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Background: The FLURESP project is a public health research funded by the European Commission, with the objective to design a methodological framework to assess and compare the cost-effectiveness of existing public health measures against human influenza pandemics in four target countries: France, Italy, Poland and Romania. This article presents the results relevant to the Italian health system using a dataset specifically collected for this purpose. As most of interventions against human influenza are relavant against other respiratory diseases pandemics, potential interests in COVID-19 are discussed.Methods: Eight public health measures against human influenza pandemics pandemic were selected to be also relevant to other respiratory virus pandemics such as COVID 19: 1) individual (hand washing, using masks), 2) border control (quarantine, fever screening, border closure), 3) community infection (school closure, class dismissal, social distancing, limitation of public transport), 4) reduction of secondary infections (implementation of antibiotic therapy guidelines), 5) pneumococcal vaccination for at-risk people, 6) development of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity, 7) implementation of life support equipments in ICU and 8) screening interventions (virus testing).The outcome "achieving a mortality reduction of higher or equal to 40%” has been selected as a meaningful effectiveness criteria from the public health perspective. Cost distributions have been taken into account according to the Italian health system using a uniform distribution. Results: In the frame of the major pandemic event observed in Italy in 2020, the most cost-effective strategies are “reduction of secondary infections” and “implementation of life support equipment in ICU”. The least cost-effective option during a major pandemic event is screening interventions.Conclusions: A number of intervention strategies against human influenza pandemics appears relevant against respiratory virus pandemics in general such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These pandemics are imposing a substantial economic burden in Italy, confirming the interest of considering the cost-effectiveness of public health measures to enlighten decision making.

Single isomers of the furanylidene system 8 were synthesized in four steps. The synthesis begins with the dianion of β-keto carbonyls and culminates in a mild, tandem desilylation-cyclization reaction using tosylic acid. Compounds synthesized in this study have the potential for further diversification at the alkyne, carbonyl and enol-ether moieties. Hence, the furanylidenes from this study are prospective building blocks for biologically active, furan-containing natural products and their analogs.

We reviewed the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, disease severity, and economic burden of influenza B as reported in the peer-reviewed published literature. We used MEDLINE to perform a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed, English-language literature published between 1995 and 2010. Widely variable frequency data were reported. Clinical presentation of influenza B was similar to that of influenza A, although we observed conflicting reports. Influenza B–specific data on hospitalization rates, length of stay, and economic outcomes were limited but demonstrated that the burden of influenza B can be significant. The medical literature demonstrates that influenza B can pose a significant burden to the global population. The comprehensiveness and quality of reporting on influenza B, however, could be substantially improved. Few articles described complications. Additional data regarding the incidence, clinical burden, and economic impact of influenza B would augment our understanding of the disease and assist in vaccine development.

To determine whether assessing seroprotection after influenza vaccine and administering booster vaccination where not achieved reduces hospitalization and death. To estimate the overall seroprotection rate of influenza vaccine.A two-arm, partially blind, randomized, multicenter, parallel-group, controlled trial.Twenty-six care homes in three South London boroughs in fall 2004.Two hundred seventy-seven elderly permanent care home residents meeting eligibility criteria.Postvaccination blood samples were randomized to booster evaluation or no booster evaluation (control). If evaluation revealed inadequate seroprotection, a booster vaccine was administered.Primary outcome was hospitalization to end April 2005; secondary outcomes were death, antibiotic use, and seroprotection.Sixty percent of the controls and 41% of the booster evaluation group responded to routine vaccination. Booster vaccination where indicated increased seroprotection rates in the booster evaluation group to 66%. Treatment groups did not differ in any outcome measures in the intention-to-treat analysis (hospitalization odds ratio=1.02, 95% confidence interval=0.55-1.87). There was a tendency towards greater differences between groups in the per-protocol analysis than in the intention-to-treat analysis, particularly regarding seroprotection rates. The same effect was observed in the a priori exploratory analysis of residents not seroprotected after routine vaccination alone.In a year without circulating influenza, there is no clinical benefit of administering a booster vaccine if routine trivalent vaccination fails to result in seroprotection. Hemagglutination titers rose in two strains postbooster vaccination but fell against the novel strain, Wyoming. The benefit of such a booster strategy when influenza is prevalent thus remains uncertain.

