Effectiveness of mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, and BBIBP-CorV vaccines against infection and mortality in children in Argentina, during predominance of delta and omicron covid-19 variants: test negative, case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effectiveness of a two dose vaccine schedule (mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, and BBIBP-CorV) against SARS-CoV-2 infection and covid-19 related death and short term waning of immunity in children (3-11 years old) and adolescents (12-17 years old) during periods of delta and omicron variant predominance in Argentina. DESIGN: Test negative, case-control study. SETTING: Database of the National Surveillance System and the Nominalized Federal Vaccination Registry of Argentina. PARTICIPANTS: 844 460 children and adolescents without previous SARS-CoV-2 infection eligible to receive primary vaccination schedule who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by polymerase chain reaction or rapid antigen test from September 2021 to April 2022. After matching with their corresponding controls, 139 321 (60.3%) of 231 181 cases remained for analysis. EXPOSURES: Two dose mRNA-1273, BNT162b2, and BBIBP-CorV vaccination schedule. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: SARS-CoV-2 infection and covid-19 related death. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the odds of SARS-CoV-2 infection among two dose vaccinated and unvaccinated participants. Vaccine effectiveness was estimated as (1-odds ratio)×100%. RESULTS: Estimated vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection was 61.2% (95% confidence interval 56.4% to 65.5%) in children and 66.8% (63.9% to 69.5%) in adolescents during the delta dominant period and 15.9% (13.2% to 18.6%) and 26.0% (23.2% to 28.8%), respectively, when omicron was dominant. Vaccine effectiveness declined over time, especially during the omicron period, from 37.6% (34.2% to 40.8%) at 15-30 days after vaccination to 2.0% (1.8% to 5.6%) after ≥60 days in children and from 55.8% (52.4% to 59.0%) to 12.4% (8.6% to 16.1%) in adolescents.Vaccine effectiveness against death related to SARS-CoV-2 infection during omicron predominance was 66.9% (6.4% to 89.8%) in children and 97.6% (81.0% to 99.7%) in adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine effectiveness in preventing mortality remained high in children and adolescents regardless of the circulating variant. Vaccine effectiveness in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in the short term after vaccination was lower during omicron predominance and decreasing sharply over time. TRIAL REGISTRATION: National Registry of Health Research IS003720.

Mi Argentina/Mi Salud: The Argentinian Citizen Digital Health Portal.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) stated the National Digital Health Strategy 2018-2024 in order to establish the conceptual guidelines for the design and development of interoperable health information systems. It included the creation of a National Digital Health Network, and a Citizen Health Portal to inform and empower patients about their rights. For instance, the Digital Vaccination Card is already available and has equal legal validity as its paper version. The platform also works as a personal privacy manager, to configure the consent for Health Information Exchange through the network, or to check the access logs. This paper outlines the implementation experience of this powerful tool at a national level.

Analysis of spatial planning documents and strategic environmental assessment reports with regard to hazards of major industrial accidents: a case study involving six Polish cities.

In the event of an accident in an industrial plant, the damage caused by it can be enormous. There may be environmental contamination in a large area. Injured persons may be both employees of the plant staying on its premises and local residents. The control of major accidents is realised by implementing the procedures regarding: safety analysis, emergency and operational planning, effective land-use planning (LUP), strategic environmental assessment (SEA), environmental impact assessment (EIA) and public consultation. The paper presents findings of a case study aiming to analyse selected spatial planning documents prepared at the municipality and SEA reports accompanying them, with regard to hazards of major industrial accidents in six Polish cities. In addition, changes of relevant Polish legislation taking place from 1995 till now are explained referring to European Union (EU) law. This article is the very first to present the situation concerning LUP around hazardous plants in Poland based on such extensive data. The assessment shows that the way of recording the major accident hazards is varied, but legal norms, binding at the time when the documents were drawn up, were met in each of the analysed documents. Changes of relevant Poland legislation were not the only reason for differences in the ways of recording the hazards of major industrial accidents in these documents. The case study has revealed that relevant Polish regulations can be still improved. The results of the study have useful implications for the control of major accidents, spatial policy-making and environmental management.

"Action-at-a distance" of a new DNA oxidative damage product 6-furfuryl-adenine (kinetin) on template properties of modified DNA.

N(6)-furfuryladenine (kinetin, K) was shown to have cytokinin activity and antiageing effects. It also appears to protect DNA against oxidative damage mediated by the Fenton reaction. Kinetin was identified as a natural component of DNA in plant extract, calf thymus DNA, fresh DNA preparations from human cell culture, as well as in human urine. A proposed mechanism of kinetin synthesis includes furfural, the oxidative damage product of a 2-deoxyribose moiety of DNA, which reacts with an adenine residue to form N(6)-furfuryladenine at DNA level. The identification of kinetin in plant cell extracts, as well as human urine, suggests its excision from DNA by repair mechanisms. Since such a bulky modification as kinetin induces conformational changes of DNA, this could lead to mutations. Therefore, it was interesting to analyze an effect of kinetin on coding properties of DNA. Chemically synthesized oligodeoxynucleotide (20-mer) containing kinetin AAAACTGCCGTCCTGAKGAT was used as a primer. It was elongated in a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on a template plasmid pEW1 harboring a 210-bp fragment of DNA derived from the 5' end of HIV mRNA. The PCR product of that length containing kinetin in position 17 from the 5' end was isolated and sequenced. Interestingly, DNA polymerase correctly incorporates thymine opposite of kinetin (an adenine derivative) on the complementary strand, but the misincorporations occur in a vicinity of the modified base.