Evaluation of adult dTPaP vaccination coverage in France: experience in Lyon city, 2010-2011.

BACKGROUND: Compliance with official recommendations can be assessed by evaluating vaccination coverage (VC) in populations. The main objective of our study was to assess VC of adults against diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis and pertussis (dTPaP) according to age. The second objective was to explore if vaccination status could be confirmed by documentation. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 680 adults consulting for biological examination in private laboratories in Lyon (France) to evaluate VC for diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis and pertussis (dTPaP) and enabled reported vaccinations to be compared with documented, confirmed vaccinations. RESULTS: Verification of documented, confirmed vaccinations disclosed VC of 78.7% for tetanus, 63.6% for poliomyelitis, 57.8% for diphtheria and 10.7% for pertussis. Comparison of confirmed and self-reported vaccinations revealed that a large percentage of people who thought that they were vaccinated were not. VC significantly decreased with age for diphtheria and poliomyelitis and did not vary by gender. The VC rate for pertussis has increased since the 2008 recommendations were made. CONCLUSIONS: The main thrust of this study was to compare reported and confirmed data. A significant percentage of people wrongly believed that they were up to date with their vaccination.

Perception of epidemic's related anxiety in the general French population: a cross-sectional study in the Rhône-Alpes region.

BACKGROUND: To efficiently plan appropriate public health interventions during possible epidemics, governments must take into consideration the following factors about the general population: their knowledge of epidemics, their fears of and psychological responses to them, their level of compliance with government measures and their communities' trusted sources of information. However, such surveys among the French general population are rare. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2006 in a representative sample of 600 subjects living in the Rhône-Alpes region (south-east France) to investigate self-reported knowledge about infectious diseases and anxiety generated by epidemic risk with particular reference to avian influenza. Data on reactions to potentially new epidemics and the confidence level in various sources of information were also collected. RESULTS: Respondents were most knowledgeable about AIDS, followed by avian influenza. Overall, 75% of respondents had adequate knowledge of avian influenza. The percentage was even higher (88%) among inhabitants of the Ain district, where an avian influenza epidemic had previously been reported. However, 39% expressed anxiety about this disease. In total, 20% of respondents with knowledge about avian influenza stated that they had changed their behaviours during the epizooty. Epidemics were perceived as a real threat by 27% of respondents. In the event of a highly contagious outbreak, the majority of respondents said they would follow the advice given by authorities. The study population expressed a high level of confidence in physicians and scientists, but had strong reservations about politicians, deputies and the media. CONCLUSIONS: Although the survey was conducted only four months after the avian influenza outbreak, epidemics were not perceived as a major threat by the study population. The results showed that in the event of a highly infectious disease, the population would comply with advice given by public authorities.

Diabetes as a risk factor for herpes zoster in adults: A synthetic literature review.

AIM: The objective of this review was to evaluate the role of diabetes as a risk factor for herpes zoster (HZ) and to discuss implications of prevention by vaccination with available HZ vaccines. METHODS: We reviewed studies that investigated the incidence rates of HZ in patients with diabetes. Papers in English or French published between January 2000 and December 2018 have been selected from PubMed and Google Scholarship by using appropriate key words. RESULTS: The risk of HZ was significantly higher in patients with diabetes as compared to controls in 11 studies out of 16, although the magnitude of risk associated to diabetes varied across studies from 1.06 to 2.38 (p < 0.05). The incidence of HZ in patients with diabetes increased with age and was higher in women than in men. The incidence of the most common complication of HZ, i.e. post-herpetic neuralgia was also higher in patients with diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of HZ adds supplementary complications to the pre-existing comorbidity in patients with diabetes. Investigating the impact of preventive measure by HZ vaccination is therefore of paramount importance in patients with diabetes.

Acceptability and perception of the herpes zoster vaccine in the 65 and over population: A French observational study.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the acceptability and to describe the perception of vaccination against herpes zoster (HZ) for outpatients and hospitalized patients in Lyon, France, aged 65 years and over. An observational study was based on a questionnaire completed from a face-to-face interview from January 2018 to March 2019. Volunteer outpatients who attended private medical laboratories or who were hospitalized in the geriatric department, or who were at the ambulatory medical clinic for a consultation were asked to participate. A total of 907 individuals were interviewed, with a mean age of 75.8 years. A large majority 87.6% (795) knew about HZ and 68.9% (625) would agree to be vaccinated against HZ if they had risk factors. The participants had knowledge of HZ as a disease but vaccine awareness is still lacking among the general public.

Professional exposure to goats increases the risk of pneumonic-type lung adenocarcinoma: results of the IFCT-0504-Epidemio study.

Pneumonic-type lung adenocarcinoma (P-ADC) represents a distinct subset of lung cancer with specific clinical, radiological, and pathological features. Given the weak association with tobacco-smoking and the striking similarities with jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV)-induced ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma, it has been suggested that a zoonotic viral agent infecting pulmonary cells may predispose to P-ADC in humans. Our objective was to explore whether exposure to domestic small ruminants may represent a risk factor for P-ADC. We performed a multicenter case-control study recruiting patients with P-ADC as cases and patients with non-P-ADC non-small cell lung cancer as controls. A dedicated 356-item questionnaire was built to evaluate exposure to livestock. A total of 44 cases and 132 controls were included. At multivariate analysis, P-ADC was significantly more associated with female gender (Odds-ratio (OR) = 3.23, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.32-7.87, p = 0.010), never-smoker status (OR = 3.57, 95% CI: 1.27-10.00, p = 0.015), personal history of extra-thoracic cancer before P-ADC diagnosis (OR = 3.43, 95% CI: 1.10-10.72, p = 0.034), and professional exposure to goats (OR = 5.09, 95% CI: 1.05-24.69, p = 0.043), as compared to other subtypes of lung cancer. This case-control suggests a link between professional exposure to goats and P-ADC, and prompts for further epidemiological evaluation of potential environmental risk factors for P-ADC.