Jianhong Wu

York University · Centre for Disease Modelling

The unprecedented mpox outbreak in non-endemic regions during 2022-2023, which has seen a recent resurgence in late 2023-2024, poses a significant public health threat. Despite its global spread, the viral dynamics of mpox infection and the specific characteristics driving these outbreaks remain insufficiently explored. We develop mathematical mode...

Open source, lightweight and offline generative large language models (LLMs) hold promise for clinical information extraction due to their suitability to operate in secured environments using commodity hardware without token cost. By creating a simple lupus nephritis (LN) renal histopathology annotation schema and generating gold standard data, thi...

Background Mpox (formerly Monkeypox) virus has affected the lives of thousands of individuals both in endemic and non-endemic countries. Before the May 2022 outbreak, Mpox infections were sporadically endemic in Central and Western Africa, still research into Mpox has been limited and lacking epidemiological data. Thus, identification of potential...

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the association between sleep problems and suicidal behaviors and healthcare utilization in Canadian adults with chronic diseases, and the mediating role of mental illness. Methods: Data were drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey, 2015-16, from Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan– the provinces that...

The unprecedentedly large size of the global SARS-CoV-2 phylogeny makes any computation on the tree difficult. Lineage identification (e.g. the PANGO nomenclature for SARS-CoV-2) and assignment are key to track the virus evolution. It requires annotating clade roots of lineages to unlabeled ancestral nodes in a phylogenetic tree. Then the lineage l...

Aims The main goal of this paper is to present the concept, design, and development of a serious board game called Pandemic Resilience Serious Game (PRSG). Designed for a variety of users including current and future pandemic managers, PRSG is a serious strategy board game that blends education and entertainment to immerse players in the complexiti...

Background According to study on the under-estimation of COVID-19 cases in African countries, the average daily case reporting rate was only 5.37% in the initial phase of the outbreak when there was little or no control measures. In this work, we aimed to identify the determinants of the case reporting and classify the African countries using the c...

Background: Ontario, being one of Canada's largest provinces, has been central to the high incidence of human Mpox. Research is scarce on how socio-environmental factors influence Mpox incidences. This study seeks to explore potential geographical correlations and the relationship between indicators of social marginalization and Mpox incidence rate...

Objective To assess the impact of self-medication on the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 across different age groups, examine the interplay of vaccination and self-medication in disease spread, and identify the age group most prone to self-medication. Methods We developed an age-structured compartmentalized epidemiological model to track the ear...

Human heterogeneity is a critical issue in infectious disease transmission dynamics modelling, and it has recently received much attention in COVID-19 studies. In this article, a general human heterogeneous disease model with mutation is proposed to comprehensively study the effects of human heterogeneity on basic reproduction number, final epidemi...

The 2022-2023 Mpox multi-country outbreak, identified in over 110 WHO Member States, revealed a predominant impact on cisgender men, particularly those engaging in sex with men, while less frequently affecting women. This disparity prompted a focused investigation into the gender-specific characteristics of Mpox infections, particularly among women...

Background Novel coronaviruses have emerged and caused major epidemics and pandemics in the past 2 decades, including SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, which led to the current COVID-19 pandemic. These coronaviruses are marked by their potential to produce disproportionally large transmission clusters from superspreading events (SSEs). As promp...

Massive sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 genomes has urged novel methods that employ existing phylogenies to add new samples efficiently instead of de novo inference. ‘TIPars’ was developed for such challenge integrating parsimony analysis with pre-computed ancestral sequences. It took about 21 seconds to insert 100 SARS-CoV-2 genomes into a 100k-taxa refe...

In July 2023, the Center of Excellence in Respiratory Pathogens organized a two-day workshop on infectious diseases modelling and the lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic. This report summarizes the rich discussions that occurred during the workshop. The workshop participants discussed multisource data integration and highlighted the benefits...

The 2022-2023 Mpox multi-country outbreak, identified in over 110 WHO Member States, revealed a predominant impact on cisgender men, particularly those engaging in sex with men, while less frequently affecting women. This disparity prompted a focused investigation into the gender-specific characteristics of Mpox infections, particularly among women...

Despite decades of research, questions remain about the persistence of neutralising antibodies (nAb) and serological correlates of polio vaccine efficacy. In a cross-sectional study among 299 children in Hong Kong, we estimated that the mean nAb titres against polioviruses type 1, 2 and 3 (PV1, PV2 and PV3) one month after receiving the 4th dose of...

The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the first major multi-continental sporting Mass Gathering Event (MGE) of the post COVID-19 era to allow foreign spectators. Such large-scale MGEs can potentially lead to outbreaks of infectious disease and contribute to the global dissemination of such pathogens. Here we adapt previous work and create a generalisable mod...

Importance Hong Kong was held as an exemplar for pandemic response until it recorded the world’s highest daily COVID-19 mortality, which was likely due to vaccine refusal. To prevent this high mortality in future pandemics, information on underlying reasons for vaccine refusal is necessary. Objectives To track the evolution of COVID-19 vaccination...

