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Background: The research aimed to investigate the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections and their determinants in a large European cohort of more than 60,000 health workers., Methods: A multicentric retrospective cohort study, involving 12 European centers, was carried out within the ORCHESTRA project, collecting data up to 18 November 2021 on fully vaccinated health workers. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections was investigated with its association with occupational and social-demographic characteristics (age, sex, job title, previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, antibody titer levels, and time from the vaccination course completion)., Results: Among 64,172 health workers from 12 European health centers, 797 breakthrough infections were observed (cumulative incidence of 1.2%). The primary analysis using individual data on 8 out of 12 centers showed that age and previous infection significantly modified breakthrough infection rates. In the meta-analysis of aggregated data from all centers, previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and the standardized antibody titer were inversely related to the risk of breakthrough infection ( p = 0.008 and p = 0.007, respectively)., Conclusion: The inverse correlation of antibody titer with the risk of breakthrough infection supports the evidence that vaccination plays a primary role in infection prevention, especially in health workers. Cellular immunity, previous clinical conditions, and vaccination timing should be further investigated.

We report the results of a study on the cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in about 6000 workers of the University Hospital of Modena, Northern Italy, in the period March 2020-January 2021, and the relations with some individual and occupational factors. Overall, in healthcare workers (HCW) the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 during the period was 13.8%. Results confirm the role of overweight and obesity as significant risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Chronic respiratory diseases, including asthma, also proved to be significantly associated with the infection rate. Considering occupational factors, the COVID-19 risk was about threefold (OR: 2.7; 95% CI 1.7-4.5) greater in nurses and nurse aides than in non-HCW, and about double (OR: 1.9; 95% CI 1.2-3.2) in physicians. Interestingly, an association was also observed between infection risk and nightshifts at work (OR: 1.8; 95% CI 1.4-2.3), significantly related to the total number of shifts in the whole eleven-month period. Even if the vaccination campaign has now greatly modified the scenario of SARS-CoV-2 infections among HCW, the results of this study can be useful for further development of health and policy strategies to mitigate the occupational risk related to the new variants of coronavirus, and therefore the evolution of the pandemic.

The Evidence Based Medicine paradigm has been used for searching literature data to be used for solving workers' health problems. Results show that useful information has been found in 9 problems out of 17 selected cases.

Surveillance programme for the prevention of Mycobacterium tuberculosis risk infection among health care workers at Azienda Policlinico and Università di Modena. Increase in tuberculosis (TB) morbidity and mortality in the last decade even in highly industrialized countries represents a major public health problem. Health care workers (HCWs) are one of the high-risk group for TB infection in the population. Several international guidelines for the prevention and control of TB infection among HCWs have been proposed, also including expensive and not easily applicable interventions. A surveillance programme has been set up at the Servizio di Sorveglianza Sanitaria in the Azienda Policlinico di Modena aimed to the early identification of hospital workers with recently-acquired latent TB infection, B.C.G. vaccination of PPD skin negative subjects working in intermediate-high TB risk workplaces, periodic evaluation of PPD skin conversion rates among personnel of each working area. This programme, whose feasibility depends on the availability of adequate resources, is considered as a tool suitable for the individual risk assessment and should be performed together with technical and structural interventions to carry out an effective primary prevention of TB infection among HCWs.

This prospective, randomized controlled trial was undertaken to evaluate the effect of tube decompression of the stomach after surgical procedure on the digestive tract. One hundred and nine patients were randomly allocated to postoperative treatment with (57 patients) or without (52 patients) nasogastric tubes. No significant differences were found between the two groups in the duration of hospitalization, time to begin peroral fluid intake, occurrence of hiccups, vomiting, nausea, parotiditis, nasal septum necrosis, anastomotic leak and wound dehiscence. Moreover, abdominal distension, pyrosis, otalgia, dysphagia, odynophagia and atelectasis occurred more often in intubated patients as shown by chi-square analysis of the data with Yates correction, with the level of significance at p = less than 0.05. Tube decompression of the stomach does not relieve intestinal paralysis after digestive operations. These data seem to indicate that the routine prophylactic use of a nasogastric tube is unnecessary in gastrointestinal operations.