0000000000288271
AUTHOR
Giovanni Vitali Rosati
Fourteen years’ clinical experience and the first million babies protected with human live-attenuated vaccine against rotavirus disease in Italy
Rotavirus (RV) causes up to half of hospital and community acute gastroenteritis (AGE) cases in young children in Italy. Two RV vaccines, available since 2006, are human RV (HRV) and human bovine RV (HBRV). This report looks back at the implementation of RV vaccination with HRV in Italy, and at HRV current and future perspectives. Initial regional policies led to national implementation by 2018, after scientific societies’ disease awareness efforts. Following vaccination, RV hospitalizations declined significantly, and cost savings were observed. The two-dose HRV vaccine is easily administered during compulsory vaccine visits, helping increase coverage. Intussusception, a serious event in c…
Monitoring the rate of hospitalization before rotavirus immunization in Italy utilizing ICD9-CM regional databases
BACKGROUND: Recently, two Rotavirus (RV) vaccines were licensed in Italy, rendering RV illness a vaccine preventable disease. To assess the RV hospitalization rate in Italy, a study focused on the Regional hospital discharge forms (HDD) databases was carried out. RESULTS: Regional HDD databases from Piemonte, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Marche were analyzed. A total of 434,335 hospitalizations were counted in the study timeframe and 13,234 VE diagnoses (3% of hospitalizations) were collected. A total of 8546 RVE cases (2% of hospitalizations, 64% of all VE) were observed, of which 1.2% were primary diagnoses (PD) and 0.8% secondary diagnosis (SD). The RVE hospitalization peak (4.9%) w…