Search results for "Italy"
showing 10 items of 2893 documents
Beneficence and equity: how the covid-19 pandemic exposed our weaknesses in Italy
2020
How did Italy face the issue of allocating beds in Intensive Care Units and ventilators during the COVID-19 outbreak? At the beginning of the epidemic, the Italian Society of Anesthesia Analgesia Resuscitation and Intensive Care issued recommendations that sparked a heated debate. Later, the National Bioethics Committee, the ethical advisory board of the Government, has issued a document, which recognizes that the only admissible criterion to employ in a "pandemic emergency triage" is a clinical criterion. The document actually doesn’t address some core ethical issues, leaving many unanswered questions.
Le poche luci e le molte ombre dei disegni di legge italiani in tema di morte medicalmente assistita
2022
The research analyzes the recent Italian draft laws on Medical Assistance in dying, their strengths and several shortcomings, comparing them with other European laws on this subject. The Italian draft laws are not fully hinged on the exercise of self-de- termination of the suffering person but remain bound to the reference to a condition of proximity to death or the presence of life-sustaining treatments, which in fact cause unjustified inequities in access to a health service aimed at protecting the dignity of the person. Furthermore, the articulation of the procedures for requesting and assessing suitability outlined in the Italian bills does not allow to fully protect the person in a con…
Molecular Epidemiological Survey ofCitrobacter freundiiMisidentified asCronobacterspp. (Enterobacter sakazakii) andEnterobacter hormaecheiIsolated fr…
2011
A total of 75 powdered infant milk formula (PIF) samples collected from pharmacies and drugstores in Western Sicily, Italy, and representative of 12 different brands were analyzed in this study to evaluate their microbiological quality. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol, 32 samples out of 75 were contaminated by enterobacteria. Commercial biochemical API(r) 20E-system identification method indicated that six PIF samples were presumptively contaminated by Cronobacter spp., but further characterization by alpha-glucosidase based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay identification strongly suggested that these strains did not belong to the genus Cronobacter. Phylogen…
Seroprevalence of Norovirus Genogroup IV Antibodies among Humans, Italy, 2010–2011
2014
Antibodies specific to genogroup IV identified in human specimens suggest zoonotic exposure.
Analysis of early strains of the norovirus pandemic variant GII.4 Sydney 2012 identifies mutations in adaptive sites of the capsid protein.
2014
AbstractGlobal surveillance for norovirus identified in 2012 the emergence of a novel pandemic GII.4 variant, termed Sydney 2012. In Italy, the novel pandemic variant was identified as early as November 2011 but became predominant only in the winter season 2012–2013. Upon sequencing and comparison with strains of global origin, the early Sydney 2012 strains were found to differ from those spreading in 2012–2013 in the capsid (ORF2) putative epitopes B, C and D, segregating into a distinct phylogenetic clade. At least three residues (333, 340 and 393, in epitopes B, C and D, respectively) of the VP1 varied among Sydney 2012 strains of different clades. These findings suggest that the spread …
A combined molecular typing approach does not discriminate Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 strains of a predominant sequence-based type in Palermo…
2009
Summary: The sequence-based type 1,4,3,1,1,1 of Legionella pneumophila sg.1 is predominant in the Palermo city environment since several years. In this study, extended sequence-based typing and pulsed field gel electrophoresis were used in a combined approach in the aim to enhance discriminatory power of the molecular typing procedures. However, probably due to a common environmental reservoir and genetic stability, most of the strains circulating in the geographic area under study belong to the same clone and are, consequently, indistinguishable by molecular typing. Investigations of clinical cases and tracing to their environmental source require caution and support from sound epidemiolog…
Identification of the novel Kawasaki 2014 GII.17 human norovirus strain in Italy, 2015
2015
Surveillance of noroviruses in Italy identified the novel GII.17 human norovirus strain, Kawasaki 2014, in February 2015. This novel strain emerged as a major cause of gastroenteritis in Asia during 2014/15, replacing the pandemic GII.4 norovirus strain Sydney 2012, but being reported only sporadically elsewhere. This novel strain is undergoing fast diversification and continuous monitoring is important to understand the evolution of noroviruses and to implement the future strategies on norovirus vaccines.
Carbohydrate assimilation profiles of the first Italian Candida dubliniensis clinical isolates recovered from an HIV-infected individual.
2001
A total of six Candida dubliniensis isolates were obtained during 1 year of monitoring by monthly swabs from the oral cavity of an asymptomatic human immunodeficiency virus-infected individual in Catania, Italy. To the authors' knowledge, this constitutes the first recovery of C. dubliniensis from a human in Italy. Our identification procedure was based on colony color on CHROMagar Candida and carbohydrate assimilation profiles obtained by two commercial systems: API ID 32C and API 20C AUX. Karyotyping by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis confirmed the phenotypic identification. The biocodes obtained with API 20C AUX and with API ID 32C were 6172134 and 7142140015, respectively, for all six …
Epidemiological dynamics of norovirus GII.4 variant New Orleans 2009.
2015
Norovirus (NoV) is one of the major causes of diarrhoeal disease with epidemic, outbreak and sporadic patterns in humans of all ages worldwide. NoVs of genotype GII.4 cause nearly 80–90 % of all NoV infections in humans. Periodically, some GII.4 strains become predominant, generating major pandemic variants. Retrospective analysis of the GII.4 NoV strains detected in Italy between 2007 and 2013 indicated that the pandemic variant New Orleans 2009 emerged in Italy in the late 2009, became predominant in 2010–2011 and continued to circulate in a sporadic fashion until April 2013. Upon phylogenetic analysis based on the small diagnostic regions A and C, the late New Orleans 2009 NoVs circulati…
Candida pararugosa isolation from the oral cavity of an Italian denture wearer
2004
Candida pararugosa was first isolated from human feces, but after the initial description no further recovery from humans has been reported. During a study on oral Candida colonization in denture wearers living in Palermo (Italy), we isolated C. pararugosa from a 61-year-old woman without signs of oral candidosis. This constitutes, to the authors' knowledge, the first isolation of C. pararugosa from the oral cavity. After six months, colonization by C. pararugosa persisted, suggesting that this species could be a component of the normal oral microbiota. The identification procedure we used could be useful in elucidating the epidemiology of C. pararugosa and for establishing its clinical sig…