High-quality evidence from prospective longitudinal studies in humans is essential to testing hypotheses related to the developmental origins of health and disease. In this paper, the authors draw upon their own experiences leading birth cohorts with longitudinal follow-up into adulthood to describe specific challenges and lessons learned. Challenges are substantial and grow over time. Long-term funding is essential for study operations and critical to retaining study staff, who develop relationships with participants and hold important institutional knowledge and technical skill sets. To maintain contact, we recommend that cohorts apply multiple strategies for tracking and obtain as much high-quality contact information as possible before the child’s 18th birthday. To maximize engagement, we suggest that cohorts offer flexibility in visit timing, length, location, frequency, and type. Data collection may entail multiple modalities, even at a single collection timepoint, including measures that are self-reported, research-measured, and administrative with a mix of remote and in-person collection. Many topics highly relevant for adolescent and young adult health and well-being are considered to be private in nature, and their assessment requires sensitivity. To motivate ongoing participation, cohorts must work to understand participant barriers and motivators, share scientific findings, and provide appropriate compensation for participation. It is essential for cohorts to strive for broad representation including individuals from higher risk populations, not only among the participants but also the staff. Successful longitudinal follow-up of a study population ultimately requires flexibility, adaptability, appropriate incentives, and opportunities for feedback from participants.

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic affect all groups in society. People with intellectual disability (ID) are especially vulnerable to the physical, mental and social effects of the pandemic. Cognitive impairments can limit understanding of information to protect them relying on carers to be vigilant on their behalf during quarantine. Restrictions on usual activities are likely to induce mental stress especially among those who are autistic leading to an escalation in challenging behaviours, risk of placement breakdown and increased the use of psychotropic medication. People with ID are vulnerable to exploitation by others where the usual community supports no longer function to protect them. In future pandemics, it is important that lessons are learned from the impacts COVID-19 have on people with ID. Collecting the evidence through a rigorous approach should help to empower people with ID and their carers to face future outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Prevalence of intellectual disability (ID) ranges from 0.05 to 1.55%. A total of10–15% of the people with ID present with challenging behavior (CB). This causes a significant strain on mental health services. People with ID; end up staying in psychiatric inpatient units for longer periods. Most people with ID move out of their family home to various care settings due to severity of their behavior difficulties. Few European countries have specialist services for people with ID whereas most countries manage people with ID and CB using adult mental health services. There is ongoing debate whether patients with ID and CB need to be managed by specialist services. There are significant financial implications looking after people with ID and CB. This has often led to over prescribing of psychotropic medications to people with ID without a mental disorder to manage their behaviors. There are significant strains on mental health services to manage people with ID and CB. This presentation discusses. Describe people with CB and ID and their characteristics including mental disorder, use of psychotropic medications, socio demographic factors and financial costs to look after them. Social and health care approach to look after people with CB in the UK, Challenges to develop services for people with CB in ID in Germany and Poland. Do we need specialist services for people with ID and CB? Pros and cons.

Prevalence of intellectual disability (ID) ranges from 0.05 to 1.55%. A total of 10–15% of the people with ID present with challenging behaviour (CB). This causes a significant strain on mental health services. People with ID often end up staying in psychiatric inpatient units for longer periods. Most people with ID move out of their family home to various care settings due to severity of their behavioural difficulties. This descriptive study shows characteristic features of people with ID and CB and financial costs to look after them in the community. This study highlights the importance to improve services to manage challenging behaviour, which may lead to better quality of life to the person with CB and reduction in financial pressures.

Fasciola jacksoni is a significant contributor to the health and mortality of Asian elephants, particularly those in Sri Lanka. Despite the impact of fascioliasis on elephant populations, it is a neglected veterinary disease with limited taxonomic understanding. Molecular characterization and phylogenetic analysis of F. jacksoni were carried out to evaluate its suggested basal position in the Fasciolidae. Adult worms were collected during post-mortem of elephants, and eggs were collected from living elephants in National parks across Sri Lanka. Using the mitochondrial genes nicotinamide dehydrogenase subunit 1 (nad1) and cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (cox1), and a partial 28S ribosomal DNA (28S rDNA), DNA sequences were generated from the F. jacksoni adult and egg material. Maximum likelihood (ML) phylogenetic analyses did not resolve F. jacksoni to be basal to the Fasciolidae. Furthermore, the ML analyses showed that the genus Fasciola was not monophyletic and that F. jacksoni was a sister species to the deer liver fluke Fascioloides magna. A clear framework is required to determine the taxonomic status of F. jacksoni and this current study provides the first detailed application of molecular techniques from multiple hosts across Sri Lanka with the production of reference DNA sequences for this important parasite.

PSR B1820–30A is located in the globular cluster NGC 6624 and has the smallest projected distance to the centre of any globular cluster in the sky plane. We observe this millisecond pulsar over more than 25 years and obtain higher-order rotational frequency time derivative measurements through high-precision timing. Modelling these higher-order derivatives as being due to orbital motion, we find that the pulsar is in either a low-eccentricity smaller orbit with a low mass companion or a high-eccentricity larger orbit with a massive companion. The cluster mass properties and the observed properties of other nearby sources indicate that the high-eccentricity solution is more probably. This reveals that the pulsar is orbiting around an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) of mass >7500 M⊙ located at the cluster centre. This contribution is based on previous work published in MNRAS 471, 1258 (2017).

