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Biomedical subjects

G M Fara

Publications and source records attributed to G M Fara.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

[Liquid hospital waste].

Hospital sewage is distinct both from that of industrial origin and that from human housing, and is unique from the qualitative and quantitative standpoints. In fact the hospital is clearly different from a residential setting for the addition of technological activities, which are realised inside it, and it is not comparable to a traditional productive complex, because of the extreme variability--from one hospital to the other--of the presence of activities themselves, and this means important quali--quantitative differences of sewage produced from case to case. After all, the hospital cannot be compared to a centre of tertiary activities, which has, as regards sewage, the characteristics and the constancy of great inhabited places. Actually, its daily amount per patient is up to 1,000 L (3-5 times more than a standard citizen), because hospitals include, besides patients, physicians, nurses, technical and clerical staff and, for "teaching hospitals", also professors and students; in addition, the sewage from hospitals is composed of standard human sewage, plus: discharges from laboratories and technical equipments; drugs and their metabolites; disinfectants; and microorganisms, which are often characterized by the presence of antibiotic resistance of "infectious" nature (i.e. transmitted by resistance plasmids). Such contaminants are not evenly generated, but focal points in the hospital and given hours during the day can help to identify where and when most of each contaminant is produced. A special problem arises from the interference of contaminants in hospital sewage on activated sludge plants; another is connected with the presence of toxic substances originated from biochemical laboratories, but the concentration of such substances appears to be lower than that tolerated according to the italian regulations.

Containment of Biohazards

[Starting points for the Italian actualization derived from the experience of community medicine in developing countries].

The Authors have studied the salient features of Community Medicine from three different aspects: 1) the theory of primary health care, as defined by the WHO, as a fundamental element in Community Medicine; 2) the characteristics it assumes in health planning in developing countries, where it is designed to meet the special local requirements; 3) the situation in Italy, where local medical care is regarded as a favoured sphere for projects, but where different planning and policies are required. From this study we have selected a number of ideas gathered during our experience in developing countries, which are suitable for adoption in Italy: the setting up of health care systems on global, capillary and participatory lines, aimed jointly at prevention, diagnosis and therapy: the use of scientific methodologies which are both thorough and accurate, and which are available for user countries; adequate personnel training; coordination between medical care and the working world; all this with the aim of enabling each and every individual to lead a socially and economically productive life, by ensuring the greatest possible physical and mental well being.

Community Medicine

[Tetravalent anti-meningococcal vaccine: serologic and clinical evaluation].

Meningococcal disease is the only bacterial meningitis able to cause an epidemic and the mortality due to this disease is all but negligible; therefore the active immunization induced by a vaccine that includes a large portion of Neisseria meningitidis serogroups responsible for the immunization of subjects at risk. Tetravalent vaccine containing polysaccharides of the serogroups A, C, Y, W135 has given good results both for tolerability and immune response. Considering the epidemic situation in Italy, this vaccine could be an excellent strategy "to behead" possible epidemics and/or hyperendemics due to a known serogroups.

Adult

[Proposal for changing the ministerial instructions for antirabies prophylaxis in the light of the experience of the Centro Antirabbico di Roma].

Records of clinical assistance and of post-exposure antirabies prophylaxis from 4820 outpatients who attended the Antirabies Center of Rome following animal bites in 1986 were analysed. We observed a high proportion of people submitted to active immunization (44% received at least one shot of HDCV vaccine) in spite of the fact that rabies is absent from Central Italy since many decades in both wild and domestic animals. These considerations suggest the opportunity of a major revision of the official recommendations for rabies prevention, and we feel that different policies should be adopted in rabies enzootic areas (such as Northern Italy) compared to those where the risk is only potential. Immunization should be avoided after bites by rodents; passive immunization should be added to the vaccine after bites by wild animals in enzootic areas, while bites by cats and dogs, even uncaptured, will not be necessarily followed by vaccination in non enzootic areas.

Adolescent

[Study of anti-tetanus immunity in samples of the Italian population. I. Epidemiological considerations on tetanus in Italy and description of the technic adopted for sero-epidemiological studies].

The effectiveness of vaccinal prophilactic measures adopted in Italy since 1963 both on a volluteer and on a compulsory base, is analyzed according to the specific morbidity rates computed on a national base up to 1973. Rates for infants and young people have dramatically decreased, but rates for adult and old subjects still keep unmodified. Therefore, a tetanus vaccination involving adults and old people seems advisable, followed, as for children, by regular booster injection. A study on levels of immunity in samples of the population and another study on the duration of immunity after vaccination are supposed to be a reasonable base on which to build a program of vaccination in adults and old people. Such studies will be detailed in Note II and Note III. Note I describes and omments the technique adopted for the seroepidemiological studies.

Adolescent