Amitis Ramezani

• Infectious disease specialist
• Professor at Pasteur Network

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), can alter the expression levels of host microRNAs (miRNAs). Increasing evidence suggests that circulating miRNAs can potentially play an important role in the diagnosis and prognosis of respiratory infectious diseases, espec...

During COVID-19 pandemic, international pharmaceutical companies put effort to build global manufacturing networks for vaccines. Soberana Plus vaccine, a recombinant protein based vaccine (RBD dimer), with the trade name of PastoCovac Plus in Iran, is based on a protein subunit platform in Cuba and completed preclinical and toxicological assessment...

Considering menstruation as a crucial factor in females’ health and fertility, any factor that could change its cycle is important. This study was conducted from April 2021 to October 2022 on females who got 3 doses of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 through different platforms. The participants were requested to provide the trained experts with any ch...

In this era in which the vast majority of the global population have developed COVID-19 infection and/or got vaccinated against it, identification of the late disorders as the vaccines’ side effect or long-COVID manifestation seems essential. This study included the vaccinated individuals of 4 different vaccine regimens including inactivated virus-...

PastoCovac is a subunit protein vaccine against COVID-19 which contains the tetanus toxoid as a carrier conjugated to SARS-CoV-2 RBD. The primary goal of the tetanus application was to elicit a stronger specific response in the individuals. However, conjugate vaccines have the potency to generate anticarrier antibodies in addition to the target ant...

COVID-19 is now established as a multi-organ involvement disease with a broad range of manifestations. Identification of post-acute COVID-19 incidence is critical according to increasing number of late symptoms reports. Hereby, we report a case with a past history of COVID-19 who presented different manifestations including osteoarticular and neuro...

This study evaluated the possible effects of blood types on coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) vaccine immunogenicity and antibody (Ab) persistency. Five different vaccinated groups against COVID‐19 were investigated at Pasteur Institute of Iran from April 2021 to December 2022. Anti‐Spike IgG and neutralizing Ab rise were tracked on Day 21 as well as...

There have been massive studies to develop an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 which fortunately led to manage the recent pandemic, COVID-19. According to the quite rapidly developed vaccines in a fast window time, large investigations to assess the probable vaccine-related adverse events are crucially required. COVID-19 vaccines are available...

Background This study aimed at evaluation and comparison of PastoCovac Plus protein-subunit vaccine in parallel with ChAdOx1-S (AstraZeneca) and BBIBP-CorV (Sinopharm) in primarily vaccinated volunteers with two doses of ChAdOx1-S or BBIBP-CorV. Materials and methods 194 volunteers enrolled the study who were previously primed with 2 doses of ChAd...

Background:Following SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, another crisis has been established by progress or persistence of COVID-19 symptoms, as post or long COVID, which is critical to be recognized according to increasing number of late symptoms reports. In this study, we investigated long-term disorders in vaccinated individuals who developed late adverse even...

The present study aims to provide an insight to the comprehensive efforts of Pasteur Institute of Iran (PII) regarding COVID-19 management, research, achievements, and vaccine production, though there are many challenges. The relevant literature review was investigated through national and international database and also reports from the related re...

COVID-19 pandemic has been managed through global vaccination programs. However, the antibody waning in various types of vaccines came to notice. Hereby, PastoCovac Plus as a protein subunit vaccine was investigated in immunized health care workers by COVAXIN (BBV152). The booster vaccine was recommended at least three months post the second dose o...

COVID-19 pandemic has been managed through global vaccination programs. However, the antibody waning in various types of vaccines came to notice. Hereby, PastoCovac Plus as a protein subunit vaccine was investigated in immunized health care workers by COVAXIN (BBV152). The booster vaccine was recommended at least three months post the second dose o...

Data on immunogenicity, immune response persistency, and safety of COVID-19 boosters in patients with comorbidities are limited. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate three different boosters’ immunogenicity and safety in individuals with at least one underlying disease (UD) (obesity, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus) with healthy ones (HC) who were p...

Data on immunogenicity, immune response persistency, and safety of COVID-19 boosters in patients with comorbidities are limited. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate and compare three different boosters in individuals who received two doses of the BBIBP-CorV vaccine including underlying diseases and healthy cases as control. One hundred forty subjects i...

Early reports on COVID-19 vaccines presented the short-term adverse events (AEs). This follow-up study investigated a standard regimen based on protein subunit vaccines, PastoCovac and PastoCovac Plus, and the combinational vaccine regimens including AstraZeneca/PastoCovac Plus and Sinopharm/PastoCovac Plus. The participants were followed up to 6 m...