Dengue vector control programmes are mainly focused on insecticide fogging/space spraying to control adult Aedes mosquito vector populations. Due to the diurnal habit of the vectors, spraying is routinely conducted during the day when many other insect species are also active. This study reports the simultaneous effect of fogging on non-target insects by direct counting of knockdown in the insect population. Eight fogging treatments were conducted in two sites in Kurunegala District of Sri Lanka. Pesguard insecticide was sprayed in each treatment for 8 minutes according to the standard methodology and the ‘knockdown insects’ were collected on randomly spread polyethythene sheets (10 m2). A total of 3884 insects (24.3 insects per treatment per m2) belonging to 12 orders were collected and 12.44% of them recovered during a 24-hr recovery period. Diptera was the most affected insect order (36%) followed by Collembola (30%) and Thysanoptera (17%). Out of the 31 mosquitoes (<1%) collected, only two (<0.1%) belonged to the genus Aedes. Body length of 93% of the affected insects ranged from 0.35 mm to 1.8 mm. Positive controls using the WHO standard cage bioassays with the mosquito Ae. albopictus (n = 417) and the stingless bee Trigona iridipennis (n = 122) showed 100% initial knockdown, and 83.5% mosquito and 93.5% bee mortalities after the recovery period. The study shows that insecticide fogging does have a severe effect on non-target insects such as pollinators; therefore, fogging operations should be done in a controlled manner and indiscriminate fogging should be avoided.

Most influenza virus infections are associated with mild disease. One approach to estimate the occurrence of influenza virus infections in individuals is via repeated measurement of humoral antibody titres. We used baseline and convalescent antibody titres measured by haemagglutination inhibition (HI) and viral neutralization (VN) assays against influenza A(H1N1), A(H3N2) and B viruses to investigate the characteristics of antibody rises following virologically confirmed influenza virus infections in participants in a community-based study. Multivariate models were fitted in a Bayesian framework to characterize the distribution of changes in antibody titres following influenza A virus infections. In 122 participants with PCR-confirmed influenza A virus infection, homologous antibody titres rose by geometric means of 1·2- to 10·2-fold after infection with A(H1N1), A(H3N2) and A(H1N1)pdm09. Significant cross-reactions were observed between A(H1N1)pdm09 and seasonal A(H1N1). Antibody titre rises for some subtypes and assays varied by age, receipt of oseltamivir treatment, and recent receipt of influenza vaccination. In conclusion, we provided a quantitative description of the mean and variation in rises in influenza virus antibody titres following influenza virus infection. The multivariate patterns in boosting of antibody titres following influenza virus infection could be taken into account to improve estimates of cumulative incidence of infection in seroepidemiological studies.

We examined factors affecting the immunogenicity of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccination (TIV) in children using the antibody titres of children participating in a Hong Kong community-based study. Antibody titres of strains included in the 2009–2010 northern hemisphere TIV [seasonal A(H1N1), seasonal A(H3N2) and B (Victoria lineage)] and those not included in the TIV [2009 pandemic A(H1N1) and B (Yamagata lineage)] were measured by haemagglutination inhibition immediately before and 1 month after vaccination. Multivariate regression models were fitted in a Bayesian framework to characterize the distribution of changes in antibody titres following vaccination. Statistically significant rises in geometric mean antibody titres were observed against all strains, with a wide variety of standard deviations and correlations in rises observed, with the influenza type B antibodies showing more variability than the type A antibodies. The dynamics of antibody titres after vaccination can be used in more complex models of antibody dynamics in populations.

Dengue has become the fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease in Sri Lanka and the control of the vectors, Aedes aegypti Linnaeus and Ae. albopictus Skuse, is the most effective way of controlling the disease. A detailed study on vector prevalence has not been recorded from Sri Lanka. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to study the prevalence of both vectors in four semi-urban study sites in two of the most affected districts, namely Kandy (wet zone) and Kurunegala (intermediate zone), by conducting egg surveys (using ovitraps) and larval surveys from June 2007 to May 2008. A total of 82,524 eggs and 2658 larvae of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus were collected. A total of 3699 potential breeding habitats were examined. Ovitrap and larval indices (house, container and Breteau) showed that all four areas are at epidemic risk, especially due to a high abundance of Ae. albopictus. The highest numbers for both the species were from the Kandy sites where dense vegetation, high rainfall and low temperature prevailed. The results showed a high mortality rate during the egg-to-larva transition, suggesting that conducting an egg survey alone would overestimate the vector abundance and the disease risk. For Ae. albopictus, the monthly mean number of eggs showed positive relationships with relative humidity in both districts and with rainfall in the Kandy District. The number of dengue cases in the area had no positive relationships with the abundance of eggs or larval density indices. Discarded receptacles were the most preferred breeding habitat for these dengue vectors. Since the attractiveness (inferred by the calculated risk factors) of most of the breeding habitats was very high, elimination of these breeding sites is essential for the success of dengue control programmes.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.

We report the results of the New Zealand Acute Gastrointestinal Illness (AGI) Community Study, a representative cross-sectional community telephone survey of 3655 participants conducted over a 12-month period. Respondents were asked questions about vomiting and diarrhoea in the previous 4 weeks. At least one episode of diarrhoea and/or vomiting was reported by 8·6% of respondents, an incidence of 1·11 episodes/person per year. Prevalence was highest in children aged <5 years and lowest in those aged >64 years. The mean duration of illness was 2·5 days and most common symptoms were diarrhoea (82·5%), stomach cramps (75·7%), nausea (56·9%) and vomiting (49·0%). Extrapolation of the adjusted estimates indicates there are about 4·66 million episodes of AGI per year in New Zealand, nearly 1 million visits to the general medical practitioner, in excess of 300 000 courses of antibiotics being dispensed and more than 4·5 million days of paid work lost due to AGI. This represents a significant burden of disease.