Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 Variants in Military and Civilian Personnel of an Air Force Airport during Three Pandemic Waves in Italy.

We investigated SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating, from November 2020 to March 2022, among military and civilian personnel at an Air Force airport in Italy in order to classify viral isolates in a potential hotspot for virus spread. Positive samples were subjected to Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) of the whole viral genome and Sanger sequencing of the spike coding region. Phylogenetic analysis classified viral isolates and traced their evolutionary relationships.

Diagnostic accuracy of a SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test among military and civilian personnel of an Air Force airport in central Italy.

Background: Most SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen detection tests (RADTs) validation studies have been performed on specimens from COVID-19 patients and negative controls or from mostly symptomatic individuals. Herein we evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of AFIAS COVID-19 Ag, hereinafter denominated as AFIAS, during a COVID-19 screening program surveillance testing conducted among personnel of an Italian military airport.

Methods: Nasopharyngeal swabs (NPSs) were collected from study participants and were analysed by both AFIAS and RT-PCR assay.

Prevalence and risk factors for hepatitis E virus infection in blood donors: a nationwide survey in Italy, 2017 to 2019.

BackgroundIn high-income countries, hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is mainly a zoonosis. However, it is also transfusion-transmissible and some countries, but not Italy, have introduced HEV screening for blood donations.AimWe assessed HEV infection prevalence and risk factors in a nationwide sample of Italian blood donors.

Phylogenetic and Molecular Analyses of More Prevalent HCV1b Subtype in the Calabria Region, Southern Italy.

Hepatitis C virus subtype 1b (HCV1b) is still the most prevalent subtype worldwide, with massive expansion due to poor health care standards, such as blood transfusion and iatrogenic procedures. Despite safe and effective new direct antiviral agents (DAA), treatment success can depend on resistance-associated substitutions (RASs) carried in target genomic regions. Herein we investigated transmission clusters and RASs among isolates from HCV1b positive subjects in the Calabria Region.

Retrospective analysis of acute HBV infections occurred in 1978-79 and 1994-95 in North-East Italy: increasing prevalence of BCP/pre-core mutants in sub-genotype D3.

Background: At the end of the 1970s, in Italy more than 2% of the general population was HBsAg carrier. In the late '70s and late '80s, two remarkable events might have impacted on HBV strains transmitted in North-East Italy: (a) the increased HBV incidence due to parenteral drugs between 1978 and 1982; (b) the preventive anti-HIV educational campaign, started locally in 1985.

Methods: To address if those events impacted on circulating HBV variants, acute cases occurred in North-East Italy in 1978-79 (n = 50) and 1994-95 (n = 30) were retrospectively analysed.

Hepatitis E virus infection prevalence among men who have sex with men involved in a hepatitis A virus outbreak in Italy.

Background: The routes of hepatitis E virus (HEV) transmission have still not been fully clarified. Here, we evaluated the possibility of sexual transmission of HEV, which remains a highly disputed issue.

Materials And Methods: Hepatitis E virus sexual transmission risk was assessed by comparing the prevalence of HEV infection in a sample of 196 Italian men who have sex with men (MSM) involved in a multi-country hepatitis A virus (HAV) outbreak, and in 3,912 Italian male blood donors selected from the same regions and provinces as the MSM.

The genetic diversity of hepatitis A genotype I in Bulgaria.

The purpose of this study was to analyze sequences of hepatitis A virus (HAV) Ia and Ib genotypes from Bulgarian patients to investigate the molecular epidemiology of HAV genotype I during the years 2012 to 2014. Around 105 serum samples were collected by the Department of Virology of the National Center of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases in Bulgaria. The sequenced region encompassed the VP1/2A region of HAV genome.

Hepatitis a virus genotypes and strains from an endemic area of Europe, Bulgaria 2012-2014.

Background: Hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection is endemic in Eastern European and Balkan region countries. In 2012, Bulgaria showed the highest rate (67.13 cases per 100,000) in Europe.

Hepatitis A virus strains circulating during 1997-2015 in Campania, a Southern Italy region with periodic outbreaks.