Objective: China has a substantial disease burden of cervical cancer. To further understand preventive measures for reducing cervical cancer in China, this study aimed to correlate screening attendance and regular screening with human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among Chinese females. Methods: This prospective questionnaire-based survey rec...

Country reported case counts suggested a slow spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Owing to inadequate public awareness, unestablished monitoring practices, limited testing and stigmas, there might exist extensive under-ascertainment of the true number of cases, especially at the beginning of the novel epide...

Humans display substantial interindividual clinical variability after SARS-CoV-2 infection1–3, the genetic and immunological basis of which has begun to be deciphered⁴. However, the extent and drivers of population differences in immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 remain unclear. Here we report single-cell RNA-sequencing data for peripheral blood monon...

It is imperative that resources are channelled towards programs that are efficient and cost effective in combating the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This study proposed and analyzed control strategies for that purpose. We developed a mathematical disease model within an o...

Drug-Resistance (DR) remains a global public health concern for managing several infectious diseases, but little work has been done to explore its potential for emergence and widespread in the context of SARS-CoV-2. Here, we developed a compartmental model of disease transmission to investigate the dynamics of de-novo drug-resistance during treatme...

This chapter describes mathematical epidemiology from the perspectives of mathematical modelers and public health professionals. The mathematical approach in terms of model formulation, model algorithm, terminologies, quantitative and qualitative analysis, theoretical interpretation of human data, and parameter estimation, in the context of public...

Human behaviours are key determinants of the course, duration and outcomes of disease outbreaks, and behavioural change transmission dynamics have proved to be power tool in guiding public health measures in epidemic control. Nonetheless, how to develop computationally tractable first principle of behavioural change in epidemic models with good gen...

Social media contains useful information about people and society that could help advance research in many different areas of health (e.g. by applying opinion mining, emotion/sentiment analysis and statistical analysis) such as mental health, health surveillance, socio-economic inequality and gender vulnerability. User demographics provide rich inf...

For C 1-smooth flows strongly monotone with respect to cones of rank k, we prove the pseudo-ordered principle, which concludes that any two points in the omega-limit set of a pseudo-ordered orbit are ordered. This completely solves the open problem posed by Sanchez in 2009. In the case where the rank k = 1, the pseudo-ordered principle becomes the...

Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) and neuraminidase inhibition (NI) antibodies to a clade 2.3.4.4b A(H5N1) highly pathogenic avian influenza virus were measured in 63 age-stratified healthy adults in Hong Kong. No HI antibody was detected; 61 subjects had detectable NI antibodies to A(H5N1). NI titers to A(H5N1) and A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses were correla...

Introduction We investigated the effect of social media-based interventions on COVID-19 vaccine intention (VI) and confidence in Japan. Methods We conducted a three-arm randomised controlled trial between 5 November 2021 and 9 January 2022 during a low incidence (<1000/day) of COVID-19 in Japan in the midst of the second and the third waves. Japan...

Chatbots have become an increasingly popular tool in the field of health services and communications. Despite chatbots' significance amid the COVID-19 pandemic, few studies have performed a rigorous evaluation of the effectiveness of chatbots in improving vaccine confidence and acceptance. In Thailand, Hong Kong, and Singapore, from February 11th t...

Investigating long-term behaviors of stochastic dynamical systems often requires to establish criteria that are able to describe delicate dynamics of the considered systems. In this article, we develop generalized invariance principles for continuous-time stochastic dynamical systems. Particularly, in a sense of probability one and by the developed...

Introduction: Self-medication, as a global phenomenon, remains a pressing issue that requires attention worldwide, in particular, the Global South. It has been a hindrance to infectious disease control as it, in most cases dampens interventions put forth by health authorities. It is imperative, therefore, that disease dynamics relating to self-medi...

Hong Kong experienced a surge of Omicron BA.2 infections in early 2022, resulting in one of the highest per-capita death rates of COVID-19. The outbreak occurred in a dense population with low immunity towards natural SARS-CoV-2 infection, high vaccine hesitancy in vulnerable populations, comprehensive disease surveillance and the capacity for stri...

Immune imprinting is a driver known to shape the anti-hemagglutinin (HA) antibody landscape of individuals born within the same birth cohort. With the HA and neuraminidase (NA) proteins evolving at different rates under immune selection pressures, anti-HA and anti-NA antibody responses since childhood influenza virus infections have not been evalua...

After struggling with COVID-19 pandemic for two years, the world is finally recovering from this crisis. Nonetheless, another virus, Monkeypox, is quickly spreading throughout the world and in non-endemic regions and continents, threatening the world to a new pandemic. Twitter as a popular social media has successfully been used for predicting and...

The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the first major multi-continental sporting Mass Gathering Event (MGE) of the post COVID-19 era to allow foreign spectators. Such large-scale MGEs can potentially lead to outbreaks of infectious disease and contribute to the global dissemination of such pathogens. Here we adapt previous work and create a generalisable mod...