Epidemiological studies point to an association between prenatal exposure to influenza and later schizophrenia. Such studies are consistent with neuropathologic reports demonstrating cytoarchitectural abnormalities in the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus suggestive of second trimester developmental anomalies. The hypothesis that prenatal exposure to influenza in the second trimester may induce hippocampal pyramidal cell disarray in mice was investigated. Between days 9-16 of pregnancy, 35 Balb/c mice were intranasally inoculated with either a mouse-adapted or non mouse-adapted pool of Influenza A/Singapore/1/57 (H2N2), and 10 controls were inoculated with normal saline. Offspring were sacrificed on day 21 postpartum. Microscopic examination of the CA1-CA2 junctional areas in the offspring of mice exposed to influenza failed to demonstrate excess pyramidal cell disarray when compared with influenza-free, age matched controls. There was evidence that disarray was greater among those exposed on day 13 of pregnancy. Analyses of the data by sex and severity of maternal infection failed to reveal any significant effects.

Previous determinations of the standard heats of formation of trivalent, first row, transition metal acetylacetonates are based upon inaccurate heat of combustion data. In this thesis, new values are reported for the standard heats of formation, at 25°, of four trivalent metal acetylacetonates, M(C[5]H[7]O[2])[3] (M = Al III, Cr III, Mn III and Fe III); the maximum associated uncertainty interval is 0.2% respectively. All heat measurements (+/- 0.01 cals.) involved the use of an electrically calibrated solution calorimeter. Previously, solution calorimetry has been exclusively confined to the thermochemical study of simple chemical processes of well-authenticated stoichiometry. Although the reactions inherent in the present work failed to conform to such simplicity, apparent thermodynamic inexactitudes were conveniently eliminated by introducing a non-volatile solvent, in which all the components in the theoretical heterogeneous complex formation reaction were soluble. The prearranged thermodynamic equivalence of two homogeneous systems simplified the thermochemical cycle, from which the standard heat of formation of the complex was derived directly by successive applications of Hess's law. The formation reaction was finally referred to the ideal gas state in order to eliminate the effect of intermolecular forces. Subsequent to the estimation of the O-H bond dissociation energy in acetylacetone (enol isomer), and the electron affinity of the acetylacetonate radical, the homolytic and heterolytic bond energy parameters were calculated for each complex by presuming the equivalence of the six metal-oxygen bonds. By convention, the ground energy state was adopted as the thermodynamic reference state for all components in the hypothetical dissociation process. The characteristic 'twin-peaked' curve, obtained from a plot of the empirical heat of formation of the gaseous transition metal acetylacetonate versus the corresponding metal atomic number, has been inadequately interpreted by specific reference to the crystal field theory. Some preliminary inferences have been drawn pertaining to the 'nature' of the metal-oxygen coordinate bond.

Uncertainty about the importance of influenza transmission by airborne droplet nuclei generates controversy for infection control. Human challenge-transmission studies have been supported as the most promising approach to fill this knowledge gap. Healthy, seronegative volunteer ‘Donors’ (n = 52) were randomly selected for intranasal challenge with influenza A/Wisconsin/67/2005 (H3N2). ‘Recipients’ randomized to Intervention (IR, n = 40) or Control (CR, n = 35) groups were exposed to Donors for four days. IRs wore face shields and hand sanitized frequently to limit large droplet and contact transmission. One transmitted infection was confirmed by serology in a CR, yielding a secondary attack rate of 2.9% among CR, 0% in IR (p = 0.47 for group difference), and 1.3% overall, significantly less than 16% (p, Author summary Understanding the relative importance of influenza modes of transmission informs strategic use of preventive measures to reduce influenza risk in high-risk settings such as hospitals and is important for pandemic preparedness. Given the increasing evidence from epidemiological modelling, exhaled viral aerosol, and aerobiological survival studies supporting a role for airborne transmission and the potential benefit of respirators (and other precautions designed to prevent inhalation of aerosols) versus surgical masks (mainly effective for reducing exposure to large droplets) to protect healthcare workers, more studies are needed to evaluate the extent of risk posed airborne versus contact and large droplet spray transmission modes. New human challenge-transmission studies should be carefully designed to overcome limitations encountered in the current study. The low secondary attack rate reported herein also suggests that the current challenge-transmission model may no longer be a more promising approach to resolving questions about transmission modes than community-based studies employing environmental monitoring and newer, state-of-the-art deep sequencing-based molecular epidemiological methods.