Objective – The aim of this paper is to present the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of a measles outbreak in children age 0-18 years, who were hospitalized at the Clinic for Infectious Diseases of the University Clinical Center, Tuzla in the 2014/2015 period. Patients and methods – The target population of this retrospective study were patients in the 0-18 year age group, who were hospitalized at the Clinic for Infectious Diseases during the measles outbreak in 2014/2015. Results – At the Clinic for Infectious Diseases in Tuzla, 341 patients with the clinical characteristics of measles were hospitalized during the period of the measles outbreak in 2014/2015. Of all hospitalized patients 74.7% (255/341) belonged to the age group from 0 to 18 years. Most of hospitalized children, 146 (57.2%) of them, were in the age group from 0 to 6 years, next was the group of children aged 11 to 18 years, 69 (27.1%) of them, followed by the group of children aged from 6 to 10 years, 40 (15.7%) of them. Complications were present in 176 (69.02%) of the hospitalized children. Among the hospitalized children suffering from measles, 92.5% were unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated, or their vaccination status was unknown. Conclusion – The youngest population is susceptible to a much higher risk of measles. To reduce the incidence of measles in children a high level of immunization is required.

Objective – The aim of this study is to summarize the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1996 to 2015, and assess the impact of immunization. Methods – The analyses presented in this paper are based on the data collected by the Institute for Public Health of the Federation Bosnia and Herzegovina or by reviews of historical data. Results – Data suggests clear evidence of the reduction of burden of vaccine-preventable diseases after introduction of vaccines in the immunization program. Diphtheria and poliomyelitis have been eliminated, and tetanus and pertussis have been significantly reduced. Since the target of 95% vaccination coverage against measles, mumps and rubella was not achieved and the number of susceptible individuals’ increased, infectious agents still circulates and delayed outbreaks occur. Conclusion – Despite impressive achievements in vaccine-preventable diseases control, continued trust and investments in the immunization program in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina are essential.

Objective ? The aim of the research was to show the occurrence and persistence of measles morbidity over a twenty year period in the area of the Central Bosnia Canton (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Materials and methods ? The research was retrospective and related to the period from 1997 to 2017. The sample comprised a total of 35,199 children. The subjects were considered in relation to their age, gender, place of residence, vaccination status and time of morbidity. Results ? In the period from 1997 to 2017, on average 36 cases of morbidity  caused by measles occurred each year. Most years in this period (13) did not have any registered cases of measles, and in five years the disease occurred sporadically: 1999 (three cases); 2000 (one); 2003 (one); 2005 (two); 2009 (one), and two epidemics occurred: in 1997, with 77 affected children and with an incidence rate in the population under consideration of 218/100,000; and in 2014 with an explosion of measles morbidity, when 639 affected children were registered (1815/100,000). The average coverage with the first dose of MMR vaccine over the last twenty years was 87%, and the poorest results were achieved in 2004, with 64%. Conclusion ? The epidemiological occurrence of measles in the area of four municipalities in central Bosnia is the result of omissions in the routine immunization programme.

Objective – The aim of the paper is to describe the complexity of pertussis-like syndrome in primary health care practice, and to highlight consequences of vaccine hesitancy. Case reports – We described five cases of pertussis-like syndrome in pediatric practice. Patients were unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated against pertussis due to parental refusal. There was intrafamilial and interfamilial spread of infection. Conclusion – Evaluation and treatment of pertussis-like syndrome remain challenging in primary health care practice. Dealing with vaccine hesitancy requires an adequate understanding and answer. Vaccine refusal increases the individual risk of disease but also increases the risk for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

