Introducing ROTAVAC® to the occupied Palestinian Territories: Impact on diarrhea incidence, rotavirus prevalence and genotype composition.

Background: Rotavirus infection remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality in children. The introduction of vaccination programs in more than 100 countries has contributed to a decrease in hospitalizations and mortality. This study investigates the epidemiological impact of the rotavirus vaccine ROTAVAC® in the Palestinian Territories, the first country to switch from ROTARIX® to this new vaccine.

The role of time-varying viral shedding in modelling environmental surveillance for public health: revisiting the 2013 poliovirus outbreak in Israel.

Environmental pathogen surveillance is a sensitive tool that can detect early-stage outbreaks, and it is being used to track poliovirus and other pathogens. However, interpretation of longitudinal environmental surveillance signals is difficult because the relationship between infection incidence and viral load in wastewater depends on time-varying shedding intensity. We developed a mathematical model of time-varying poliovirus shedding intensity consistent with expert opinion across a range of immunization states.

Inferring Numbers of Wild Poliovirus Excretors Using Quantitative Environmental Surveillance.

Response to and monitoring of viral outbreaks can be efficiently focused when rapid, quantitative, kinetic information provides the location and the number of infected individuals. Environmental surveillance traditionally provides information on location of populations with contagious, infected individuals since infectious poliovirus is excreted whether infections are asymptomatic or symptomatic. Here, we describe development of rapid (1 week turnaround time, TAT), quantitative RT-PCR of poliovirus RNA extracted directly from concentrated environmental surveillance samples to infer the number of infected individuals excreting poliovirus.

TP53 dysfunction in chronic lymphocytic leukemia: clinical relevance in the era of B-cell receptors and BCL-2 inhibitors.

Introduction: Patients with dysfunction, assessed by del(17p) or mutations, respond poorly to chemo-immunotherapy and fare better with the new therapies (BCR and BCL-2 inhibitors); however, it is unclear whether their response is similar to that of patients without anomalies or whether there is currently an adequate determination of dysfunction.

Area Covered: A literature search was undertaken on clinical trials and real-world experience data on patients with dysfunction treated with different protocols. Moreover, data on the biological function and on the tests currently employed for its assessment were reviewed.

Rhinovirus infections in infants suggest that early detection can prevent unnecessary treatment.

Background: Human rhinoviruses (hRV) are small, RNA viruses of the Picornaviridae family, which are divided into three subtypes (A, B, C). hRVs are among the most common causes for acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) involving both the upper and lower respiratory tract.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the magnitude and characteristics of hRV infections in hospitalized children, aged less than 5 years, hospitalized in Israel during 2011-2012.

Comparison of the new fully automated extraction platform eMAG to the MagNA PURE 96 and the well-established easyMAG for detection of common human respiratory viruses.

Respiratory viral infections constitute the majority of samples tested in the clinical virology laboratory during the winter season, and are mainly diagnosed using molecular assays, namely real-time PCR (qPCR). Therefore, a high-quality extraction process is critical for successful, reliable and sensitive qPCR results. Here we aimed to evaluate the performance of the newly launched eMAG compared to the fully automated MagNA PURE 96 (Roche, Germany) and to the semi-automated easyMAG (bioMerieux, France) extraction platforms.

Evaluation of Shigella Species Azithromycin CLSI Epidemiological Cutoff Values and Macrolide Resistance Genes.

Azithromycin (AZM) has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for the treatment of shigellosis in children. In this study, 502 species isolated between 2004 and 2014 were tested for AZM epidemiological cutoff values (ECV) by disk diffusion. AZM MICs and the presence of the macrolide resistance genes [(A), (B), (C), (A), (B), (A), (B), (D), (A), and (A)] were determined for all 56 (11.

Lenalidomide for the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma.

Although a variety of therapeutic schemes for Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) have been attempted, the clinical outcome of patients continues to be unsatisfactory especially among patients with a very high-risk profile and in the relapsed/refractory setting. For this reason, recent clinical trials have explored novel approaches, either by the use of biological agents in chemotherapy-free schedules or by integrating them with chemoimmunotherapy regimens. Areas covered: The efficacy of lenalidomide monotherapy and combination therapy established in clinical studies mainly involving relapsed/refractory MCL is reviewed.

Human Coronavirus Infections in Israel: Epidemiology, Clinical Symptoms and Summer Seasonality of HCoV-HKU1.

Human coronaviruses (HCoVs) cause mild to severe respiratory diseases. Six types of HCoVs have been discovered, the most recent one termed the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The aim of this study is to monitor the circulation of HCoV types in the population during 2015⁻2016 in Israel.

Characterization of human parainfluenza virus-3 circulating in Israel, 2012-2015.

Background: Human parainfluenza virus 3 (hPIV-3) causes respiratory tract infection.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiology of hPIV-3 infection among hospitalized patients and characterize the circulating strains.

Study Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted using respiratory samples of 15,946 hospitalized patients with respiratory symptoms in 2012-2015 in Israel.

