online posts before, during, and after the outbreak using negative binomial and logistic regression, and assessed the content validity of the 500 most influential posts. RESULTS: Most of the 54,528 online posts included were generated during the outbreak (n = 46,035; 84.42%) and by online newspapers (n = 32,034; 58.75%). Among the 500 most influential posts, 316 (63.20%) contained genuine information, 10 (2.00%) contained misinformation, 152 (30.40%) were non-factual opinions, and 22 (4.40%) contained unverifiable information. All misinformation posts were made during the outbreak, mostly on social media, and were predominantly negative. Higher levels of engagement were observed for information that was unverifiable (incidence relative risk [IRR] = 2.83; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.33-0.62), posted during the outbreak (before: IRR = 0.15; 95% CI, 0.07-0.35; after: IRR = 0.46; 95% CI, 0.34-0.63), and with negative sentiment (IRR = 1.84; 95% CI, 1.23-2.75). Negatively toned posts were more likely to be misinformation (odds ratio [OR] = 9.59; 95% CI, 1.20-76.70) or unverified (OR = 5.03; 95% CI, 1.66-15.24). CONCLUSIONS: Misinformation and unverified information during the outbreak showed clustering, with social media being particularly affected. This indepth assessment demonstrates the value of analyzing online "infodemics" to inform public health responses.

Using 'infodemics' to understand public awareness and perception of SARS-CoV-2: A longitudinal analysis of online information about COVID-19 incidence and mortality during a major outbreak in Vietnam, July-September 2020.

BACKGROUND: Trends in the public perception and awareness of COVID-19 over time are poorly understood. We conducted a longitudinal study to analyze characteristics and trends of online information during a major COVID-19 outbreak in Da Nang province, Vietnam in July-August 2020 to understand public awareness and perceptions during an epidemic. METHODS: We collected online information on COVID-19 incidence and mortality from online platforms in Vietnam between 1 July and 15 September, 2020, and assessed their trends over time against the epidemic curve. We explored the associations between engagement, sentiment polarity, and other characteristics of online information with different outbreak phases using Poisson regression and multinomial logistic regression analysis. We assessed the frequency of keywords over time, and conducted a semantic analysis of keywords using word segmentation. RESULTS: We found a close association between collected online information and the evolution of the COVID-19 situation in Vietnam. Online information generated higher engagements during compared to before the outbreak. There was a close relationship between sentiment polarity and posts' topics: the emotional tendencies about COVID-19 mortality were significantly more negative, and more neutral or positive about COVID-19 incidence. Online newspaper reported significantly more information in negative or positive sentiment than online forums or social media. Most topics of public concern followed closely the progression of the COVID-19 situation during the outbreak: development of the global pandemic and vaccination; the unfolding outbreak in Vietnam; and the subsiding of the outbreak after two months. CONCLUSION: This study shows how online information can reflect a public health threat in real time, and provides important insights about public awareness and perception during different outbreak phases. Our findings can help public health decision makers in Vietnam and other low and middle income countries with high internet penetration rates to design more effective communication strategies during critical phases of an epidemic.

Successful containment of a flight-imported COVID-19 outbreak through extensive contact tracing, systematic testing and mandatory quarantine: Lessons from Vietnam.

BACKGROUND: The importation of SARS-CoV-2 through air travel poses substantial risks to generate new COVID-19 outbreaks. Timely contact tracing is particularly crucial to limit onwards transmission in settings without established community transmission. METHODS: We conducted an in-depth analysis of the response to a big flight-associated COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam in March 2020 that involved contact tracing, systematic testing and strict quarantine up to third generation contacts. RESULTS: 183 primary contacts from the flight as well as 1000 secondary and 311 third generation contacts were traced, tested, and quarantined across 15 provinces across Vietnam. The protracted confirmation of the index case at 3 days and 19 h after arrival resulted in isolation/quarantine delays of 6.8 days (IQR 6.3-6.8) and 5.8 days (IQR 5.8-7.0) for primary and secondary cases, respectively, which generated 84.0 and 26.4 person-days of community exposure from primary and secondary cases, respectively. Nevertheless, only 5 secondary cases occurred. CONCLUSIONS: A large flight-related COVID-19 cluster was successfully contained through timely, systematic and comprehensive public health responses despite delayed index case identification. Multiagency collaboration and pre-established mechanisms are crucial for low and middle income countries like Vietnam to limit community transmission after COVID-19 importation through air travel.

Development and preliminary evaluation of the interpersonal problem-solving inventory for elementary school students.

