THE NEW CENTENNIAL SNOW INITIATIVE FOR THE GREATER ALPINE REGION (GAR). STATUS REPORT AND FIRST RESULTS

Snow is a significant element in the climate system and has great impact on ecosystem and economy in the Alps, too. Astonishingly there is still a strong gap between the data potential and the data availability. Caused by the existing deficits we started a digitising, quality evaluation, homogenising and analysing initiative for the Alpine region. For the first time we can present a 21-year (1895-1915) daily, high density dataset that was electronically scanned from historic hydro-yearbooks for recent Austria and additional some surrounding regions in Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Czech Republic. We hope that our snow initiative will grow to a pan-alpine effort to fill the existing lack of information

Chronic use of inhaled corticosteroids in patients admitted for respiratory virus infections: a 6-year prospective multicenter study

International audienceInhaled corticosteroids (ICS) have been associated with increased risk of pneumonia. Their impact on respiratory virus infections is unclear. We performed a post-hoc analysis of the FLUVAC cohort, a multicenter prospective cohort study of adults hospitalized with influenza-like illness (ILI) during six consecutive influenza seasons (2012–2018). All patients were tested for respiratory virus infection by multiplex PCR on nasopharyngeal swabs and/or bronchoalveolar lavage. Risk factors were identified by logistic regression analysis. Among the 2658 patients included, 537 (20.2%) were treated with ICS before admission, of whom 282 (52.5%, 282/537) tested positive for at least one respiratory virus. Patients on ICS were more likely to test positive for non-influenza respiratory viruses (25.1% vs. 19.5%, P = 0.004), especially for adenovirus (aOR 2.36, 95% CI 1.18–4.58), and respiratory syncytial virus (aOR 2.08, 95% CI 1.39–3.09). Complications were reported in 55.9% of patients on ICS (300/537), primarily pneumonia (171/535, 32%). Among patients on chronic ICS who tested positive for respiratory virus, 14.2% (40/282) were admitted to intensive care unit, and in-hospital mortality rate was 2.8% (8/282). Chronic use of ICS is associated with an increased risk of adenovirus or RSV infections in patients admitted for ILI