Publications by authors named "Sotirios Roussos"

One of the World Health Organization's targets for the 2030 viral hepatitis elimination strategy is to reduce new hepatitis C (HCV) infections. In Athens, Greece, people who inject drugs (PWID) have a high HCV prevalence, with increasing trends since the 2000s. This analysis aims to assess primary HCV incidence among PWID during 2012-2020.

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Article Synopsis
  • New HIV-1 infections among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Athens increased significantly in 2011, with ongoing transmission remaining even after a decline post-2013.
  • The study estimated the time from infection to diagnosis for 844 PWID and found a median time of 0.42 years during the outbreak and 0.70 years from 2016-2019.
  • The analysis revealed that 93.5% of infections during 2016-2019 were clustered, indicating a persistent HIV outbreak among PWID and highlighting the need for focused interventions.
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Background: Mortality among people who inject drugs (PWID) is high, with overdose and HIV infection being the main causes of death. In Greece, there have been no data on mortality, and two HIV outbreaks have been recorded in this population in the past decade. In this study, we aim to estimate the all-cause crude mortality rate and the standardised mortality ratio in this population during 2018-2022.

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Article Synopsis
  • - RASopathies contribute to about 20% of childhood hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) cases and are linked to a risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD), but the specific risk factors for SCD in this group hadn’t been thoroughly researched until now.
  • - The study analyzed 169 children with RASopathy-related HCM across 15 cardiology centers and found that 6.5% experienced SCD or similar events, with many of those categorized as low risk by the existing HCM Risk-Kids model.
  • - Key predictors for SCD identified were unexplained syncope and non-sustained ventricular tachycardia, indicating that the current risk prediction model may not effectively identify risks in this
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Solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients have a higher risk of suffering from severe Coronavirus (COVID-19) compared to the general population. Studies have shown impaired immunogenicity of mRNA vaccines in this high-risk population; thus, SOT recipients have been prioritized globally for primary and booster doses. We analyzed 144 SOT recipients who had previously received two doses of BNT162b2 or mRNA1273 vaccine, and who were subsequently vaccinated with a booster dose of the mRNA1273 vaccine.

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Background: Multiple HIV outbreaks have been recorded among people who inject drugs (PWID) since 2010. During an intervention for PWID in 2019-2021 in Thessaloniki, Greece, an increasing number of HIV cases was documented. Here, we provide an analysis of this new outbreak.

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Chronic kidney disease patients, especially those on hemodialysis, are at the highest risk of a severe course and death from COVID-19. Moreover, they appear to have suboptimal response in both cellular and humoral immunity after vaccination. The present study investigated humoral and cellular response and safety after two doses of either of the two authorized mRNA vaccines in a cohort of 310 patients on maintenance dialysis.

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Objectives: Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales (CPE) comprise important nosocomial pathogens worldwide. Colonized patients are the source of further dissemination in healthcare settings. Considering that timely detection of CPE carriers is pivotal but universal screening is unfeasible, we aimed to develop and validate a prediction score to detect patients harbouring CPE on hospital admission.

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Estimates of the population size of people who inject drugs (PWID) are essential for efficient program planning and for monitoring key targets. Existing estimates in Greece are based on the capture-recapture method applied to drug treatment sources. We aimed to obtain estimates based on data collected from a community-based program addressing PWID in Athens, Greece.

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Vaccine hesitancy is a major barrier to achieving large-scale COVID-19 vaccination. We report trends in vaccination intention and associated determinants from surveys in the adult general population in Greece. Four cross-sectional phone surveys were conducted in November 2020 and February, April and May 2021 on nationally representative samples of adults in Greece.

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Several lines of evidence suggest that binding SARS-CoV-2 antibodies such as anti-SARS-CoV-2 RBD IgG (anti-RBD) and neutralising antibodies (NA) are correlates of protection against SARS-CoV-2, and the correlation of anti-RBD and NA is very high. The effectiveness (VE) of BNT162b2 in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection wanes over time, and this reduction is mainly associated with waning immunity, suggesting that the kinetics of antibodies reduction might be of interest to predict VE. In a study of 97 health care workers (HCWs) vaccinated with the BNT162b2 vaccine, we assessed the kinetics of anti-RBD 30-250 days after vaccination using 388 individually matched plasma samples.

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Due to their higher risk of developing life-threatening COVID-19 disease, solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients have been prioritized in the vaccination programs of many countries. However, there is increasing evidence of reduced immunogenicity to SARS-CοV-2 vaccination. The present study investigated humoral response, safety, and effectiveness after the two mRNA vaccines in 455 SOT recipients.

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Although the HIV epidemic in Athens, Greece has reemerged and spread in men who have sex with men (MSM), state-supported PrEP programs have not been instituted. A PrEP intervention was implemented building upon an existing network cohort of MSM (308 participants; 1212 network members). A PrEP intervention cohort of 106 participants was selected based upon sex behaviors.

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Background And Aims: The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outbreak among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Athens, Greece in 2011-13 was the largest recent epidemic in Europe and North America. We aimed to assess trends in HIV prevalence, drug use and access to prevention among PWID in Athens to estimate HIV incidence and identify risk factors and to explore HIV-1 dispersal using molecular methods during 2014-20.

Methods: Two community-based HIV/hepatitis C programmes on PWID were implemented in 2012-13 (n = 3320) and 2018-20 (n = 1635) through consecutive respondent-driven sampling (RDS) rounds.

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Background: Understanding the factors that affect the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 remains important to keep transmission low and maximize the health benefits of vaccination. We assessed the factors associated with the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 based on contact tracing data.

Methods: From 1 October to 9 December 2020, 29,385 laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases (index cases, i.

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BNT162b2 has proven to be highly effective, but there is a paucity of data regarding immunogenicity factors and comparison between response to vaccination and natural infection. This study included 871 vaccinated healthcare workers (HCW) and 181 patients with natural infection. Immunogenicity was assessed by measuring anti-SARS-CoV-2 against the RBD domain of the spike protein (anti-RBD).

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Purpose: We sought to identify independent risk factors for positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), local recurrence (LR), metastasis (M) and death caused by cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) (DCS) in high-risk cSCC patients. Moreover, we compared the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) system with the previous used in Greece (based on tumor size) and proposed a new classification system.

Methods: 1,524 cSCC patients were enrolled between January 2004 and December 2014, from two medical institutions.

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Background: Improving HIV diagnosis, access to care and effective antiretroviral treatment provides our global strategy to reduce HIV incidence. To reach this goal we need to increase our knowledge about local epidemics. HIV infection dates would be an important information towards this goal, but they are largely unknown.

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Greece imposed a nationwide lockdown in March 2020 to mitigate transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 during the first epidemic wave. We conducted a survey on age-specific social contact patterns to assess effects of physical distancing measures and used a susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered model to simulate the epidemic. Because multiple distancing measures were implemented simultaneously, we assessed their overall effects and the contribution of each measure.

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Objective: To measure the prevalence of food insecurity and explore related characteristics and behaviours among people who inject drugs (PWID).

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of a community-based programme for HIV infection among PWID (ARISTOTLE programme). Food insecurity was measured by the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale.

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