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Measles continue to be a major public health issue worldwide with high morbidity and mortality rates. The disease is still endemic in Europe and during 2017 a vast outbreak was described in Italy, Romania and Hungary, which led to thousands of new cases and several deaths. In Italy, 3931 confirmed cases of measles were reported to the Italian national surveillance system from many Italian administrative regions; Lazio, in central Italy, exhibited the highest number of infected patients 1322 (33.63%) and as well as the highest incidence. In this study, we describe the results of a retrospective analysis, carried out during 2016 and 2017, concerning the measles antibody prevalence in patients and healthcare workers attending the Sant’Andrea Hospital of Rome (Lazio). A total of 94 patients (median 30 years of age) were screened in 2016, and 316 (median 40 years of age) during 2017, with an increase of 236% compared to previous year. During 2017, 41 confirmed cases of measles were reported while none in 2016 (P47 years of age) and only one confirmed measles infection was recorded in 2017. These results suggest that there is still an unvaccinated portion of the adult population, who sustain the endemic circulation of measles in Italy. In addition to reach herd immunization on children of 2 years old, catch-up vaccination campaign targeting adult population in Italy and other European countries needs to be implemented to prevent future measles outbreak.

Chlamydia pneumoniae (C. p.) is an intracellular parasite directly involved in respiratory disease and more recently in chronic degenerative pathologies as atherosclerosis and asthma. Its peculiar life cycle makes cultural isolation difficult, thus, troublesome the diagnosis of the disease. Serology is so far the most common method of diagnosis of the, although the indirect based evidence of the serology may give clinically misleading results. Nucleic acid amplification methods offer indeed rapid, reliable and low cost assessment pathogen bacteria isolation, with relevant benefits for the patient's management. These molecular methods are nowadays essential in presence of bacteria of difficult cultivation or method inconsistent with temporal clinical needs, for they allow to rapidly detect even nucleic acid traces of the infectious agent, providing direct evidence of its presence in the biological samples and hence the relevant therapy. Nucleic acid methods are extensively applied in laboratory diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis bringing about the development of sensitive and reliable commercial kits. This review analyses the literature of the genic amplification methods in the search of C. p. in clinical samples highlighting methodological and diagnostic aspects. Although genic amplification methods have been implemented presently by the clinical research labs only, it is anticipated that through their standardisation they could be used by most clinical microbiology laboratories.