Fernando De la Hoz

National University of Colombia | UNAL · Departamento de Salud Pública. Public Health Department

Background Although anti-SARS-CoV-2 humoral immune responses and epidemiology have been extensively studied, data gaps remain for certain populations such as indigenous people or children especially in low- and middle-income countries. To address this gap, we evaluated SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and humoral immunity towards the parental B.1 strain,...

Objective: We carried out a study to estimate the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of homologous vaccination schedules against COVID-19, using data from mandatory information systems from Bogota, Colombia. Methods: A test-negative case-control study in adults from Bogota (Colombia), between March 1st of 2021 and February 25th of 2022. We assess VE amo...

Intro: In 2010, PCV10 was introduced in the Colombian National Immunization Program (NIP) for children, with good vaccination coverage >82% since 2012. However, the NIP does not include routine pneumococcal vaccination for older adults. We assessed trends in mortality rate (MR) due to potential pneumococcal pneumonia (PPP) from 2006-2019. Methods:...

Background: We aim to estimate the magnitude of the reduction in pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis mortality after the mass introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)7 and PCV13 in children in the United States. Methods: We assessed the trends in mortality rates from pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis, in the United States betwe...

The majority of Hepatitis E Virus (HEV)-related studies are carried out in adults whereas information about HEV seroprevalence, clinical disease manifestation, molecular epidemiology, and transmission patterns in children is limited. To estimate HEV seroprevalence among scholar children living in an urban setting and to analyze risk factors for an...

Colombia has a tradition on Public Health education since the mid years of 1950’s. The first cohorts of Public Health academics and workers were trained at the National School of Public Health, which was established, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, but later moved to the Universidad...

Objectives To estimate the risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 transmission in close contacts of adults at high risk of infection due to occupation, participants of the CoVIDA study, in Bogotá D.C., Colombia. Setting The CoVIDA study was the largest COVID-19 intensified sentinel epidemiological surveillance study in Colombia thus far, performing over 60 0...

El libro introduce al lector en los métodos econométricos y epidemiológicos usados en Colombia para actualizar el esquema del Programa Amplido de Inmunizaciones (PAI) entre 1999 y 2018. Durante ese lapso, el esquema de vacunas del Estado evolucionó hasta convertirse en uno de los más completos del mundo. Este avance fue posible gracias al compromis...

Objectives This study aimed to estimate the direct medical costs due to hospitalizations by COVID-19 in Colombia and to identify their cost drivers in Colombia. Methods This is a retrospective cost-of-illness study of COVID-19 in Colombia. We estimated direct medical costs using data from patients insured to a Benefit Plan Administrator Company, b...

Objectives This study aimed to critically review the decision-making (DM) processes for new vaccines introduction in Latin America’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPIs) and role of cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs). Methods An online survey was conducted between August and December 2019 to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) EPI managers, p...

Background In February 2021, Colombia began mass vaccination against COVID-19 using mainly BNT162b2 and CoronaVac vaccines. We aimed to estimate vaccine effectiveness (VE) to prevent COVID-19 symptomatic cases, hospitalization, critical care admission, and deaths in a cohort of 796,072 insured subjects older than 40 years in northern Colombia, a se...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has established a target to eliminate mother‐to‐child‐transmission (EMTCT) of hepatitis B virus (HBV), defined as a prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) of ≤0.1% among children, by 2030. Using nationally representative serosurveys to verify achievement of this target requires large sample sizes and s...

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected economically disadvantaged groups. This differential impact has numerous possible explanations, each with significantly different policy implications. We examine, for the first time in a low- or middle-income country, which mechanisms best explain the disproportionate impact of...

Background Our aim was to study the association between case rates and reductions in urban mobility in state capitals of Colombia. Methods We designed an ecological time-series study to correlate the Colombian incidence rate with reductions in mobility trends of retail stores. Results The meta-analysis of β coefficients describing the association...

Resumen Objetivo Colombia diseñó y adoptó un plan de vacunación contra la COVID-19. El objetivo de esta investigación fue conocer la disposición para aceptar la vacunación contra esa enfermedad de personas de 80 y más años. Métodos Se realizó una encuesta telefónica a 11.721 personas de 80 y más años, afiliadas a una aseguradora de salud, en la que...

Symptoms-based models for predicting SARS-CoV-2 infection may improve clinical decision-making and be an alternative to resource allocation in under-resourced settings. In this study we aimed to test a model based on symptoms to predict a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic using logistic regression and a mach...

