Communication about vaccinations in Italian websites: A quantitative analysis

Babies' parents and people who look for information about vaccination often visit anti-vaccine movement's websites, blogs by naturopathic physicians or natural and alternative medicine practitioners. The aim of this work is to provide a quantitative analysis on the type of information available to Italian people regarding vaccination and a quality analysis of websites retrieved through our searches. A quality score was created to evaluate the technical level of websites. A research was performed through Yahoo, Google, and MSN using the keywords "vaccine" and "vaccination," with the function "OR" in order to identify the most frequently used websites. The 2 keywords were input in Italian, and the first 15 pages retrieved by each search engine were analyzed. 149 websites were selected through this methodology. Fifty-three per cent of the websites belonged to associations, groups, or scientific companies, 32.2% (n = 48) consisted of a personal blog and 14.8% (n = 22) belonged to some of the National Health System offices. Among all analyzed websites, 15.4% (n = 23) came from anti-vaccine movement groups. 37.6% reported webmaster name, 67.8% webmaster e-mail, 28.6% indicated the date of the last update and 46.6% the author's name. The quality score for government sites was higher on average than anti-vaccine websites; although, government sites don't use Web 2.0 functions, as the forums.: National Health System institutions who have to promote vaccination cannot avoid investing in web communication because it cannot be managed by private efforts but must be the result of Public Health, private and scientific association, and social movement synergy

Risk of infectious mononucleosis among agonistic swimmers: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The risk of infectious mononucleosis among athletes is quite debated. Some personal observations seem to suggest an increase risk of mononucleosis among athletes, because they attend always close settings with an high probability of respiratory pathogens transmission; overtraining has been also proposed as risk factor. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study in a group of swimmers (aged 11-14 years) of the University Sport Centre of Bari. METHODS: 40 swimmers were interviewed by healthcare personnel at the end of training courses; demographic characteristics, personal habits, information about sport training and diagnosis of mononucleosis were analysed. RESULTS: The life-time incidence of mononucleosis was around 40%; multivariate analysis showed the association between mononucleosis and use of bottles of other persons (aOR=8.2; 95% CI=1.4-49.2; z=2.32; p=0.021) and average duration of training session was longer among subjects who reported mononucleosis than in subjects who did not indicate this disease. CONCLUSIONS: Future multi-centric studies are needed to better define the epidemiology of the mononucleosis in sport settings and to formulate appropriate recommendations to prevent the spreading of this disease

Common and rare variant association analyses in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis identify 15 risk loci with distinct genetic architectures and neuron-specific biology

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with a lifetime risk of one in 350 people and an unmet need for disease-modifying therapies. We conducted a cross-ancestry genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 29,612 patients with ALS and 122,656 controls, which identified 15 risk loci. When combined with 8,953 individuals with whole-genome sequencing (6,538 patients, 2,415 controls) and a large cortex-derived expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) dataset (MetaBrain), analyses revealed locus-specific genetic architectures in which we prioritized genes either through rare variants, short tandem repeats or regulatory effects. ALS-associated risk loci were shared with multiple traits within the neurodegenerative spectrum but with distinct enrichment patterns across brain regions and cell types. Of the environmental and lifestyle risk factors obtained from the literature, Mendelian randomization analyses indicated a causal role for high cholesterol levels. The combination of all ALS-associated signals reveals a role for perturbations in vesicle-mediated transport and autophagy and provides evidence for cell-autonomous disease initiation in glutamatergic neurons

How Italian hospital Web sites communicate risk management strategies: The case of hospital-acquired infections

We aimed to investigate the Web site contents of Italian National Health System structures regarding health care-associated infection (HAI). For each Web site a form inquiring about the availability of information about HAI issues and their prevention was filled in. An HAI section was available in the Web site of 19.3% of facilities. In 1.6% of Web sites this information was available on the homepage. The most frequently reported information was related to infection control practitioners, HAI surveillance systems, and handwashing hygiene. In conclusion, the communication of risks related to clinical practice should be part of risk management systems and should assume a significant position in content strategy activities. Copyright © 2014 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved

Report of a pertussis outbreak in a low coverage booster vaccination group of otherwise healthy children in Italy

BACKGROUND: The introduction of universal pertussis immunization and the high coverage achieved in most developed countries have largely changed the epidemiology of the disease. Although vaccination rates are high in the first year of life, the rates of booster doses are unsatisfactory and lead to the onset of outbreaks. This report describes an outbreak of pertussis affecting school students already immunized in a town of Puglia (Italy), detected at the end of April 2009. METHODS: Vaccine effectiveness is measured by calculating the incidence rates (attack rates- AR) of disease among vaccinated (ARV) and unvaccinated (ARU) people and determining the percentage reduction in the incidence rate of disease among vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated people. RESULTS: The index case was a healthy child, female, 9-years-old who attended a local elementary school and developed pertussis on 27 April 2009. The secondary cases were the aunt and the cousin of the index case who developed a cough on 10 May 2009. In the elementary class of the index case, a cluster occurred. The overall AR was 15.8%, in particular 20% in children who did not receive the booster doses at 5-6 years old (ARU) and 14.3% in children receiving the booster (ARV). The VE of booster dose in this setting was 28.5%. Moreover, only the index case developed a persistent cough; the VE against moderate to severe pertussis was 100%. A cluster was detected in the middle school class that the cousin of the index case attended; AR was 44.4% (12/27); ARU was 50% (10/20) and ARV 28.6% (2/7). VE in this setting was 42.8%. CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirm the need to administer booster doses; failure the booster is the principal determinant for the outbreak onset