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While canine pets offer significant psychological and physical benefits to their owners, especially children, there are well-documented health risks associated with pathogens that can be transmitted to humans.To determine the prevalence of intestinal parasites, with an emphasis on zoonotic ones, in children and their dogs, and to identify risk factors associated with infection, a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in children from primary schools in the Cerro municipality, province of Havana. One hundred and three children (36 with dogs and 67 without pets) from fifth and sixth grades were selected. Three stool samples were collected on alternate days, and one stool sample was collected from their pets using conventional coproparasitological techniques between September and December 2023. The results showed a prevalence of 38.8% of intestinal parasites in the children studied. Blastocystis spp. (30.1%) and Giardia duodenalis (17.5%) were the most prevalent zoonotic species. Ancylostoma caninum (8.3%) was the most frequent zoonotic parasite in dogs. Male sex was the only variable that showed statistical significance, associated with a higher risk of infection. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of intestinal parasites in the group of children with dogs compared to those without pets, and no statistical association in the analyzed epidemiological variablesIt is important to develop a One Health approach for the control of these zoonoses, as dogs can act as important sentinels of public health.

Chocolate is one of the most widely consumed confectionery products among adolescents, a developmental stage characterized by significant emotional, psychological, and neurobiological changes. Growing scientific interest in nutritional psychiatry has prompted investigation into the potential relationship between chocolate intake and mental health outcomes in this age group. This narrative review examines current evidence exploring the association between chocolate consumption and psychological well-being, including depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress regulation, mood, and broader emotional health in adolescents.Existing literature suggests that chocolate, particularly cocoa-rich varieties, contains bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, methylxanthines, and essential minerals that may influence neurotransmitter activity, cerebral blood flow, and neuroinflammatory pathways. These mechanisms may contribute to short-term mood enhancement and stress reduction. However, findings remain inconsistent, as frequent consumption of highly processed, sugar-rich chocolate products has been associated with adverse mental health outcomes and maladaptive eating behaviors.The review also highlights important moderating factors, including chocolate type, consumption frequency, lifestyle patterns, and psychosocial influences unique to adolescence. Methodological limitations, such as reliance on self-reported dietary data and limited longitudinal or experimental research, contribute to variability in study findings.Overall, the evidence suggests that chocolate consumption may exert both beneficial and detrimental effects on adolescent mental health depending on its composition and consumption patterns. Further high-quality longitudinal and experimental studies incorporating standardized dietary assessments and biological markers are necessary to clarify these relationships and inform evidence-based dietary and mental health strategies for adolescents.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) across disease surveillance, epidemiological forecasting, medical imaging, prognosis, drug discovery, vaccine research, contact tracing, and public-health decision support. This review synthesizes the literature on these applications while critically examining the evidence needed for translation into clinical and public-health practice. A structured literature-search and selection framework was used to organize evidence published from the emergence of COVID-19 through the contemporary literature, with emphasis on peer-reviewed studies and recent reviews. The evidence was synthesized according to the pandemic-response pathway: early warning and surveillance; diagnosis and differential diagnosis; severity and prognosis; clinical and resource decision support; therapeutic and vaccine discovery; genomic surveillance; and privacy-preserving and responsible AI. Across these domains, AI demonstrates potential to process heterogeneous data and support time-sensitive decisions, but reported performance does not by itself establish clinical utility. Recurring limitations include small or non-representative datasets, dataset shift, limited external validation, class imbalance, information leakage, insufficient calibration and interpretability, privacy and security risks, and uncertainty about workflow integration and regulatory accountability. Recent systematic reviews also indicate that multimodal, federated, and privacy-preserving approaches remain less developed than conventional centralized models. The principal contribution of this review is a unified critical framework that links technical performance with data quality, external validation, clinical relevance, fairness, privacy, interpretability, and implementation readiness. The review therefore identifies not only where AI has been applied to COVID-19, but also the conditions required for responsible translation to clinical practice and future pandemic preparedness.