influenza vaccine

Correlation of seasonal influenza rates with hospital-acquired Clostridioides difficile rates: Implications for research and interventions for prevention.

Faris Peter P, Leal Jenine J, Lamont Nicole N, Ocampo Wrechelle W et al.

Hospital-acquired Clostridioides difficile infection (HA-CDI) rate variability can create challenges for assessing interventions that might improve rates. We therefore sought to assess whether seasonal trends in HA-CDI could be related to influenza rates by examining the sensitivity and applicability of statistical methods that identify seasonal trend associations. We assessed HA-CDI rates per 10,000 patient-days and influenza hospitalizations per 1,000 admissions in four acute care facilities from January 2016 to December 2018. Four statistical approaches were used in R (4.5.1) including (1) autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA); (2) cross-correlation to assess if dependencies lagged over time; (3) Poisson harmonic regression to model cyclical trends; and (4) Poisson harmonic regression models including influenza rates. ARIMA approaches did not detect seasonality in HA-CDI rates, but found strong seasonality in the influenza rates, whereas cross-correlation analysis found evidence of correlation between the series at a lag of zero (R = 0.41, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.65) and provided an indication of a seasonal relationship. Poisson harmonic regression for trends suggested that influenza rates predicted CDI rates (p < 0.01), whilst Poisson harmonic regression identified evidence of seasonality in HA-CDI rates (p < 0.05) and influenza rates (p < 0.001). Poisson harmonic regression provided a sensitive means of identifying seasonality in HA-CDI rates with the seasonality effect being accounted for by influenza admission rates, which may be mediated by inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions. This observation may be useful in interpreting future interventions to reduce HA-CDI.

Penetration of avian and human influenza A viruses through mucus gel networks in vitro.

Rohde Maximilian M, Riegel Fiona F, Duran Ege E, Butnarasu Cosmin Stefan CS et al.

Influenza A viruses (IAVs) remain a public-health concern because of their continuous evolution and zoonotic transmission. Respiratory mucus is the first extracellular barrier encountered by inhaled viruses, yet standardized approaches for studying influenza virus passage through mucus and the infectivity of transferred virus populations remain limited. Here, we established an in vitro virus-mucus penetration assay to analyze IAV interactions with standardized mucin-containing matrices. We used mucus from human Calu-3 airway epithelial cells cultured under air-liquid interface conditions and bovine submaxillary mucin as surrogate matrices. Preparations were normalized by total protein and characterized using biochemical and biophysical methods. We compared a human seasonal H1N1pdm virus with a highly-pathogenic avian H5N1 virus. Viral genome transfer was quantified by RT-qPCR, while retained infectivity was assessed in susceptible cells. Both mucin-containing matrices restricted viral passage compared with control solutions. Viral RNA transfer and retained infectivity varied by matrix and virus, although no statistically significant difference between H1N1pdm and H5N1 was detected within either matrix. Together, these results establish a framework integrating mucus characterization with complementary measurements of viral transfer and infectivity. This approach provides a basis for investigating influenza virus-mucus interactions under controlled conditions and can be extended to other IAV strains and physiologically relevant mucus sources.

Extinction or Dormancy: A Perspective on B/Yamagata Lineage Influenza Viruses.

Li Jia Xin JX, Sang Jia Yu JY, Yang Yan Y, Zhao Ying Ze YZ et al.

Evaluating parents' perceptions of infectious diseases and their levels of protection in terms of vaccination attitudes and vaccine hesitancy.

Gökçay Gönül G, Küçük Hulya Incirkuş HI, Sezer Nazlı Akar NA, Aydin Cansu Mine CM et al.

This research was conducted to evaluate parents' perceptions of infectious diseases and their levels of protection in terms of vaccination attitudes and vaccine hesitancy. The research is descriptive and relational was conducted online with 560 parents of children aged 0-5 years between March 8 and November 8, 2024. Convenience sampling method was used in the study. For data collection, a questionnaire form including personal information form, Perception Scale on Communicable Diseases (PSCD), Parental Attitudes Towards Childhood Vaccines Scale (PACVS), and Vaccine Hesitancy Scale (VHS) in parents of children under five years of age was used. The evaluation of data was performed via SPSS V-27.0 package program. A total of 560 parents took part in this study, and the participants scored an average of 148.81 ± 18.53 points on the PSCD total, 53.42 ± 8.91 points on the Vaccine Attitude Scale total, and 24.89 ± 8.49 points on the Vaccine Hesitancy Scale total. PSCD explains 13.4% of the total PACVS score. A low-level statistically significant correlation was found between the total PSCD and VHS scores. Parents' communicative disease perception and their protection levels affect their vaccination attitudes and vaccine hesitancy. Sociodemographic characteristics, vaccine knowledge and the sources from which they obtain information have both positive and negative relationships on vaccine attitude and vaccine hesitancy. In order to prevent the increasing vaccine refusal in the society, it is recommended that health professionals inform parents through individualized trainings on immunization.