Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in neonates has been associated with functional exhaustion of T-cells. We explored humoral immune responses from vaccination between congenital CMV-infected, postnatal CMV-infected and CMV-uninfected infants. Whole blood from infants with known CMV status was tested at seven months age, by in-house Luminex multiplex immunoassay, for antibodies to select vaccines in the primary series of childhood immunisations Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular Pertussis-Haemophilus Influenzae type b-Hepatitis B (DTaP-Hib-HBV). Immune responses to the primary series of DTaP-Hib-HBV vaccine was similar in congenital CMV-infected, postnatal CMV-infected and CMV-uninfected infants at seven months age. Close to 100% of congenital CMV-infected, postnatal CMV-infected and CMV-uninfected infants had antigen-specific IgG-concentrations above the correlate or surrogate of protection to four of five antigens (HBsAg, TT, DT, PT). This suggests CMV does not have any deleterious effect on humoral immune responses to the primary series of DTaP-Hib-HBV vaccination in black-African children. Zimbabwe has one of the highest incidence rates of cervical cancer in the world - 61.7 per 100,000 women. The government of Zimbabwe introduced bivalent HPV vaccine with a 0,12month schedule to all 10-14year old girls using a pulsed-campaign approach in May 2018 (dose 1) and May 2019 (dose 2). In August 2019, we conducted a population-based, two-stage cluster survey of households with girls who were eligible for the national HPV vaccination program to determine two-dose HPV vaccination coverage in three districts of Zimbabwe. All households with girls currently aged 11 to 15years were line-listed through a census conducted in the pre-selected clusters from each district prior to survey administration. A simple random sample of eligible households was selected from these lists to estimate HPV vaccine coverage at sufficient power with a margin of error of +/- 5%. learn more Criteria for district selection included estimated vaccine uptake (low, medium, high), rural/urban/peri-urban, geographic area, estimated number od will need to focus on minimizing dropout between doses and routinizing annual vaccinations in schools for every subsequent new cohort of eligible girls in the country.Detection and surveillance of vaccine safety hazards is a public health staple. In the post-marketing phase, when vaccines are used in mass, it is crucial to monitor potential signals of adverse reactions that may have been missed in the pre-marketing phase. We analysed spontaneous reports of drug adverse events in El Salvador to assess a potential safety signal related to an increase in febrile seizures following the pentavalent (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae Type B) vaccine in 2019. This was a retrospective observational study of adverse event notifications in the national electronic drug safety database from 2011 to 2019. We performed standard disproportionality analysis computing Proportional Reporting Risk (PRR), Reporting Odds Ratio (ROR), Relative Reporting Ratio (RRR), Chi-squared, and Information Component (IC), comparing the pairing of febrile seizures and pentavalent vaccine to all other drugs and adverse events recorded in 2019. The occurrence of febrile seizures following pentavalent vaccination exceeded the WHO expected rate of six cases × 100 000 doses administered from April 2019, with a maximum of 9.2 in September. IC was 4.3, ORR 421.9 (95% Confidence Interval, CI 123.8-1437.7), PRR 223.5 (95 %CI 70.2-710.9), RRR was 19.5. The first booster presented the highest rate (14.6 per 100,000 doses) of febrile seizures, more than double than expected. Rates for 2018 remained below expected. Reports of febrile seizures following pentavalent vaccine were also on the increase globally since 2014, with highest rates in 2018 and 2019. There was a disproportion of febrile seizures notifications following pentavalent in El Salvador in 2019, suggesting the existence of a safety signal. This may be due to the change in provider. Further studies should assess the causes of the increase and compute costs and benefits of this vaccination to determine if switching to a less reactogenic vaccine formulation is indicated. Recent phase-3 clinical trials have demonstrated very encouraging results for mRNA based vaccines against COVID-19. Current FDA and manufacturer guidelines mandate intramuscular administration of these vaccines, as other administration routes may not provide the same levels of effectiveness and safety. Observing the vast amount of published media images of persons receiving their vaccines, the authors noted in many cases the injection technique involved skin bunching, raising concerns of inadequate deltoid muscle penetration and consequent lowered vaccine efficacy. Our study hypothesis was that skin bunching will increase the skin-to-muscle distance over 20mm, the maximal distance allowing the required 5mm muscle penetration with a 25mm needle. 60 adult volunteers from our hospital staff were recruited, and using ultrasound, the skin-to-muscle distance measured in three positions flat, skin bunching and muscle bunching. The skin-to-muscle distance difference and correlation with gender and BMI were calcultrictly discouraged. Explore medical students' verbal responses to patients expressing emotional issues in a medical interview. Eleven third-year students were instructed to conduct a medical interview with a simulated chronically ill patient while being videotaped (but were led to believe that the patient was real). An interaction analysis system (VR-CoDES) was used to identify patient utterances containing emotional expressions as well as student utterances responding to these emotional expressions. A qualitative content analysis of student utterances was then conducted. Four categories that depicted student responses were identified (1) questions focusing on a medico-professional agenda, (2) allowing disclosure of emotions without explicit acknowledgment of emotions, (3) attempts at reassurance, and (4) explicit recognition of emotions, but most often on a factual and descriptive level. Our analysis indicate that these students gave priority to medico-professional tasks and responsibilities in their responses. They demonstrated some interest in the patient's emotional experiences whilst most often leaving out their own personal perspectives.