Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 

About: Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal is an academic journal published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Medicine & Population. It has an ISSN identifier of 0891-3668. Over the lifetime, 13175 publications have been published receiving 400244 citations. The journal is also known as: Pediatr Infect Dis J & PIDJ.

Efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in children

Abstract: Objective.To determine the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of the heptavalent CRM197 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine against invasive disease caused by vaccine serotypes and to determine the effectiveness of this vaccine against clinical episodes of otitis media.Methods.The Wyeth Lederle

Dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Abstract: Hundreds of thousands of dengue cases are reported worldwide each year. Given the difficulty in obtaining full reporting, the actual number of human infections is probably much higher than the number reported. Dengue is usually a nonspecific febrile illness that resolves with supportive therapy but the clinical spectrum ranges from asymptomatic infection through severe hemorrhage and sudden fatal shock. The pathophysiology of the severe forms of dengue may be related to sequential infection with different serotypes, variations in virus virulence, interaction of the virus with environmental and host factors or a combination of these factors. Control of dengue at the present time is dependent on control of the principal vector mosquito, A. aegypti. Efforts to achieve such control are now focusing on community education and action towards eliminating this mosquito's breeding sites near human dwellings. Vaccine development continues, but at present the only way to avoid dengue in an area where it is endemic or epidemic is to use repellents and mosquito barriers. The movement of people to and from tropical areas makes dengue an important differential diagnosis in any patient with an acute illness and history of recent travel to tropical areas. Because of continued infestation of the southeastern United States with A. aegypti, indigenous transmission in the continental United States remains a public health concern.

An assay for circulating antibodies to a major etiologic virus of human non-a, non-b hepatitis

Abstract: A specific assay has been developed for a blood-borne non-A, non-B hepatitis (NANBH) virus in which a polypeptide synthesized in recombinant yeast clones of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is used to capture circulating viral antibodies. HCV antibodies were detected in six of seven human sera that were shown previously to transmit NANBH to chimpanzees. Assays of ten blood transfusions in the United States that resulted in chronic NANBH revealed that there was at least one positive blood donor in nine of these cases and that all ten recipients seroconverted during their illnesses. About 80 percent of chronic, post-transfusion NANBH (PT-NANBH) patients from Italy and Japan had circulating HCV antibody; a much lower frequency (15 percent) was observed in acute, resolving infections. In addition, 58 percent of NANBH patients from the United States with no identifiable source of parenteral exposure to the virus were also positive for HCV antibody. These data indicate that HCV is a major cause of NANBH throughout the world.

The efficacy of bcg vaccine in the prevention of tuberculosis: meta-analysis of the published literature

Abstract: OBJECTIVE To quantify the efficacy of BCG vaccine against tuberculosis (TB). DATA SOURCES MEDLINE with index terms BCG vaccine, tuberculosis, and human. Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, among others, provided lists of all known studies. STUDY SELECTION A total of 1264 articles or abstracts were reviewed for details on BCG vaccination, concurrent vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, and TB outcome; 70 articles were reviewed in depth for method of vaccine allocation used to create comparable groups, equal surveillance and follow-up for recipient and concurrent control groups, and outcome measures of TB cases and/or deaths. Fourteen prospective trials and 12 case-control studies were included in the analysis. DATA EXTRACTION We recorded study design, age range of study population, number of patients enrolled, efficacy of vaccine, and items to assess the potential for bias in study design and diagnosis. At least two readers independently extracted data and evaluated validity. DATA SYNTHESIS The relative risk (RR) or odds ratio (OR) of TB provided the measure of vaccine efficacy that we analyzed. The protective effect was then computed by 1-RR or 1-OR. A random-effects model estimated a weighted average RR or OR from those provided by the trials or case-control studies. In the trials, the RR of TB was 0.49 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.34 to 0.70) for vaccine recipients compared with nonrecipients (protective effect of 51%). In the case-control studies, the OR for TB was 0.50 (95% CI, 0.39 to 0.64), or a 50% protective effect. Seven trials reporting tuberculous deaths showed a protective effect from BCG vaccine of 71% (RR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.16 to 0.53), and five studies reporting on meningitis showed a protective effect from BCG vaccine of 64% (OR, 0.36; 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.70). Geographic latitude of the study site and study validity score explained 66% of the heterogeneity among trials in a random-effects regression model. CONCLUSION On average, BCG vaccine significantly reduces the risk of TB by 50%. Protection is observed across many populations, study designs, and forms of TB. Age at vaccination did not enhance predictiveness of BCG efficacy. Protection against tuberculous death, meningitis, and disseminated disease is higher than for total TB cases, although this result may reflect reduced error in disease classification rather than greater BCG efficacy.

Hemorrhagic colitis associated with a rare escherichia coli serotype.

Abstract: We investigated two outbreaks of an unusual gastrointestinal illness that affected at least 47 people in Oregon and Michigan in February through March and May through June 1982. The illness was characterized by severe crampy abdominal pain, initially watery diarrhea followed by grossly bloody diarrhea, and little or no fever. It was associated with eating at restaurants belonging to the same fast-food restaurant chain in Oregon (P less than 0.005) and Michigan (P = 0.0005) and with eating any of three sandwiches containing three ingredients in common (beef patty, rehydrated onions, and pickles). Stool cultures did not yield previously recognized pathogens. However, a rare Escherichia coli serotype, O157:H7, that was not invasive or toxigenic by standard tests was isolated from 9 of 12 stools collected within four days of onset of illness in both outbreaks combined, and from a beef patty from a suspected lot of meat in Michigan. The only known previous isolation of this serotype was from a sporadic case of hemorrhagic colitis in 1975. This report describes a clinically distinctive gastrointestinal illness associated with E. coli O157:H7, apparently transmitted by undercooked meat.