Parents' awareness and acceptance of HPV vaccination in Italy.

The aims of this study were to evaluate parents' awareness about HPV infection and vaccination and to identify reasons for not accepting vaccination and the type of health professionals involved in information campaigns. The study involved three schools. Overall, 1200 questionnaires were distributed to parents of female students born between 1993 and 2000 (age 12 to 19 years at the time of the study). The majority of students accepted to be vaccinated. Parents received information from different sources.

Epidemiological and virological surveillance of Severe Acute Respiratory Infections in the 2019/2020 season in Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

BACKGROUND: Influenza is a major public health issue. Indeed, in Italy there were 7.6 million symptomatic cases of influenza in the 2019/2020 influenza season (from October 2019 to April 2020). The aim of this study is to analyse the circulation of influenza A and B viruses in hospitalized adult and elderly patients with Severe Acute Respiratory Infections (SARI) at Le Scotte University Hospital in Siena. METHODS: Oropharyngeal swabs were taken from SARI patients, who also completed a questionnaire recording their underlying diseases and vaccination status. Total RNA was extracted from each respiratory swab by means of the QIAamp Viral RNA Mini kit, and RT-PCR was carried out. All statistical analyses were performed by means of GraphPad Prism 6 software and STATA. RESULTS: In this study we collected 68 swabs. The average age of subjects was 79.4 years (C.I.: 76.6-82.3) and 52.9% were female. The subjects had fever (89.7%), fatigue (77%), headache (47%), cough (75%), sore throat (70.5%), and breathlessness (63.2%). We found that 20% of the 68 subjects were positive (13% for A H3N2 and 7% for A H1N1). Of the 68 subjects, 25% had received a seasonal influenza vaccine (91.6% trivalent and 8.4% quadrivalent). CONCLUSIONS: Our study is important in order to determine the timing and spread of influenza viruses and track changes in circulating influenza viruses, so as to inform seasonal influenza vaccine composition. Seasonal vaccination is considered the most effective way to prevent influenza and its complications.

International Travelers' Sociodemographic, Health, and Travel Characteristics: An Italian Study.

BACKGROUND: Approximately the 8% of travelers requires medical care, with the diagnosis of a vaccine-preventable disease. The aim of our study was to analyze the socio-demographic, health and travel characteristics of the Italian international travelers. METHODS: We conducted a cross sectional study from January 2015 to June 2016, at the Travel Medicine Clinic of Siena, asking the doctor to interview patients who attended the Clinic, recording socio-demographic and travel information, malaria prophylaxis, vaccinations. The data were organized in a database and processed by software Stata®. RESULTS: We collected 419 questionnaires. Patients chose 71 countries for their travels; the favorite destinations were: India (6.31%), Thailand (6.31%), and Brazil (5.10%). The mean length of stay was 36.17 days. Italians, students, and freelancers tended to stay abroad for a longer time (mean: 36.4 days, 59.87 days and 64.16 days respectively). 33.17% of our sample used drugs for malaria chemoprophylaxis: 71.9% of them used Atovaquone/Proguanil (Malarone®), 26.6% used Mefloquine (Lariam®), 1.5% other drugs. The vaccinations that travelers mostly got in our study were to prevent hepatitis A (n = 264), the typhoid fever (n = 187), the Tetanus + Diphtheria + Pertussis (n = 165), the Yellow fever (n = 118) and the cholera (n = 78). Twenty-eight (6.68%) refused some recommended vaccinations. The vaccines mostly refused were for Typhoid fever (n = 20), hepatitis a (n = 9), and cholera (n = 9). CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrated that Italian international travelers are at-risk because of their poor vaccinations adherence. This implies that pre-travel counseling is fundamental to increase the knowledge of the risks and the compliance of future travelers.