The optimal booster vaccine schedule against COVID-19 is still being explored. The present study aimed at assessment of the immunogenicity and antibody persistency of inactivated-virus based vaccine, BBIP-CorV and protein-subunit based vaccines, PastoCovac/Plus through heterologous and homologous prime-boost vaccination. Totally, 214 individuals wh...

Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has significantly contributed to the recent pandemic control. COVID-19 vaccines are available with different platforms and the primary clinical trials results presented acceptable safety profile of the approved vaccines. Nevertheless, the long-term assessment of the adverse events or rare conditions need to be investi...

Background Human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide. This study aimed at evaluation of women’s knowledge about HPV and HPV vaccine and identification of related factors conducted on 400 reproductive-aged women referred to health care centers in Arak, Iran. Methods A researcher-made questionnaire was a...

Background The present study aims to show the comprehensive effort of Pasteur Institute of Iran and its scientists regarding COVID-19 chaos management, related studies, achievements and vaccine production though there were many imposed challenges. Methods The relevant literature review was done through the associated data from national and interna...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a leading cause of death in the world in the last few years. This study has investigated various causes and risk factors that may lead to death due to this disease. Methods: From June to October 2020, 98 expired and 196 recovered patients were studied for risk factors, underly...

Purpose: Central nervous system involvement by Brucella species is the most morbid form of brucellosis disease. Studies on neurobrucellosis are scarce and limited to case reports and series. Brucella is unable to infect or harm neurons without the assistance of monocytes. This raises the question of whether ceftriaxone-based regimens are effective...

Background: According to the contagious ability of the new virus, SARS-CoV-2, characterization of viral shedding duration in the period of infection is highly valuable in terms of providing quarantine guidelines and isolation policies. Therefore, we aimed at viral shedding determination in 58 COVID-19 confirmed Iranian subjects in different stages...

The prevalence and variety complaints of COVID-19 cases in a long term have been investigated in recent studies. The symptoms over the time are various and unpredictable which may persist several weeks after full recovery. The importance of long-COVID-19 manifestations includes its effect on the recovered cases which requires a rational management...

Introduction: Reductions in global tuberculosis incidence are considered as one of the End TB Strategy goal. The diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in children is challenging due to insufficient specimen material and the scarcity of bacilli in specimens. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence, characteristics, clinical profiles, labo...

The epidemiological studies in Iran on HPV18 nucleotide changes are rare. This type of virus is prevalent in the Iranian population. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to identify the genetic variability in HPV18 in the E6 region to evaluate the prevalence of lineage distribution and sublineages in a sample population in Iran. Overall, 60 HP...

Purpose Central nervous system involvement by Brucella species is the most morbid form of brucellosis disease. Studies on neurobrucellosis are scarce and limited to case reports and series. Brucella is unable to infect or harm neurons without the assistance of monocytes. This raises the question of whether ceftriaxone-based regimens are effective....

Several therapeutic regimens for COVID-19 have been studied, such as combination antiviral therapies. We aimed to compare outcome of two types of combination therapies atazanavir/ritonavir (ATV/r) or lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) plus hydroxychloroquine among COVID-19 patients. 108 patients with moderate and severe forms of COVID-19 were divided into...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may lead to acute respiratory disease; cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and coagulation complications; and even death. One of the major complications is cardiovascular disorders, including arrhythmias, myocarditis, pericarditis, and acute coronary artery disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequen...

Since the COVID-19 pandemic initiation, the possibility of re-infection has been unclearly present. Although herd immunity has a potential reliance through natural infection, human corona viruses has the ability to subvert immunity and re-infection happens for seasonal corona viruses. Currently, the frequency of SARS-CoV-2 re-infection incidence is...

Background There have been massive efforts on vaccine development against HIV-1 since its discovery. Various approaches have been taken to attention including rational vaccine design, optimized delivery systems and heterologous regimen to eradicate the virus. DNA vaccines fundamentally induce host immune responses by genetically engineered plasmids...

COVID-19 immunity in infected individuals may not be persistent. The specific response wanes in patients who have recovered from this infection. Nevertheless, it has not been fully understood whether true re-infection occurs or the viral reactivation. In this study, we investigated three COVID-19 patients who represented the symptoms after recovery...

Background Hepatitis C virus (HCV) acts in host as a complicated mixture of related variants with the potency to genetically escape host immune responses. Direct acting antivirals (DAAs) have been approved for HCV treatment with shorter duration, better cure rates and lower side effects. However, naturally occurring resistance associated substituti...

Background: Many treatments for COVID-19 are currently under studying, such as combination therapies with hydroxychloroquine plus antiviral drugs. In this study, we compared the efficacy and side effects of two types of combination therapy including atazanavir /ritonavir (ATV/r) or lopinavir /ritonavir (LPV/r) plus hydroxychloroquine among COVID-19...