Introducción: La soledad no deseada es un constructo que se ha relacionado con desenlaces negativos en diferentes aspectos de la salud, incluidos aquellos de los pacientes con cáncer. La escala de soledad de UCLA es un instrumento ampliamente utilizado en el contexto de investigación en salud para medir dicho constructo, y en Colombia la versión 03...

Objective: We aimed to estimate out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditures and the indirect costs related to prenatal check-ups in pregnant women seen in a maternity hospital in the Colombian Caribbean region. Methods: We described the economic costs of pregnant women, with no age limits, who attended prenatal check-ups in a maternity hospital. To...

Aceptado: 25-11-21 Publicación en línea: 15-12-21 PUBLICACIÓN ANTICIPADA EN LINEA El Comité Editorial de Biomédica ya aprobó para publicación este manuscrito, teniendo en cuenta los conceptos de los pares académicos que lo evaluaron. Se publica anticipadamente en versión pdf en forma provisional con base en la última versión electrónica del manuscr...

Este artículo describe algunas de las acciones que tomó el sistema de salud de Colombia con el fin de mejorar la capacidad de respuesta a la pandemia de COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) y corregir algunas de las fallas estructurales que amenazaban la efectividad de respuesta. También se presenta la evolución de algunos marcadores epidemiológicos del impacto d...

La respuesta del sistema de salud colombiano en tiempos de pandemia: Una evaluación rápida desde los indicadores epidemiológicos Reaction of the Colombian Health System to the Covid-19 pandemic: A rapid assessment using epidemiological indicators Fernando De la Hoz-Restrepo Recibido 2 enero 2022 / Enviado para modificación 3 enero 2022 / Aceptado 1...

Background: Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected economically disadvantaged groups. This differential impact has numerous possible explanations, each with significantly different policy implications. We examine, for the first time in a low- or middle-income country, which mechanisms best explain the disproportiona...

Evidence about the effectiveness of school closures as a measure to control the spread of COVID-19 is controversial. We posit that schools are not an important source of transmission; thus, we analyzed two surveillance methods: a web-based questionnaire and a telephone survey that monitored the impact of the pandemic due to COVID-19 cases in Bogotá...

Introduction: More than 90% of children infected with COVID-19 worldwide developed mild to moderate disease. In Colombia, during 2020, COVID-19 infections in children stayed below 9.2% of the total cases, with no trends for age group or sex. Objective: To estimate the incidence of acute respiratory symptoms and COVID-19 in children from public s...

BACKGROUND: Documentation of patterns and long-term trends in mortality in young people, which reflect huge changes in demographic and social determinants of adolescent health, enables identification of global investment priorities for this age group. We aimed to analyse data on the number of deaths, years of life lost, and mortality rates by sex a...

Resumen Objetivo Colombia diseñó y adoptó un plan de vacunación contra la COVID-19. El objetivo de esta investigación fue conocer la disposición para aceptar la vacunación contra esa enfermedad de personas de 80 y más años. Métodos Se realizó una encuesta telefónica a 11.721 personas de 80 y más años, afiliadas a una aseguradora de salud, en la q...

Latin America has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but estimations of rates of infections are very limited and lack the level of detail required to guide policy decisions. We implemented a COVID-19 sentinel surveillance study with 59,770 RT-PCR tests on mostly asymptomatic individuals and combine this data with administrative records...

The frequency of antibodies anti-VHC described in the study population (2,69%) is lower than the expected one (10%). The preliminary results of viral genotype distribution are similar to the data described previously in Colombian population (1b). This is the first report the circulation of subgenotype 4d in Colombia. The identification of mutations...

This study describe the infection fatality rate (IFR) by COVID-19 by age groups in one department of Colombia. It used results from a serological survey to stablish a closer estimation of the true proportion of infected people. It found an overall IFR of 0.24% quite lower than the overall CFR (5.6%). We conclude that CFR severely overestimate the l...

Background: Health systems need to optimize the use of resources, especially in high-cost diseases as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We aimed to evaluate the efficiency of using centers of excellence (CoE) as a strategy for improving RA treatment in Colombia. Methods: A cost description analysis was carried out using the standard costing technique....