Background: Vaccine hesitancy has seriously compromised the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out across the Western Pacific; nevertheless, evidence-based recommendations that account for the heterogeneity of vaccine-hesitant populations in this region remain lacking. To help design customized vaccine communication strategies, we sought to investigate the prof...

BACKGROUND Novel coronaviruses have emerged and caused major epidemics and pandemics in the past 2 decades, including SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, which led to the current COVID-19 pandemic. These coronaviruses are marked by their potential to produce disproportionally large transmission clusters from superspreading events (SSEs). As promp...

Background The success of vaccination programs often depends on the effectiveness of the vaccine messages, particularly during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The current suboptimal uptake of COVID-19 vaccines across many parts of the world highlights the tremendous challenges in overcoming vaccine hesitancy and refusal even in the conte...

Monkeypox, a zoonotic disease, is emerging as a potential sexually transmitted infection/disease, with underlying transmission mechanisms still unclear. We devised a risk-structured, compartmental model, incorporating sexual behavior dynamics. We compared different strategies targeting the high-risk population: a scenario of control policies geared...

Background Regarding primary and secondary cervical cancer prevention, the World Health Organization proposed the cervical cancer elimination strategy that requires countries to achieve 90% uptake of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines and 70% screening uptake. The optimal cervical screening strategy is likely different for unvaccinated and vaccina...

Immune imprinting is a driver known to shape the anti-hemagglutinin (HA) antibody landscape of individuals born within the same birth cohort. With the HA and neuraminidase (NA) proteins evolving at different rates under immune selection pressures, anti-HA and anti-NA antibody responses since childhood influenza infections have not been evaluated in...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has developed into a pandemic. Data-driven techniques can be used to inform and guide public health decision- and policy-makers. In generalizing the spread of a virus over a large area, such as a province, it must be assumed that the transmission occurs as a stochastic process. It is therefore very difficult...

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has demonstrated enhanced transmissibility and escape of vaccine-derived immunity. While first-generation vaccines remain effective against severe disease and death, robust evidence on vaccine effectiveness (VE) against all Omicron infections, irrespective of symptoms, remains sparse. We used a community-wide serosurv...

We tracked the effective reproduction number Rt of the predominant SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron BF.7 in Beijing in November – December 2022 by fitting a transmission dynamic model parameterized with real-time mobility data to (i) the daily number of new symptomatic cases on November 1–11 (when China’s zero-COVID interventions were still strictly enfo...

The first report of the Omicron variant triggered a lot of emotions towards vaccination in South Africa. These emotions are mostly expressed on social media such as Twitter. The result could weaken the confidence level of users even before they are vaccinated. Identifying these emotions and how they change before and during the Omicron variant can...

The co-circulation of two respiratory infections with similar symptoms in a population can significantly overburden a healthcare system by slowing the testing and treatment. The persistent emergence of contagious variants of SARS-CoV-2, along with imperfect vaccines and their waning protections, have increased the likelihood of new COVID-19 outbrea...

We tracked the effective reproduction number R t of Omicron BF.7 in Beijing in November – December 2022 by fitting a transmission dynamic model parameterized with real-time mobility data to (i) the daily number of new symptomatic cases on November 1–11 (when the zero-covid interventions were still strictly enforced) and (ii) the proportion of indiv...

BACKGROUND The currently ongoing global monkeypox outbreak is disproportionately affecting the gay/bisexual “men having sex with men” (gbMSM) community. OBJECTIVE the aim of this study is to use the posts on Twitter to study country-level variations in topics and sentiments toward monkeypox-2SLGBTQIAP+ related topics. Previous infectious outbreaks...

Background The global Mpox (formerly, Monkeypox) outbreak is disproportionately affecting the gay and bisexual men having sex with men community. Objective The aim of this study is to use social media to study country-level variations in topics and sentiments toward Mpox and Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Int...

Background Since the initial Wuhan outbreak, China has been containing COVID-19 outbreaks through its "dynamic zero-COVID" policy. Striking a balance between sustainability and cost-benefit, China has recently begun to adjust its COVID-19 response strategies, e.g. by announcing the "20 measures" on 11 November and further the "10 measures" on 7 Dec...

The Polio eradication campaign has been set back substantially since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent detections of poliovirus transmission in multiple high-income countries suggest suboptimal population immunity in many parts of the world even though polio vaccination has been included in routine childhood immunization for decades. We rev...

The global economy has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries are experiencing a severe and destructive recession. A significant number of firms and businesses have gone bankrupt or been scaled down, and many individuals have lost their jobs. The main goal of this study is to support policy- and decision-makers with additional and r...

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has demonstrated enhanced transmissibility and escape of vaccine-derived immunity. While current vaccines remain effective against severe disease and death, robust evidence on vaccine effectiveness (VE) against all Omicron infections (i.e. irrespective of symptoms) remains sparse. We addressed this knowledge-gap using...

We conducted an observational retrospective study on patients hospitalized with COVID-19, during March 05, 2020, to October 28, 2021, and developed an agent-based model to evaluate effectiveness of recommended healthcare resources (hospital beds and ventilators) management strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Gauteng, South Africa. We measure...