The world has gone through the critical phase of SARS-CoV-2 crisis caused by the new variants of the virus. The globally concerted effort to characterize viral genomic mutations across different clades has revealed several changes in the coding and also non-coding regions which might lead to a violent presentation or re-infection occurrence. Here,...

In the present review study, the published articles from 2010-2020 that evaluated the effect of chitosan nanocarrier on the amphotericin B (AmB) efficacy in the treatment of leishmaniasis, have been considered. Leishmania is a parasitic tropical disease in the world and is treated with AmB as one of the main therapeutic agent. However, clinical app...

SARS-CoV-2 as a new global threat has affected global population for one year. Despite the great effort to eradicate this infection, there are still some challenges including different viral presentation, temporal immunity in infected individuals and variable data of viral shedding. We studied 255 COVID-19 suspected individuals to assess the viral...

Various approaches have been investigated to prevent or eliminate HIV-1 since 1981. However, the virus has been affecting human population worldwide with no effective vaccine yet. The conserved regions among the viral genes are suitable targets in mutable viruses to induce the immune responses via an effective delivery platform. In this study, we a...

Purpose: COVID-19 immunity in infected individuals may not be persistent. The specific response wanes in patients who have recovered from this infection. Nevertheless, it has not been fully understood whether true re-infection occurs or the viral reactivation. Methods: In this study, we investigated three COVID-19 patients who represented the sympt...

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), as the causative agent of the ongoing pandemic, has spread into more than 200 countries to date. The disease which is caused by the virus is termed COVID-19. In most cases, it presents at first like common flu with cough and other respiratory symptoms. Nevertheless, other symptoms have b...

Introduction: Dendritic cells (DCs) play crucial roles in cellular immunity as the most powerful antigen presenting cells. They have been widely used for antigen delivery in vivo and in vitro. There are different ways to generate DCs and also gene transduction. In this study we introduce some optimization in order to produce high amount of well dif...

Background: Treatment of leishmaniasis is a challenge due to problems such as high price and dose of the drug, drug resistance and side effects. Objective: The study aims to introduce plants compounds, which their antileishmanial effects were approved in vivo conditions. Methods: This study as a review article was performed by searching the keyword...

Despite access to efficient hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine and universal immunization schedules, HBV infection remains a global health concern. HBV infection has decreased by this program. Nevertheless, breakthrough infections occur due to generation of occult HBV infection (OBI) and surface gene mutants in the immunized population. We aimed to de...

Background Different approaches have been investigated to develop a preventive or therapeutic vaccine although none of them has been fully practical. Therapeutic vaccines against HIV-1 have been studied with the aim of elimination the virus from reservoir cells with or without HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy). Fusion proteins with the m...

Background and Aim Clostridium difficile is the main cause of Antibiotic-Associated Diarrhea (AAD) in the hospital setting. Today, the use of probiotics for the prevention and treatment of AAD and colitis is increasing. In this study, we investigated the effect of probiotic yogurt on the frequency of Clostridium difficile. Methods and Materials In...

Introduction: Despite considerable efforts to control AIDS pandemic, it is still one of the significant infectious concerns worldwide. The advance in medical research has led to the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy with a considerable effect to suppress the disease. However, an effective vaccine capable of eradication the HIV pan...

Background Amphotericin B (Amp) and Betulinic acid (BA) as antileishmanial agents have negligible water solubility and high toxicity. To solve these problems, for the first time, chitosan nanoparticles and Anionic Linear Globular Dendrimer (D) were synthesized for the treatment of Leishmania major (L. major). Method Chitosan and dendrimer nanopart...

Autophagy is a finely tuned process in the regulation of innate immunity to avoid excessive inflammatory responses and inflammasome signaling. In contrast, the results of recent studies have shown that autophagy may disease-dependently contribute to the pathogenesis of liver diseases, such as fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)...

Introduction The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is still a remarkable challenge throughout the world, especially in developing countries. Despite the fact that HIV in children is becoming one of the most challenging diseases, it seems that pediatric AIDS in Iran is an unknown disease and there is a lack of studies about it. The aim of this stud...

Background Among various types of pharmaceuticals, vaccines have a special place. However, in the case of HIV nearly after 40 years of its discovery an effective vaccine still is not available. The reason lies in several facts mainly the variability and smartness of HIV as well as complexity of the interaction between HIV and immune responses. A ro...

Background: The introduction of direct acting antivirals (DAAs) for hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment promises shorter treatment duration, higher cure rates and fewer side effects. Naturally, occurring Resistance Associated Substitutions (RASs) are major challenge to the success of the HCV antiviral therapy. Aim: To determine the naturally occur...