In Italy, the incidence of hepatitis A has progressively declined over the last 30 years, though not homogeneously throughout the country. In Campania, Southern Italy, high annual incidence rates have been reported and several periodic outbreaks have occurred. To investigate the phylogenetic and epidemiologic relationships among HAV strains circulating in Campania over the period 1997-2015, 87 hepatitis A cases were investigated.

A large prolonged outbreak of hepatitis A associated with consumption of frozen berries, Italy, 2013-14.

Purpose: In 2013/2014, Italy experienced one of the largest community-wide prolonged outbreaks of hepatitis A virus (HAV) throughout the country. The article provides a comprehensive description of the outbreak and the investigation carried out by a multidisciplinary National Task Force, in collaboration with regional and local public health authorities. Control strategies of food-borne HAV infection in both the human and food sectors are also described.

A family cluster of hepatitis A virus due to an uncommon IA strain circulating in Campania (southern Italy), not associated with raw shellfish or berries: a wake-up call to implement vaccination against hepatitis A?

Hepatitis A virus is a widely occurring disease, with different prevalence rates between countries in the North and West and those in the South and East. In Italy endemicity is low/medium, but not homogeneously distributed: in the northern/central regions a large hepatitis A outbreak due to genotype IA, related to the consumption of contaminated mixed frozen berries, occurred between 2013 and 2014, whereas in southern Italian regions recurrent outbreaks of hepatitis A, due to the IB genotype, still result from consumption of raw seafood. In 2014 an uncommon genotype IA strain was isolated from five patients (2 adults and 3 children) with hepatitis A, living in the surroundings of Naples (Campania) who did not have any of the most common risk factors for hepatitis A in Italy, such as consumption of raw shellfish or frozen berries, or travel to endemic countries.

Naturally Occurring Surface Antigen Variants of Hepatitis B Virus in Tunisian Patients.

In Tunisia, the prevalence of naturally occurring surface (S) gene variants of hepatitis B virus (HBV) has not been determined. In the present study, the prevalence of these variants was examined in terms of the clinical and viral state in a series of 99 Tunisian patients with HBV infection. The S genes were amplified and directly sequenced.

Evolutionary dynamics of HBV-D7 subgenotype in Tunisia.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the main cause of diseases liver related infecting more than 200 milion persons worldwide. HBV infection shows high level of prevalence in South-East Europe and in Mediterranean basin. In Tunisia, a country with an intermediate level endemicity, HbsAg prevalence ranges from 2 to 5%.

Evaluation of rapid tests for diagnosis of acute hepatitis E.

Background: Hepatitis E virus diagnosis still presents difficulties due to discordant results among diagnostic tests.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of two rapid tests for detection of anti-HEV IgM antibodies.

Study Design: The rapid tests were compared with three commercial anti-HEV ELISA assays and one Real-Time PCR assay on 59 sera from patients with acute viral non-AC hepatitis.

Key Role of Sequencing to Trace Hepatitis A Viruses Circulating in Italy During a Large Multi-Country European Foodborne Outbreak in 2013.

Background: Foodborne Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) outbreaks are being recognized as an emerging public health problem in industrialized countries. In 2013 three foodborne HAV outbreaks occurred in Europe and one in USA. During the largest of the three European outbreaks, most cases occurred in Italy (>1,200 cases as of March 31, 2014).

Migration pattern of hepatitis A virus genotype IA in North-Central Tunisia.

Background: Hepatitis A virus (HAV) epidemiology in Tunisia has changed from high to intermediate endemicity in the last decades. However, several outbreaks continue to occur. The last reported sequences from Tunisian HAV strains date back to 2006.

Woodchuck hepatitis virus core gene deletions and proliferative responses of peripheral blood mononuclear cells stimulated by an immunodominant epitope: a viral immune escape in the woodchuck model of chronic hepatitis B?

Marmota monax and its natural infection by woodchuck hepatitis virus (WHV) could be used as a predictive model for evaluating mechanisms of viral persistence during chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of viral variants in the core gene of chronically WHV-infected woodchucks that showed two different patterns of peripheral blood mononuclear cells' (PBMCs') responses after stimulation with a specific WHV core peptide. Sequences' analysis of the WHV core region from eight WHV chronically infected woodchucks have been performed after in vitro stimulation with an immunodominant epitope of the WHV core protein (amino acids [aa] 96-110).