Covid‐19 had caused more than 1,4 million deaths worldwide by November 26th, 2020. Age is a strong predictor of Covid‐19 mortality. Crude death rates have been used to compare the response of countries, however, this measure does not account for age structure. We report age‐adjusted mortality and rates at similar timeframes, ~100 days from the 50th...

Objectives To characterize the dynamics of the epidemic, for modeling purposes. Methods Data from Colombian official case information were collated for a period of five months. Dynamical parameters of the disease spread were then estimated from the data. Probability distribution models were identified that represent the time from symptom onset to...

Background: We aim in our analysis to estimate the reduction of diarrhea-related mortality rates after introduction of a rotavirus vaccine in subregions of 4 Latin American countries. Methods: We selected diarrhea-related deaths from individual-level data from death certificates in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. Counts were aggregated by...

Carga de enfermedad debido a la microcefalia asociada al virus del Zika en Colombia A carga de doença por microcefalia associada ao vírus Zika na Colômbia Abstract In 2015, the Zika virus was introduced in Colombia. The emergence of this arbovirus is a public health challenge for the country, considering the association between the infection and co...

A serological survey was carried out in Monteria (500 000 population), a mid-size city in Colombia. An overall prevalence of 55.3% (95% confidence interval, 52.5%–57.8%) was found among a sample of 1.368 people randomly selected from the population. Test positivity was related to economic characteristics with the highest prevalence found in the mos...

Objective To explore the existence and trends of social inequalities related to pneumonia mortality in Colombian adults using educational level as a proxy of socioeconomic status. Methods We obtained individual and anonymised registries from death certificates due to pneumonia for 1998–2015. Educational level data were gathered from microdata of t...

Abstract Background Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are among the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) but evidence in these contexts regarding the effectiveness of primary prevention interventions taking into account patient adherence is scarce. We aimed to evaluate the effec...

Background/objective Colombia detected its first COVID-19 case on March 2nd, 2020. From March 22nd to April 25th, it implemented a national lock down that, apparently, allowed the country to keep a low incidence and mortality rate up to mid-May. Forced by the economic losses the government opened many commercial activities, which was followed by an...

Objective During the 2013-2016 period, Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika affected more than 1 million people in Colombia. These arboviruses and their chronic manifestations pose a public health challenge. Therefore, we estimated the burden of disease by Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika in Colombia between 2013-2016. Methods An exploratory ecological stud...

paragraph A novel pandemic coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first detected in late 2019 in Wuhan (China) 1,2 . COVID-19 has caused 77 national governments worldwide to impose a lockdown in part or all their countries, as of April 4, 2020 ³ . The United States and the United Kingdom estimated the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions t...

Healthcare costs are a concern for the sustainability of health systems in both rich and poor countries. Achieving a balance between the aspirations of payers and the manufacturers of new technologies is a challenge for democratic societies. Evidence about the efficacy and effectiveness of a new intervention is a fundamental aspect for its inclusio...

Background: Influenza is considered a leading public health problem because its large economic burden of disease worldwide, especially in low-and middle-income countries, such as Colombia. Objective: We aimed to estimate the economic costs of influenza-confirmed patients in a pediatric hospital in Cartagena, Colombia. Methods: We conducted a r...

Executive Summary Venezuela’s economic crisis has triggered mass migration; more than 3.4 million Venezuelans have fled to other countries in the region and beyond. An assessment mission to Cúcuta, in the Colombian border state of North Santander, was undertaken from July 26 to August 1, 2018, and to Bôa Vista and Pacaraima, in the state of Roraim...

La desnutrición infantil produce daños físicos e irreversibles en la capacidad cognitiva, trastornos del crecimiento, retrasos motores y cognitivos, disminución de la inmunidad y un aumento de la morbilidad y mortalidad. Este estudio estimó los factores asociados a la desnutrición en menores de cinco años en La Guajira, Colombia. Se realizó un anál...

La toma de decisiones en salud tanto desde el punto de vista clínico como administrativo, requiere entre otros aspectos, fundamentarse tanto en la mejor evidencia producto de investigación de las tecnologías sanitarias como en el mejor uso de los escasos recursos económicos con los que usualmente se cuenta. En el ámbito clínico, las revisiones sist...

Background: seizures and their consequences contribute to the burden of epilepsy because they can cause health loss (premature mortality and residual disability). Data on the burden of epilepsy are needed for health-care planning and resource allocation. The aim of this study was to quantify health loss due to epilepsy by age, sex, year, and locati...