Risk Factors for Mortality in COVID-19 Hospitalized Patients in Piedmont, Italy: Results from the Multicenter, Regional, CORACLE Registry.

Background: CORACLE is a retrospective and prospective, regional multicenter registry, developed to evaluate risk factors for mortality in a cohort of patients admitted with SARS-CoV-2 infection within non-intensive wards.

Methods: The primary objective was to estimate the role of several prognostic factors on hospital mortality in terms of adjusted Odds Ratios (aOR) with multivariable logistic regression models.

Results: A total of 1538 patients were enrolled; 42% were female, and 58% were >70 years old.

Outbreak of severe Hepatitis A in Eastern Piedmont, Italy.

Hepatitis A (HA) is caused by a hepatovirus from the family Picornaviridae (Hepatitis A Virus, HAV). Transmission occurs mainly by the orofaecal route through food or water contaminated by faeces. Sexual transmission has also been reported among men who have sex with men (MSM).

From soil to blood: first human case of Sphingobacterium hotanense bacteraemia.

This report describes a case of Sphingobacterium hotanense bacteraemia in a patient scratched by a rooster on the right arm. Diagnostic, clinical and therapeutic features are discussed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of Sphingobacterium hotanense bacteremia reported in the medical literature.

Global Warming and Its Health Impact.

Since the mid-19th century, human activities have increased greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide in the Earth's atmosphere that resulted in increased average temperature. The effects of rising temperature include soil degradation, loss of productivity of agricultural land, desertification, loss of biodiversity, degradation of ecosystems, reduced fresh-water resources, acidification of the oceans, and the disruption and depletion of stratospheric ozone. All these have an impact on human health, causing non-communicable diseases such as injuries during natural disasters, malnutrition during famine, and increased mortality during heat waves due to complications in chronically ill patients.

Climate, environment and transmission of malaria.

Malaria, the most common parasitic disease in the world, is transmitted to the human host by mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. The transmission of malaria requires the interaction between the host, the vector and the parasite.The four species of parasites responsible for human malaria are Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium vivax.

Arthrographis kalrae arthritis: a new case report.

To date, only 11 cases of infection by Arthrographis kalrae have been described. According to the literature, we report a second case of arthritis caused by this mycete after a penetrating wound successfully treated with voriconazole before arthroscopic knee washout for six weeks.

[The mosquito-borne viruses in Europe].

Epidemiologic changes of vector-borne diseases in recent years have multiple causes, including climate change. There are about 3500 species of mosquitoes worldwide, three-quarters of which live in tropical and subtropical wetlands. Main viruses transmitted by mosquitoes in Europe belong to the genus Flavivirus; some of them have been recently reported in Italy (Usutu and Japanese encephalitis virus), while others have been circulating for years and autochthonous transmission has been documented (West Nile virus).

[Vector transmitted diseases and climate changes in Europe].

The increase in temperatures recorded since the mid-nineteenth century is unprecedented in the history of mankind. The consequences of climate changes are numerous and can affect human health through direct (extreme events, natural disasters) or indirect (alteration of the ecosystem) mechanisms. Climate changes have repercussions on ecosystems, agriculture, social conditions, migration, conflicts and the transmission mode of infectious diseases.

[Parvovirus B19 in adult: report of two cases].

Parvovirus B19 infection is asymptomatic in the majority of cases, but the are several well-known clinical manifestation. In adults transient aplastic crisis, chronic anemia, arthropathy, meningitis, encephalitis, myocarditis and acute hepatitis have been described. In this paper the Authors report two cases - arthropathy and acute hepatitis - of Parvovirus B19 infection in adults.

Clearance of 14-3-3 protein from cerebrospinal fluid heralds the resolution of bacterial meningitis.

The 14-3-3 protein, a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) marker of neuronal damage that was recently adopted for the diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is also found in the CSF of patients with a variety of neurological disorders. We prospectively studied 12 consecutive patients with purulent bacterial meningitis and found that 14-3-3 protein was detected in all patients at admission to the hospital. All patients who recovered cleared 14-3-3 protein from the CSF before discharge from the hospital (this was the first CSF marker to clear), whereas those who died never cleared the protein.

[Signs and symptoms that lead to clinical hypothesis of infective endocarditis].

We studied clinical presentations on admission in Infectious Disease Wards of 1053 patients (308 i.v. drug abusers and 745 non drug abusers) with IE validated according to the Duke Hospitals' criteria, from a total of 1164 patients observed from 1984 to 1999.