Epidemiol Prev
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the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in WHO European Region was reported at the end of January 2020 and, from that moment, the epidemic has been speeding up and rapidly spreading across Europe. The health, social, and economic consequences of the pandemic are difficult to evaluate, since there are many scientific uncertainties and unknowns. ⋯ despite the variety of approaches to calculate excess mortality, this study provides an original methodological approach to profile municipalities with excess deaths accounting for spatial and temporal uncertainty.
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to avoid a new spread of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, the post lockdown period requires the implementation of effective strategies for the case finding and contact tracing. The presence of asymptomatic subjects in the population, that are responsible for about 30% of the new infections, may complicate this phase. Serological tests for the measurement of immune response could represent an effective tool for the rapid monitoring of the population with asymptomatic infections and for estimating the proportion of immune in a territory, too. ⋯ the seroprevalence values estimated for subjects residing in the city of Borgosesia which underwent the rapid test for the detection of type M and type G antibodies on peripheral blood, confirmed the population-based estimates reported in literature, in particular with the results of the Italian survey of seroprevalence. Furthermore, the implementation of this test allowed the identification and isolation of completely asymptomatic subjects, that could have been identified only through screening with tests for viral RNA.
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Observational Study
[Interrupting the chains of transmission of COVID-19 in Italy: survey among the Prevention Departments].
the ability to implement effective preventive and control measures is rooted in public health surveillance to promptly identify and isolate contagious patients. ⋯ the pandemic required rapidly a great organizational effort and great flexibility to increase response capacity, which now must be strengthened and maintained. Several different tools (forms and electronic files) have been developed in each LHU and used for the same surveillance operational processes with a loss in local efficiency. The inhomogeneous data collection and recording is an obstacle for further analyses and risk identifications and is a missed opportunity for the advancement of our knowledge on pandemic epidemiology analysis. In Italy, updating the pandemic response plans is the priority, at national, regional and local level, and the occasion to fill the gaps and to improve surveillance systems to the interruption of COVID-19 transmission.
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to evaluate the effects of a pre-existing condition of diabetes and of the use of antidiabetic drugs in the Sicilian population on different outcomes of the COVID-19 disease. ⋯ data availability made it possible to monitor the occurrence and explore some of the characteristics of the cases with COVID-19 in Sicily. Diabetes does not seem to represent a risk factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection in Sicily, while previous diabetes condition seems to determine greater risk of hospitalization, treatment in intensive care, and lethality among over 80. There are also gender differences with almost double risks in women for hospitalization and intensive care only. Among the antidiabetic drugs investigated, there was a risk for hospitalization and intensive care while protective for deaths. This study represents an important tool for the activation of intervention programmes in the area aimed at populations with greater health risk deriving from the effects of this new pandemic.