Surveillance of hepatitis A virus in urban sewages and comparison with cases notified in the course of an outbreak, Italy 2013.

Background: Over the past 20 years, Hepatitis A notifications in Italy have been in decline. Since the beginning of 2013 however, Italy has been experiencing a foodborne hepatitis A outbreak caused by genotype IA, involving hundreds of cases. Consumption of frozen mixed berries was deemed the potential vehicle of infection.

Molecular characterisation of human hepatitis E virus from Italy: comparative analysis of five reverse transcription-PCR assays.

Background: Hepatitis E (HEV) is an important public-health concern as a major cause of enterically transmitted hepatitis worldwide. In industrialised countries it is considered rare, and largely confined to travellers returning from endemic areas. However, autochthonous (locally acquired) HEV infection is also emerging in these regions.

Historical study of acute hepatitis B in subjects with or without hepatitis C infection.

Background: The epidemiological pattern of hepatitis B virus infection in Italy has greatly changed over the past decades. The aim of the study was to evaluate during time the epidemiological features of acute hepatitis B cases referred to an Infectious Disease Unit in North-East of Italy between 1978 and 1995.

Patients And Methods: Stored sera of 183 cases were tested for HBV markers, HBV genotypes, anti-Delta and anti-HCV.

Diagnosis of HEV infection by serological and real-time PCR assays: a study on acute non-A-C hepatitis collected from 2004 to 2010 in Italy.

Background: The impact of hepatitis E in developed countries, like Italy, still requires a clear definition. In the present study, we evaluated HEV infection in patients with acute non-A-C hepatitis by an approach comparing data from Real-time PCR and serological assays.

Methods: In a first analysis, sera from 52 patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of acute viral non-A-C hepatitis in Italy were tested by in-house Real-Time PCR assay for identification of Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) RNA and by anti-HEV IgM and IgG assays.

A unique HAV strain circulated in patients with acute HAV infection with different risk exposures in Tuscany, Italy.

Background: Acute Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) is reported to be an emergent problem in several developed countries.

Objectives And Study Design: The aim of this study was to analyse the HAV strains circulating among individuals with acute HAV infection, apparently transmitted by different routes, in several districts of Tuscany in central Italy, during the year 2008.

Results: An outbreak of acute HAV infection occurred from May to August 2008 in Arezzo; 32 individuals were admitted to the hospital, in 25 of them at least a linkage with an infected food handler and/or household contacts was reported and in 3 homosexuality was a possible risk factor.

Identification of low HBV-DNA levels by nucleic acid amplification test (NAT) in blood donors.

Objective: To evaluate the presence of HBV-DNA in 22,765 consecutive blood donors, who donated blood in the period from January 2006 to August 2007 at a transfusion centre in Lazio, a region in central Italy with low HBV endemicity.

Methods: Each donation was individually tested using immunoenzymatic assays and nucleic acid amplification technologies (NAT). Samples that were reactive to generic NAT, Procleix Ultrio Assay were tested for HBV-DNA, HCV-RNA and HIV1-RNA by Discriminatory Procleix Ultrio NAT Assay.

Nucleic acid testing (NAT) for HCV RNA in Italian transfusion centres: an external quality assessment.

Background: We conducted an external quality assessment of the results obtained in Italian transfusion centre laboratories employing nucleic acid testing (NAT) for detection of HCV RNA in donated blood.

Study Design: Of 110 transfusions centres in Italy, 101 voluntarily participated. Each laboratory received seven separate shipments of samples for HCV RNA testing by NAT.

Acute hepatitis with severe cholestasis and prolonged clinical course due to hepatitis A virus Ia and Ib coinfection.

Background: Acute viral hepatitis due to hepatitis A virus is a self-limited illness that infrequently has a severe clinical course.

Methods: We analyzed the virological characteristics of acute hepatitis A in a patient with a severe clinical presentation (peak total and conjugated bilirubin levels, 65.5 mg/dL and 40.