The prevalence of smoking among Croatian adolescents is alarmingly high, but no previous study has prospectively examined the sport- and academic-factors associated with smoking and smoking initiation. This study aimed to prospectively examine the associations between scholastic (educational) achievement and sport factors and smoking in 16- to 18-year-old adolescents. This two-year prospective cohort study included 644 adolescents who were 16 years of age at baseline (46% females). Baseline testing was implemented at the beginning of the 3rd year of high school (September 2014) when participants were 16 years old. Follow-up testing was completed at the end of the fourth year of high school, which occurred 20 months later. The evaluated predictor variables were educational-achievement- and sport-related-factors. The outcome variables were (i) smoking at baseline; (ii) smoking at follow-up; and (iii) smoking initiation over the course of the study. We assessed the associations between predictors and outcomes using logistic regression models adjusted for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and conflict with parents. The educational variables were consistently associated with smoking, with lower grade-point-average (Baseline: odd ratio (OR): 2.01, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.61–2.55; Follow-up: 1.59, 1.31–1.94), more frequent absence from school (Baseline: OR: 1.40, 95% CI: 1.19–1.69; Follow-up: 1.30, 1.08–1.58), and lower behavioral grades (Baseline: OR: 1.80, 95% CI: 1.10–2.89; Follow-up: 1.57, 1.03–2.41) in children who smoke. Adolescents who reported quitting sports were at greater odds of being smokers (Baseline: 2.07, 1.31–3.32; Follow-up: 1.66, 1.09–2.56). Sport competitive achievement at baseline was protective against smoking initiation during following two-year period (0.45, 0.21–0.91). While the influence of the educational variables on smoking initiation has been found to be established earlier; sport achievement was identified as a significant protective factor against initiating smoking in older adolescents. Results should be used in development of an anti-smoking preventive campaign in older adolescents.

Abstract To avoid motion artefacts when merging multiple exposures into a high dynamic range image, a number of HDR deghosting algorithms have been proposed. However, these algorithms do not work equally well on all types of scenes, and some may even introduce additional artefacts. As the number of proposed deghosting methods is increasing rapidly, there is an immediate need to evaluate them and compare their results. Even though subjective methods of evaluation provide reliable means of testing, they are often cumbersome and need to be repeated for each new proposed method or even its slight modification. Because of that, there is a need for objective quality metrics that will provide automatic means of evaluation of HDR deghosting algorithms. In this work, we explore several computational approaches of quantitative evaluation of multi-exposure HDR deghosting algorithms and demonstrate their results on five state-of-the-art algorithms. In order to perform a comprehensive evaluation, a new dataset consisting of 36 scenes has been created, where each scene provides a different challenge for a deghosting algorithm. The quality of HDR images produced by deghosting method is measured in a subjective experiment and then evaluated using objective metrics. As this paper is an extension of our conference paper, we add one more objective quality metric, UDQM, as an additional metric in the evaluation. Furthermore, analysis of objective and subjective experiments is performed and explained more extensively in this work. By testing correlation between objective metric and subjective scores, the results show that from the tested metrics, that HDR-VDP-2 is the most reliable metric for evaluating HDR deghosting algorithms. The results also show that for most of the tested scenes, Sen et al.’s deghosting method outperforms other evaluated deghosting methods. The observations based on the obtained results can be used as a vital guide in the development of new HDR deghosting algorithms, which would be robust to a variety of scenes and could produce high quality results.

ABSTRACT Emergency contraception (EC) in Serbia is available in two products: Levonorgestel, which has nonprescription status, and Ulipristal acetate, which is a prescription-only medicine. Considering their dispensing statuses, gynecologists and pharmacists are health care professionals (HCPs) with the widest impact on EC use. Yet little is known about their beliefs and practices regarding these medicines. We surveyed 166 gynecologists (during October 2012—October 2013) and 452 community pharmacists (during January–April 2014). Results showed significant differences between these two groups, suggesting that provision of EC to users may be inconsistent. Gynecologists were more convinced than pharmacists that EC would reduce the abortion rate (86% versus 53%, p < .001). However, they were more concerned than pharmacists that easy access to EC would cause less regular contraceptive use (66% versus 29%, p < .001) and risky sexual behaviors, including initiating sexual activity at a younger age (37% versus 19%, p < .001) and having more sexual partners (33% versus 12%, p < .001). Additionally, more pharmacists than gynecologists (12% versus 2%, p < .001) said they would not provide EC to anyone under any circumstance, even to victims of sexual assault. These results indicated a need for reevaluating and establishing official guidelines for dispensing practices.

1Travnik General Hospital, Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2Clinical Center University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina KeYWORdS: patent foramen ovale, management. citAtiON: Cardiol Croat. 2019;14(3-4):92-3. | https://doi.org/10.15836/ccar2019.92 *AddReSS FOR cORReSPONdeNce: Alma Sijamija, J.U. Bolnica Travnik, Kalibunar bb, 72270 Travnik, Bosna and Herzegovina. / Phone: +387-61-780-085 / E-mail: alma.sijamija@hotmail.com ORcid: Alma Sijamija, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2818-0501 • Nermir Granov, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6228-6230 Alma Agačević, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4671-0991 • Omer Perva, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2645-1558 Nedžad Hadžić, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7186-7803