Background Among different types of human papillomavirus (HPV), types 16 and 18 were known to be high-risk agents causing mainly cervical cancer. Up to now, the potential of HPV E7 protein has been proved as a diagnostic marker of cervical cancer. Moreover, the levels of anti-heat shock protein (Hsp) and anti-high mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) antib...

Background: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) has been a major global health concern for over 38 years. No safe and effective preventive or therapeutic vaccine has been developed although many products have been investigated. Computational methods have facilitated vaccine developments in recent decades. Among HIV-1 proteins, p24 and N...

Background & objective: Toxoplasma gondii infection has public health importance and can lead to serious diseases in immunosuppressed patients, such as HIV cases. Appropriate control of T. gondii infection in HIV patients requires information about the prevalence of T. gondii antibodies and DNA in different population. In this study, we aimed to d...

Aim: Improvement in the treatment of Leishmania major's pathological effects through increasing the dose of amphotericin B loaded into nanochitosan. Materials & methods: The phase separation method was used for nanochitosan synthesis and amphotericin loading. Also a novel solvent was designed and the nanodrug efficacy was evaluated in vitro and...

Background: Nowadays, nanocarriers are used for leishmaniasis treatment due to development of drug resistance and several side effects with conventional therapeutics. Objectives: In this study we aimed to evaluate in vivo effects of four synthesized nanodrugs including amphotericin B-nanochitosan (AK), betulinic acid-nanochitosan (BK), amphotericin...

Regarding the antiparasitic effects of Betulinic acid (B) against Leishmaniasis, it was loaded into nanochitosan (K) for the first time in order to improve its therapeutic effects and decrease its side effects for the treatment of Leishmania major-infected Balb/c mice. Improvement the therapeutic efficacy of Bas an anti-leishmania agent through inc...

Amphotericin B (A) as an antileishmanial drug has limited clinical application owing to severe side-effects and low-water solubility. This is the first study reported using Anionic Linear Globular Dendrimer (ALGD) as A carrier for the increase of A solubility rate, decrease its toxicity, and improve its therapeutic effects. ALGD was synthesized and...

Background: Hepatitis A virus (HAV) is a major cause of acute viral hepatitis throughout the world. The severity of HAV clinical symptoms in infected cases is related to age. Age-specific seroprevalence studies are reliable method to estimate the susceptibility rate to HAV in populations and can help to establish vaccination implementation policies...

Human parvovirus B19 (B19) infection is common among blood donors, and healthy blood donors can transmit virus via transfusion. Due to resistance of B19 to viral inactivation methods, there is a potential concern regarding transfusion safety in blood products. We aimed to determine the seroprevalence, molecular epidemiology and quantitation of B19...

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is an acute infectious disease of respiratory system. CAP is a common and potentially serious illness and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality particularly in elder adult patients and those with significant comorbidities. One of the important causes of pneumonia is Mycoplasma pneumon...

Background: Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) is a common infection in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients and may accelerate HIV progression by rising HIV viral load and decreasing CD4 count. However, the available data regarding the influence of HSV-2 seropositivity on HIV progression in HIV individuals are inconclusive. Therefore, we...

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is one of the most frequently sexually transmitted diseases in the world. Multiple types of HPVs are divided as low risk, and high risk types. Low risk types cause warts and high risk types can cause cancer. HPV infections are responsible for almost all cases of genital warts and cervical cancer, 90% of anal can...

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) infection can cause cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers in women and penile cancer in men. HPV can also cause oropharyngeal and anal cancers and genital warts in both women and men. HPV types 16 and 18 are the most carcinogenic types and are responsible for about 70% of the cervical cancers. HPV types 31, 33, 35, 45, 5...

Background: Hepatitis D virus (HDV) is a defective RNA virus that depends on the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) for its replication. Infection with hepatitis D virus in hepatitis B virus chronic carriers causes accelerated progression to chronic active hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatic carcinoma. In studies conducted in Iran and different count...

Introduction: Spondylitis is a serious disease caused by a variety of pathogens. The identification of spondylitis etiologies is a very important medical issue. This study was conducted to compare clinical, laboratory and radiological features of the patients with tuberculous (TS), brucellar (BS) and pyogenic spondylitis (PS) in a central city of I...

Background: Gastroenteritis is one of the leading cause of illnesses through the world, especially in developing countries.Salmonella and Shigella infections are considered as the main public health problems in children. The aim of this study was to detect the prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility of Salmonella and Shigella spp. among childr...