BACKGROUND: Several inventories have been developed to assess social problem-solving. However, these instruments originally developed for adult or adolescence and do not capture the full range of main interpersonal relationships over which elementary students resolve daily life interpersonal problems and apply elementary-age typical responses. Therefore, the development of a valid scale to measure interpersonal problem-solving ability in elementary school students is warranted. AIMS: This study aimed to develop and perform a preliminary psychometric evaluation of an interpersonal problem-solving inventory for elementary school students (IPSIE). SAMPLES AND METHODS: The IPSIE was administered to elementary student samples that consist of 516 Vietnamese elementary school students in grades 3-5. This study examined the reliabilities of International problem behaviour (IPB) and interpersonal problem-solving inventory (IPSI) as well as the construct validity of IPSI. The construct validity of IPSI was investigated by using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to explore the emerging factor structure of the data. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to fit the data. RESULTS: The reliabilities of IPB and IPSI were assessed by calculating internal consistencies (Cronbach's α = 0.79 vs. 0.90, McDonald's ω = 0.79 vs. 0.82). The EFA results suggested that the IPSI has two-factor structure. The CFA was reexamined to define theory-driven five-factor structure of the IPSI's data. The CFA findings indicated that the scores of IPSI have the five-factor structure as expected with acceptable global fit indices (CFI: 0.943, TLI: 0.939, RMSEA: 0.030, and RMR: 0.046). The concurrent validity of IPSI was tested by calculating correlations between the IPSI and SPSI-R scores (r = .667) and the IPSI and SPSTE-A scores (r = .482). CONCLUSIONS: These finding figures suggest that overall the scales of IPSIE are well-functioning measures with good psychometric properties. Caution and limitations of IPSIE are discussed. Future study and possible applicability are suggested.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Shedding by Travelers, Vietnam, 2020.

We analyzed 2 clusters of 12 patients in Vietnam with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection during January-February 2020. Analysis indicated virus transmission from a traveler from China. One asymptomatic patient demonstrated virus shedding, indicating potential virus transmission in the absence of clinical signs and symptoms.

Social investigation on laboratory activities in provincial centres for preventive medicine

An analysis was conducted on 187 surveyed records of social investigation on laboratory activities at Centres for preventive medicine of 11 provinces from 2003 to 2004. The investigation revealed that 99% of interviewees said that the laboratory activities were very necessary, 78% of them said that the test results were reliable, and 74% of them assumed that their lab skills are rather good. We suppose that it is necessary to improve basic salary with their skilled jobs. The budget allocation should be reviewed for laboratory activities, and procurement of equipment and biomedicals and chemicals.

Thrombocytopenia

Thrombocytopenia is resulted from many causes, and it could be decreased in quantity or quality of thrombocyte. Causes are: increased destruction due to immune causes and non-immune causes such as increased consumption or destruction of thrombocyte), decreased production of thrombocyte (due to decreased production or blocking of platelet, and infiltration of bone marrow), and disturbance of distribution of platelet. It isn’t difficult to diagnose thrombocytopenia but it’s complicated to find out the cause, so it must be cautions

Anemia in the neonatal period

Hemolysis anemia in neonate is always combined with the increase of blood free bilirubine. Therefore, almost cases of neonatal hemolysis anemia were diagnosed succesfully when neonatal jaundice was detected early, just a week after birth. The condition can be divided into two group: hemolysis due to congenital pathology of red blood cell and hemolysis acquired from outwards. Congenital hemolysis can lead to early anemia in neonate. The diagnosis of neonatal anemia can be based on some examinations such as Coombs test, reticulocyte or red cell mean volume, morpholosy of red cell, which can lead to find the cause of anemia

Anemia in the neonatal period

There are various causes of neonatal anemia, such as acute or chronic hemorrhage, ordinary hemolysis in combining with increasing of free bilirubin, decrease of erythropoiesis. Neonatal loss of blood can be seen prenatally, at birth or prosnatally. The diagnosis of neonatal anemia can be based on clinic observations or on some important examination such as Cooms test, reticulocyte, red blood cell mean volume. The management comprises of overcoming the causes heating anemia

Center for preventive medicine, overview over 10 years

Some achievements of preventive medicine were studied and analysed on 30 Centers of preventive medicine in whole country. The prevalence of some diseases were reduced considerably: measle 37 times, pertussis 102 times, the mortality of diarrhoea reduced by 17 times, neonatal tetanus 6 times, polyomyelitis 9 times. 40  24% of the staff working day were mobilized for struggle against epidemy. Waters, foods, enviromental samples were collected and controlled with a lack of equipment interms of variety and quantity. The salary and subsidy were rather low