0000000000329028
AUTHOR
Locatelli F
Trends in the prevalence of asthma and allergic rhinitis in Italy between 1991 and 2010
The prevalence of asthma increased worldwide until the 1990s, but since then there has been no clear temporal pattern. The present study aimed to assess time trends in the prevalence of current asthma, asthma-like symptoms and allergic rhinitis in Italian adults from 1990 to 2010. The same screening questionnaire was administered by mail or phone to random samples of the general population (age 20-44 yrs) in Italy, in the frame of three multicentre studies: the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) (1991-1993; n=6,031); the Italian Study on Asthma in Young Adults (ISAYA) (1998-2000; n=18,873); and the Gene Environment Interactions in Respiratory Diseases (GEIRD) study (2007-2…
First case in Italy of acquired resistance to oseltamivir in an immunocompromised patient with influenza A/H1N1v infection
A pandemic influenza A/H1N1v strain with the neuraminidase H274Y mutation was detected in nasal secretions of a 2-year-old leukemic patient with influenza-like illness after 18 days of treatment with oseltamivir. At baseline, no drug-resistant virus was found, while 4 days after treatment initiation a mix- ture of wild-type and mutated virus was detected. After treatment interruption, the wild type influenza virus re-emerged and became prevalent in nasal secretions after a few days, suggesting the lower fitness of the mutated virus strain. The patient slowly improved concurrently with a decrease in virus load, which resulted negative 42 days after diagnosis. No other drug-resistant influenz…