Adenovirus respiratory tract infections in infants: a retrospective chart-review study.

Background: Human adenoviruses have an important role in paediatric respiratory tract infections. They are estimated to cause 2-5% of the overall respiratory tract infections and 4-10% of all pneumonias. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical presentation and effect of adenoviral infection on the management of infected infants.

Forty five percent of the Israeli population were infected with the influenza B Victoria virus during the winter season 2015-16.

While infection with influenza A viruses has been extensively investigated, infections with influenza B viruses which are commonly categorized into the highly homologous Victoria and Yamagata lineages, are less studied, despite their considerable virulence. Here we used RT-PCR assays, hemagglutination inhibition assays and antibody titers to determine the levels of influenza B infection. We report of high influenza B Victoria virus prevalence in the 2015-16 winter season in Israel, affecting approximately half of the Israeli population.

Detection of Helicobacter pylori in stool samples of young children using real-time polymerase chain reaction.

Background: The aims of this study were to develop and validate a multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR) assay of Helicobacter pylori in stool samples of healthy children. Additionally, we determined the prevalence of clarithromycin resistance and cagA gene in H. pylori-positive samples.

Ongoing mumps outbreak in Israel, January to August 2017.

In Israel, 262 mumps cases were registered between 1 January and 28 August 2017 despite a vaccine coverage of ≥ 96%. The majority (56.5%) of cases were adolescents and young adults between 10 and 24 years of age.

Characterization of Carbapenem-Resistant Strains Isolated from Hospitalized Patients in Palestine.

The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recognizes as a source of global outbreaks and epidemics especially due to its increasing resistance to commercially available antibiotics. In this study, 69 single patient multidrug resistant isolates collected from all over Palestine, except Gaza, were studied. All the isolates were resistant to all the -lactam antibiotics including the carbapenems.

Genetic divergence of Influenza A(H3N2) amino acid substitutions mark the beginning of the 2016-2017 winter season in Israel.

Background: Influenza vaccine composition is reevaluated each year due to the frequency and accumulation of genetic changes that influenza viruses undergo. The beginning of the 2016-2017 influenza surveillance period in Israel has been marked by the dominance of influenza A(H3N2).

Objectives: To evaluate the type, subtype, genetic evolution and amino acid substitutions of influenza A(H3N2) viruses detected among community patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) and hospitalized patients with respiratory illness in the first weeks of the 2016-2017 influenza season.

A(H1N1)pdm09 influenza infection: vaccine inefficiency.

The last influenza pandemic, caused by the swine A(H1N1)pdm09 influenza virus, began in North America at 2009. Since then, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended integration of the swine-based virus A/California/07/2009 strain in yearly vaccinations. Yet, infections with A(H1N1)pdm09 have continued in subsequent years.

Influenza A(H1N1)pdm 2009 and influenza B virus co-infection in hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients during the 2015-2016 epidemic season in Israel.

Background: Influenza A and B viruses co-infections are rare events and mainly occurred in immunocompromised patients.

Objectives: In this study we report an unusually high occurrence of influenza A (H1N1)pdm 2009 and influenza B virus co-infections during the epidemic year 2015-2016.

Study Design: Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 1919 patients visiting 26 outpatient clinics distributed throughout Israel and presenting with influenza-like illness.

Human enterovirus D68 in clinical and sewage samples in Israel.

Background: Since mid-August 2014, North America experienced a wide outbreak of Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) associated with severe respiratory illness in children. Several other countries also reported cases of EV-D68 in 2014.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine whether EV-D68 circulated in Israel in 2014, caused severe respiratory illness in children and was the causative agent of Acute Flaccid Paralysis.

Population Screening Using Sewage Reveals Pan-Resistant Bacteria in Hospital and Community Samples.

The presence of pan-resistant bacteria worldwide possesses a threat to global health. It is difficult to evaluate the extent of carriage of resistant bacteria in the population. Sewage sampling is a possible way to monitor populations.

Epidemiological and Virological Characterization of Influenza B Virus Infections.

While influenza A viruses comprise a heterogeneous group of clinically relevant influenza viruses, influenza B viruses form a more homogeneous cluster, divided mainly into two lineages: Victoria and Yamagata. This divergence has complicated seasonal influenza vaccine design, which traditionally contained two seasonal influenza A virus strains and one influenza B virus strain. We examined the distribution of the two influenza B virus lineages in Israel, between 2011-2014, in hospitalized and in non-hospitalized (community) influenza B virus-infected patients.

Superiority of West Nile Virus RNA Detection in Whole Blood for Diagnosis of Acute Infection.

The current diagnosis of West Nile virus (WNV) infection is primarily based on serology, since molecular identification of WNV RNA is unreliable due to the short viremia and absence of detectable virus in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Recent studies have shown that WNV RNA can be detected in urine for a longer period and at higher concentrations than in plasma. In this study, we examined the presence of WNV RNA in serum, plasma, whole-blood, CSF, and urine samples obtained from patients diagnosed with acute WNV infection during an outbreak which occurred in Israel in 2015.