Background The advent of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines has been associated with a significant decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. However, little is known about the benefits experienced by different population groups and/or using distinct vaccines. Methods We analyzed the Spanish public registry for associations between calendar vaccination scale up and incidence of COVID-19 hospitalizations by age, gender and vaccine modality. The study period extended from January 2020 to June 2021. Results A total of 363,960 COVID-19 hospitalizations were recorded in Spain during the study period, with three peaks in March 2020, November 2020 and January 2021. The incidence of COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 population exponentially increased with age, on average 71.5% for each decade older. Overall individuals older than 60 years-old accounted for 65% of all COVID-19 hospitalizations. Speedy vaccination rollout since the end of 2020 with prioritization of the elderly groups resulted in a rapid drop of COVID-19 hospitalizations since February 2021. The benefit was already noticed 3-4 weeks after the first dose, regardless vaccine modality. Conclusions COVID-19 hospitalizations increased exponentially with age in all three peaks of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Spain. Early massive vaccination of people above 60-years precluded a fourth wave of COVID-19 hospitalizations during the spring of 2021.

We generalize the notion of λ-superstrings, presented in a previous paper, to the notion of weighted λ-superstrings. This generalization entails an important improvement in the applications to vaccine designs, as it allows epitopes to be weighted by their immunogenicities. Motivated by these potential applications of constructing short weighted λ-superstrings to vaccine design, we approach this problem in two ways. First, we formalize the problem as a combinatorial optimization problem (in fact, as two polynomially equivalent problems) and develop an integer programming (IP) formulation for solving it optimally. Second, we describe a model that also takes into account good pairwise alignments of the obtained superstring with the input strings, and present a genetic algorithm that solves the problem approximately. We apply both algorithms to a set of 169 strings corresponding to the Nef protein taken from patiens infected with HIV-1. In the IP-based algorithm, we take the epitopes and the estimation of the immunogenicities from databases of experimental epitopes. In the genetic algorithm we take as candidate epitopes all 9-mers present in the 169 strings and estimate their immunogenicities using a public bioinformatics tool. Finally, we used several bioinformatic tools to evaluate the properties of the candidates generated by our method, which indicated that we can score high immunogenic λ-superstrings that at the same time present similar conformations to the Nef virus proteins.

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Recommendations on hypnotic drug use are largely not followed in Spain. Most patients are taking hypnotic drugs daily, over long time periods, and without an adequate dosage titration according to age. Measures should be taken to correct this situation.

Background: A protective hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine has been available for four decades. Universal HBV vaccination of infants is recommended by the WHO since the 1990s. Furthermore, HBV immunization is advised for all adults with high-risk behaviours and no seroprotection. However, HBV vaccine coverage remains globally suboptimal. The advent of new more efficacious trivalent HBV vaccines has renewed the interest in HBV vaccination. At present, the extent of current HBV susceptibility in adults remains unknown in Spain.Methods: HBV serological markers were assessed on a large and representative sample of adults in Spain, including blood donors and individuals belonging to high-risk groups. Serum HBsAg, anti-HBc and anti-HBs were tested in specimens collected during the last couple of years.Results: From 13 859 consecutive adults tested at seven cities across the Spanish geography, overall 166 (1.2%) had positive HBsAg. Past HBV infection was recognized in 14% and prior vaccine immunization in 24%. Unexpectedly, 37% of blood donors and 63% of persons belonging to high-risk groups had no serum HBV markers and therefore were potentially HBV susceptible. Conclusion:Roughly 60% of adults living in Spain seem to be HBV susceptible.