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Background: The coinfections HIV/HCV/HBV are an important health issue in penitentiary communities. The aim of the study was to examine HIV, HBV and HCV coinfections determinants amongst prisoners in the jails of Southern Lazio (Central Italy), in the period 1995-2000. Methods: Diagnosis of seropositivities for HIV, HBV and HCV was made using ELISA method. A multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted to verify the influence of socio-demographic factors on the HIV/HBV/HCV coinfections. Results: HIV/HCV, HBV/HCV and HIV/HBV coinfections were detected in 42 (4%), 203 (17.9%) and 31 (2.9%)inmates, respectively. These coinfections are significantly associated with the status of drug addiction (OR = 16.02; p = 0.012; OR = 4.15; p < 0.001; OR = 23.57; p = 0.002), smoking habits (OR = 3.73; p = 0.033; OR = 1.42; p = 0.088; OR = 4.25; p = 0.053) and Italian nationality (OR = 7.05; p = 0.009; OR = 2.31; p < 0.001; OR = 4.61; p = 0.04). Conclusion: The prevalence of HIV, HBV and HCV seropositivity in jails suggests that information and education programs for inmates could be useful to reduce the spread of such infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since 2007, a Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme against cervical cancer (CC) is implemented in Italy in 11-year-old girls. The extension of HPV vaccination to young adult women, or to 11-year-old boys could further reduce the CC burden, in the latter case from indirect effect on HPV transmission. The objective of the study was to compare the potential CC cases prevention from HPV-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccination of adding catch-up targeting 15- or 25-year-old girls to the addition of boys vaccination in Italy. The models assessing the impact of these alternative vaccination strategies are usually dynamic models requiring numerous input data. Simpler models could however provide some insight into this question, as reported in the current study.Methods: A published cohort model adapted to the Italian setting was used to estimate the potential CC reduction following different HPV vaccination strategies with a HPV-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine: vaccination of 11-year-old girls, female aged 15 or 25 years. The model assumed that the maximum benefit obtained from vaccinating boys equals the CC reduction that would result from immunisation of all non-vaccinated girls of the same age. Each cohort of 11-year-olds (either girls or boys) was assumed to include 281,000 individuals and a 70% vaccination coverage was applied. Sensitivity analysis was performed by varying the vaccination coverage and the overlap in potential sexual contacts between vaccinated boys and girls of the same age-group.Results: Under base case, compared with the screening-only scenario, HPV vaccination of 11-year-old girls, 15-year-old females, 25-year-old females or 11-year-old boys, would prevent 1,146, 1,082, 788 or 491 CC cases respectively. HPV vaccination of boys could result in more CC cases prevented than adding a female catch-up only in scenarios with low vaccination coverage in the primary target cohort and when combined with small overlap between vaccinated boys and girls of the same age cohort.Conclusions: For a fixed limited additional budget allowing the inclusion of a single catch-up cohort, the extension of HPV vaccination to girls or young women instead of boys was estimated to maximise the number of CC cases prevented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]