Nationwide representative serosurvey of third-grade school children to evaluate the hepatitis B vaccination impact in Kyrgyzstan, 2022.

Background: Kyrgyzstan introduced universal hepatitis B childhood vaccination in 1999 to reduce the burden of hepatitis B. In 2016, aligned with the goal of controlling hepatitis B in the WHO European Region, a regional target of 0.5% was set for seroprevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) among targeted birth cohorts.

COVID-19 InfoVaccines: A WHO-supported educational project to promote COVID-19 vaccination information among professionals and the general population.

COVID-19 vaccine uptake varied across countries, in part due to vaccine hesitancy fueled by a lack of trustworthy information. To help health workers provide evidence-based answers to common questions about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination, and thereby, assist individuals´ decisions on vaccine acceptance, COVID-19 InfoVaccines, a joint WHO-EU project, was launched in February 2021 to support COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 6 Eastern European countries. COVID-19 InfoVaccines was made available in seven languages and shared on social media networks.

Memantine suppresses the excitotoxicity but fails to rescue the ataxic phenotype in SCA1 model mice.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder of the cerebellum and brainstem. Memantine has been proposed as a potential treatment for SCA1. It blocks N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors on neurons, reduces excitotoxicity and decreases neurodegeneration in Alzheimer models.

Evaluating the hepatitis B vaccination impact in the Republic of Moldova: A nationwide representative serosurvey of children born in 2013.

Objectives: The WHO European Region set targets for the control of hepatitis B through immunization, including prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) at ≤0.5% in vaccinated cohorts. The Republic of Moldova implemented universal hepatitis B vaccination since 1995.

Developing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations during the pandemic: The experience of Serbia's Expert Committee on Immunization.

A National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) is a multi-disciplinary body of national experts that provide evidence-based recommendations to policy-makers to assist them in making informed immunization policy and programme decisions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NITAGs faced many challenges in making evidence-based recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines due to the rapidly evolving situation with new vaccine products available in a short time period and limited data on vaccine effectiveness. The authors reviewed the process used by Serbia's NITAG, which is called the Serbian Expert Committee on Immunization, to develop COVID-19 vaccine recommendations during the pandemic.