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Background. Pandemics, such as COVID-19, have the potential to adversely affect children's development due to a variety of negative factors at the level of children, families, and services. In this study the effect of the pandemic on the cognitive, language and motor development of premature babies who are among the most vulnerable group, were evaluated. Methods. The study included 236 premature infants who were followed at Hacettepe University Department of Developmental Pediatrics. The Bayley-Third Edition Developmental Assessment (Bayley III) was used to evaluate the neurodevelopment of 152 premature infants from the pre-pandemic group and 84 from the postpandemic group at the corrected age of 18-24 months. The perinatal and sociodemographic risks were also evaluated. Results. No difference in Bayley III scores (cognitive, language, and motor) was found between the pre- and post-pandemic groups. Furthermore, the multivariate covariance analysis displayed that regardless of the pandemic, infants with higher maternal education consistently scored higher in the cognitive, language, and motor domains; and the motor area scores of infants with moderate perinatal risk were also significantly higher than infants with high perinatal risk. Conclusions. It is crucial to monitor the development of vulnerable children who encounter developmental risks, such as premature babies. Fortunately, no significant effect was encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this does not underweigh the need for close supervision in extraordinary circumstances. Additionally, it should be noted that severe postnatal comorbidities, perinatal risks, and social factors, such as maternal education level, interact to influence the neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a zoonotic infection that affects humans, livestock and wild animals through the larval form of Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s.l.). Molecular and taxonomic studies carried out in the recent years accept that Echinococcus granulosus s.l., a complex of 5 cryptic species, causes CE. In this study, we performed morphological and molecular characterisation of cyst isolates obtained from a wild boar and mule naturally infected with hydatid cyst., Methods: After gDNA isolation, the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (mt- CO1 ) gene region was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with specific primers. The amplified mt- CO1 PCR products were purified and one-way DNA sequence analysis was performed., Results: Comparison of the partial sequences of mt -CO1 gene from the hydatid cyst isolates with that of reference sequences in GenBank revealed 100% similarity with E. granulosus sensu stricto (G1-G3) sequences., Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to determine the molecular characterisation of Echinococcus species in a wild boar in Turkey.