We evaluated the effect of DMTs on Covid‐19 severity in patients with MS, with a pooled‐analysis of two large cohorts from Italy and France. The association of baseline characteristics and DMTs with Covid‐19 severity was assessed by multivariate ordinal‐logistic models and pooled by a fixed‐effect meta‐analysis. 1066 patients with MS from Italy and 721 from France were included. In the multivariate model, anti‐CD20 therapies were significantly associated (OR = 2.05, 95%CI = 1.39–3.02, p < 0.001) with Covid‐19 severity, whereas interferon indicated a decreased risk (OR = 0.42, 95%CI = 0.18–0.99, p = 0.047). This pooled‐analysis confirms an increased risk of severe Covid‐19 in patients on anti‐CD20 therapies and supports the protective role of interferon.

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Graphical abstract

Surveillance of norovirus infections in sporadic cases of pediatric gastroenteritis admitted to a main hospital in Northern Italy during a full-year period (2002) showed that noroviruses (10.4%) were the second most common causative viral agent, following rotaviruses (21.1%), and noroviruses (81%) were mostly implicated in mixed infections. The epidemic period of norovirus was September-December, with September and November as months of major prevalence (33.3 and 38.5%, respectively). Six distinct norovirus genotypes were detected (GI.7, GII.1, GII.2, GII.4, GII.7, GII, not assigned named GIIb), and the predominant genotype was GII.4. A "new GII.4 2002 variant" accounted for 82.9% of total strains. Since the severity of norovirus symptoms does not usually require admission to hospital, the burden of norovirus disease in the general children population may be much higher than that suggested by the present hospital-based investigation.

Background: The MuSC-19 project is an Italian cohort study open to international partners that collects data on multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with COVID-19. During the second wave of the pandemic, serological tests became routinely available. Objective: To evaluate the seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies according to the use of disease-modifying therapy (DMT) in a subset of patients included in the MuSC-19 data set who had undergone a serological test. Methods: We evaluated the association between positive serological test results and time elapsed since infection onset, age, sex, Expanded Disability Status Scale score, comorbidities and DMT exposure using a multivariable logistic model. Results: Data were collected from 423 patients (345 from Italy, 61 from Turkey and 17 from Brazil) with a serological test performed during follow-up. Overall, 325 out of 423 tested patients (76.8%) had a positive serological test. At multivariate analysis, therapy with anti-CD20 was significantly associated with a reduced probability of developing antibodies after COVID-19 (odds ratio (OR) = 0.20, p = 0.002). Conclusion: Patients with MS maintain the capacity to develop humoral immune response against SARS-COV-2, although to a lesser extent when treated with anti-CD20 drugs. Overall, our results are reassuring with respect to the possibility to achieve sufficient immunization with vaccination.

Acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs) are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in children. The viral etiology of ARTIs was investigated over 3 years (October 2012-September 2015 in 2575 children in Parma, Italy, using indirect immunofluorescent staining of respiratory samples for viral antigens, cell culture, and molecular assays. Respiratory viruses were detected in 1299 cases (50.44%); 1037 (79.83%) were single infections and 262 (20.17%) mixed infections. The highest infection incidence was in children aged N6 months to ≤3 years (57.36%). Human respiratory syncytial virus (27.12%) and human adenovirus (23.58%) were the most common viruses identified. The virus detection rate decreased significantly between the first and third epidemic season (53.9% vs. 43.05%, P b 0.0001). The simultaneous use of different diagnostic tools allowed us to identify a putative viral etiology in half the children examined and to provide an estimate of the epidemiology and seasonality of respiratory viruses associated with ARTIs.

We developed a nested reverse transcription-PCR (nRT-PCR) for the detection of noroviruses in stools, using random primers for RT, the JV12/JV13 primer pair in the first round of nPCR, and a set of nine inner primers for the second, comprising the reverse sequences of primers SR46, SR48, SR50, and SR52, and five novel oligonucleotide sequences (

The cellular distribution of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV)-specific UL83 phosphoprotein (pp65) and UL123 immediate-early protein (IEp72) in lytically infected human embryo fibroblasts was studied by means of indirect immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. Both proteins were found to have a nuclear localization, but they were concentrated in different compartments within the nuclei. The pp65 was located predominantly in the nucleoli; this was already evident with the parental viral protein, which was targeted to the above nuclear compartment very soon after infection. The nucleolar localization of pp65 was also observed at later stages of the HCMV infectious cycle. After chromatin extraction (in the so-called in situ nuclear matrices), a significant portion of the pp65 remained associated with nucleoli within the first hour after infection, then gradually redistributed in a perinucleolar area, as well as throughout the nucleus, with a granular pattern. A quite different distribution was observed for IEp72 at very early stages after infection of human embryo fibroblasts with HCMV; indeed, this viral protein was found in bright foci, clearly observable in both non-extracted nuclei and in nuclear matrices. At later stages of infection, IEp72 became almost homogeneously distributed within the whole nucleus, while the foci increased in size and were more evenly spread; in several infected cells some of them lay within nucleoli. This peculiar nuclear distribution of IEp72 was preserved in nuclear matrices as well. The entire set of data is discussed in terms of the necessity of integration for HCMV-specific products into the pre-existing nuclear architecture, with the possibility of subsequent adaptation of nuclear compartments to fit the needs of the HCMV replicative cycle.