Awareness of vaccination status and its predictors among working people in Switzerland

BACKGROUND: Adult vaccination status may be difficult to obtain, often requiring providers to rely on individual patient recall. To determine vaccination status awareness and the sociodemographic predictors of awareness for tetanus, hepatitis A and B, tick born encephalitis (TBE) and influenza vaccination. METHODS: Multivariate analyses were used to evaluate a questionnaire survey of 10 321 employees (4070 women and 6251 men aged 15–72 years) of two companies in Switzerland. RESULTS: Among 10 321 respondents, 75.5% reported knowing their tetanus vaccination status, 64.1% hepatitis A, 61.1% hepatitis B, 64.3% TBE and 71.9% influenza. Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 employees were not aware of their vaccination status. Differences in awareness for the five vaccinations considered correlated with gender and language. These differences persisted in multivariate analyses. CONCLUSION: Women employees, German-speaking employees and employees who paid more attention to their diet were more often aware of their vaccination status. A more reliable and readily accessible data source for vaccination status is needed in order to capitalize on opportunities to update vaccinations among Swiss employees

Illustrating and homology modeling the proteins of the Zika virus

The Zika virus (ZIKV) is a flavivirus of the family Flaviviridae, which is similar to dengue virus, yellow fever and West Nile virus. Recent outbreaks in South America, Latin America, the Caribbean and in particular Brazil have led to concern for the spread of the disease and potential to cause Guillain-Barré syndrome and microcephaly. Although ZIKV has been known of for over 60 years there is very little in the way of knowledge of the virus with few publications and no crystal structures. No antivirals have been tested against it either in vitro or in vivo. ZIKV therefore epitomizes a neglected disease. Several suggested steps have been proposed which could be taken to initiate ZIKV antiviral drug discovery using both high throughput screens as well as structure-based design based on homology models for the key proteins. We now describe preliminary homology models created for NS5, FtsJ, NS4B, NS4A, HELICc, DEXDc, peptidase S7, NS2B, NS2A, NS1, E stem, glycoprotein M, propeptide, capsid and glycoprotein E using SWISS-MODEL. Eleven out of 15 models pass our model quality criteria for their further use. While a ZIKV glycoprotein E homology model was initially described in the immature conformation as a trimer, we now describe the mature dimer conformer which allowed the construction of an illustration of the complete virion. By comparing illustrations of ZIKV based on this new homology model and the dengue virus crystal structure we propose potential differences that could be exploited for antiviral and vaccine design. The prediction of sites for glycosylation on this protein may also be useful in this regard. While we await a cryo-EM structure of ZIKV and eventual crystal structures of the individual proteins, these homology models provide the community with a starting point for structure-based design of drugs and vaccines as well as a for computational virtual screening

Durchimpfung von Kleinkindern im Kanton Zürich

At present there is a shortage of data regarding the rate of routine immunization in Swiss children. To address this deficit, a representative cross sectional study was conducted in the Canton of Zurich with 210 children aged between 24 and 36 months. Data was taken from the individual official vaccination certificates. 178 vaccination certificates (55.1% female and 44.9% male) were evaluated, corresponding to a response rate of 84.8%. With children of foreign nationalities, the response rate was 66.7%, whereas the response rate of Swiss children was 90.6% (p < 0.001). The response rate of children of a European nationality outside the European Union was especially poor (33.3%). The immunization rate with three doses of diphtheria, tetanus and poliomyelitis vaccines was 99.4%, and that of the pertussis vaccine was 93.3%. With the vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella the rates were 80.3%, 78.1% and 77.5% respectively. Vaccination rate against Haemophilus influenzae type B was 74.7% with two doses, and 61.2% with three doses. The timing and the number of doses of the vaccines used for infants in the Canton of Zurich were satisfactory. However, the vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella is inadequate. Attention should be paid to this problem and also to possible insufficient care of foreign children

Can protamine be used during perfusion with heparin surface coated equipment?

Left heart bypass (LHBP) with heparin coated perfusion equipment including an arterial filter (pore size: 40 microns) was performed in five canine experiments after full systemic heparinization (heparin 300 IU/kg; activated coagulation time [ACT] &gt; 480 sec). The heparin coated filter was replaced after 45 min with a second heparin coated filter. Protamine (1:1) was added after 45 min and perfusion was continued for another 45 min before the second filter was replaced with an uncoated control filter. In addition to continuous hemodynamic monitoring, all filters were disassembled and analyzed morphometrically with a scanning electron microscope (deposits on screens were expressed as percent of surface covered with fibrin or number of cells/100 micron 2, respectively). For the first heparin coated filter (ACT &gt; 480), 0.3 +/- 0.5% of the surface was covered with fibrin, 0.7 +/- 0.7% with platelets, and 0.02 +/- 0.0% with red cells. For the second heparin coated filter exposed to neutralization of heparin with protamine, surface coverage was fibrin in 22 +/- 15%, platelets in 3.2 +/- 0.8%, and red cells in 0.2 +/- 0.1% (p &lt; 0.05 for all comparisons with filter 1). For uncoated control filters (ACT = 120), surface coverage was fibrin in 31 +/- 33%, platelets in 3.7 +/- 2.9%, and red cells in 0.2 +/- 0.1% (not significant [NS] for all comparisons with filter 2). Although all arterial filters used in this study remained patent throughout the scheduled period, it became clear that protamine given during perfusion reduces the antithrombotic activity of bonded heparin. Hence, protaminization during perfusion with heparin coated equipment cannot be recommended

Childhood immunisation recall in Swiss employees

Abstract: Childhood Immunisation Recall in Swiss Employees: Julian SCHILLING, et al. Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of ZurichDuring the workplace health promotion project &quot;Check Bus&quot;, we asked 10,321 employees (4,070 women, 6,251 men, mean age=39 yr) of two nationwide Swiss enterprises, a large bank and an industrial company, about their vaccination status by using a selfadministered questionnaire. Among all respondents, 43.8% reported having a valid (up to date) tetanus vaccination (&lt;10 years old), 29.9% a pertussis vaccination, 74.2% a poliomyelitis vaccination, 53.8% a tuberculosis vaccination, 22.7% a rubella vaccination and 12.7% an MMR vaccination (measles, mumps, rubella). A large number of respondents had no knowledge of their personal immunisation status. We found significant socio-demographic differences. For all vaccinations, age, gender (with the exception of MMR) and language independently predicted vaccination status. Hierarchic occupational rank was an independent and significant predictor for pertussis, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis vaccinations. Our study showed that especially elderly people, males and Italian speaking participants had a very limited knowledge of their personal vaccination status. (J Occup Health 2002; 44: 40-45