No abstract

From August to September 2014 a water quality study was conducted on five popular public Danube beaches in Vojvodina, Serbia. To assess the safety of Danube water for bathing, physical, chemical, bacteriological tests were performed. While many parameters for monitoring the quality of water are regulated by law, there are neither national nor international legislations addressing the presence of viruses in recreational waters. In this study, we performed analyses that surpassed national requirements, and investigated if adenovirus, enterovirus or rotavirus genetic material was present in samples of recreational water collected for quality monitoring. Of 90 water samples obtained during the study, enterovirus material was not found in any sample, but adenovirus and rotavirus genetic materials were respectively detected in 60 and 31 samples. Statistical analyses showed a significant correlation between adenovirus DNA and total coliforms in the water. Even when water samples were adequate for recreational use, adenoviruses were detected in 75% (57/76) of such samples. Our results indicate that implementation of viral indicators in recreational water might be helpful to better assess public health safety. This might be particularly relevant in areas where urban wastewater treatment is insufficient and surface waters affected by wastewater are used for recreation.

In Serbia, tick-borne encephalitis virus infection belongs to the list of reportable diseases; however, there are no reported cases because the diagnostics is not performed routinely. We believe that the significance of this zoonosis must be examined in our country and some of its parts because of preliminary positive serological findings found out in Vojvodina as well as because of reported cases in neighboring countries such as Hungary and Croatia and its worldwide distribution.

No abstract

This study evaluates the pre-vaccination prevalence of HPV infection in women from Vojvodina, Serbia, according to age and cytological status. A total of 1,495 women, ranging from 18 to 65 years of age, with different cytological results were enrolled. The HPV genotyping assay was performed using the EUROArray HPV test in order to detect thirty genitally relevant HPV subtypes. In our study, the most prevalent genotypeswere HPV 16, 31, 51, and 53. Among these, HPV 16 was consistently present in all cytological subgroups. Twelve HPV genotypes classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) were detected in 77.8.0% of HSIL/ASCH and 55.0% of NILM with abnormal colposcopy findings. Six possible carcinogens—HRs (group 2B) were often found in women with normal cytology (14.8%) and mild abnormalities (ASCUS and LSIL), but with lower frequence in HSIL/ASCH lesions (7.1%). HPVs 6 and 11(Group 3) were not found in the cases of HSIL/ASCH. Unclassified HPV types were equally distributed in all cytology groups: 20.7%, 19.1%, 16.3% and 13% of NILM, ASCUS, LSIL and HSIL/ASCH, respectively. Our findings highlight that majority of abnormal Pap test results are caused by Group 1 HPVs among women from our region. Low frequency HPVs of group 2A/2B, especially HSIL/ASCH, supports the conclusion that individual genotypes require consideration of each type as an individual agent. We expect a positive impact of HPV vaccine in reducing HPV-associated cervical lesions among women from Vojvodina province, after establishing vaccination programs in our country.