Rapidly Establishing an Ultra-Cold Supply Chain of Vaccines in Israel: Evidence for the Efficacy of Inoculation to Mitigate the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The agenda of this research was to investigate how to mitigate the spread of coronaviruses by rapidly establishing an ultra-cold supply chain of vaccines. Data analysis was conducted by linear regression utilizing a dataset publicly available from the Israel Ministry of Health regarding the daily rates of people vaccinated, tested, hospitalized, etc., since the start of the pandemic. The data provide statistical evidence for the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccines in diminishing a wide variety of disease factors, such as the number of patients who were lightly, moderately, or severely sick, and daily deaths, as well as the rate of spread (R-ratio) and number/percentage of people infected. Insightfully, the data corroborate how the first and second doses of the vaccines were able to decrease the wave of COVID-19, which hit Israel in January 2021, while the booster third dose was able to diminish a subsequent COVID-19 wave occurring in Israel in July 2021.

The Association of Inflammatory Bowel Disease with Coeliac Disease and Coeliac Autoimmunity in Children and Adults: A Nationwide Study from the epi-IIRN.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Given the paucity of population-based data on the association between inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD], coeliac disease [CeD], and coeliac autoimmunity [CeA] we aimed to study the associations in a nationwide study. METHODS: Using health administrative data for all four health maintenance organisations in Israel, covering 98% of the population, we explored the prevalence of CeD in children and adults with IBD versus non-IBD matched controls. CeD was defined by three ICD-9 codes and CeA by positivity for tissue transglutaminase antibodies. RESULTS: In total, 34 375 IBD patients (56% Crohn's disease [CD] and 44% ulcerative colitis [UC]) were compared with 93 603 non-IBD controls. Among IBD patients, 319 [0.93%] had CeD versus 294 [0.31%] non-IBD controls (odds ratio [OR] = 2.97, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.54-3.48; p <0.001). CeA was identified in 575 [1.67%] IBD patients vs 158 [0.17%] controls [OR = 10.06, 95% CI 8.43-12; p <0.001]. The prevalence of CeD was higher in paediatric-onset IBD (87/5243 [1.66%]) than adult-onset IBD (232/29 132 [0.79%]; p <0.001). CD patients had a higher prevalence of CeD (229/19 264 [1.19%]) than UC patients (90/15 111 [0.56%]; OR = 2.01, 95% CI 1.57-2.56; p <0.001). The diagnosis of CeD preceded the diagnosis of IBD in 241/319 cases [76%]. The time to treatment escalation was shorter in patients with both IBD and CeD than in patients with IBD without CeD [p = 0.017]. CONCLUSION: CeD and CeA are more prevalent in IBD patients, especially in paediatric-onset IBD and in CD. The diagnosis of CeD usually precedes that of IBD. Having CeD is associated with more intensified treatment for IBD.