The assessment of the gender and age-specific seroprevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) is essential for planning of HPV vaccine implementation into the preventive programs. In this study, we aimed to determine the age-specific seroprevalence of HPV-16 and 18 in both males and females in Tehran, Iran. Three hundred and seventy-eight women (10-35...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and genotype of human parvovirus B19 and its relation with anemia among Iranian patients under dialysis. Methods: Fifty hemodialysis (HD) and 33 peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients were enrolled. B19 IgG and IgM antibodies were assessed by ELISA, and the presence of B19 DNA was evalua...

A nationwide HBV vaccination program for neonates was launched in Iran in 1993. Despite the achievement of this program, concern about its long-term success still remains, because breakthrough infections due to emergence of surface mutants have been reported in immunized children. We aimed to evaluate the seroprevalence of HBV and vaccine escape mu...

Background/aim: T-helper cell type 1 (Th1)/Th2 cytokine balance is involved in the resistance or susceptibility to Brucella infection. The analysis of cytokine levels is valuable to determine the role of the immune system in Brucella prognosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the levels of serum interleukin-17 (IL-17) and transforming grow...

Hepatitis B virus vaccination was recommended for HIV patients. Despite the relative success of hepatitis B virus vaccination, breakthrough infections can occur infrequently in patients, and it can be due to occult hepatitis B virus infection, vaccine unresponsiveness and/or emergence of escape mutants. This study assessed the presence of occult he...

Background and Objectives: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a worldwide concern and it is the major cause of liver disease. Several genotypes of the HCV have been reported from different regions of the world. The determination of the HCV genotypes is important for the prediction of response to antiviral treatment and clinical outcomes. So, HCV...

Background: The household transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major health problem. High incidence of HBV infection is observed within the household contacts of HBV carriers. We aimed to evaluate serological markers of hepatitis B infection among family members of HBV carriers in Arak, central Iran. Methods: Data were collected from the 10...

Background: Primary infection with BK virus (BKV) is occurred during childhood and usually asymptomatic, but after initial infection, BKV may persist lifelong in the kidney and genitourinary tract. Reactivation may occur in individuals with compromised immunity such as renal transplant recipients. Due to the role of BKV in BK virus-associated nephr...

Background: Primary infection with BK virus (BKV) is occurred during childhood and usually asymptomatic, but after initial infection, BKV may persist lifelong in the kidney and genitourinary tract. Reactivation may occur in individuals with compromised immunity such as renal transplant recipients. Due to the role of BKV in BK virus-associated nephr...

Background: Kaposi’s sarcoma is a vascular malignancy which frequently occurs among immunocompromised individuals such as transplant recipients and patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is considered to be the etiological agent of all forms of Kaposi’s sarcoma. Though some seroepidemiological studies conducte...

Recent studies have demonstrated that, in common with other latent viruses, parvovirus B19 infection can be controlled by the host immune response but may persist in some places such as the bone marrow. Persistent B19 infection has been found in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised individuals, such as patients infected with human immunodefic...

Background: A nationwide HBV vaccination for neonates in the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) was launched in Iran in 1993. After HBV vaccines were included in the EPI, HBsAg-positive rate and anti-HBc dropped remarkably according to recent studies from different provinces of Iran. Despite the achievement of the HBV vaccination program, break...

Background: Human polyomavirus BK virus (BKV) belonging to the Polyomaviridae family, a double-stranded DNA virus that infects approximately 90% of the general population as a subclinical or mild infection. Under immunosuppressive conditions such as kidney transplantation or HIV infection, BKV may be reactivated resulting hemorrhagic cystitis and t...

Background: The household transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major health problem. High incidence of infection with HBV is observed within the household contacts of chronic HBV carriers and it is not rare to have several members of the same household who have evidence of infection with HBV. The prevalence rate of this infection is reporte...

Background: Hepatitis B virus potentially accelerates graft rejection and mortality in renal transplantation population. Vaccination of graft candidates without prior immunization against HBV seems essential before transplantation but some candidates of transplantation have not received HBV vaccine at the time of receiving graft. We aimed to evalu...

Background: Primary infection with BK virus (BKV) is occurred during childhood and usually asymptomatic, but after initial infection, BKV may persist lifelong in the kidney and genitourinary tract. Reactivation may occur in individuals with compromised immunity such as renal transplant recipients. Due to the role of BKV in BK virus-associated nephr...

Human polyomavirus BK virus (BKV) is a double-stranded DNA virus that infects approximately 90% of the general population as a subclinical or mild infection. In immunosuppressed patients, such as HIV cases, BKV may be reactivated resulting hemorrhagic cystitis and tubulointerstitial nephritis. However, there are limited studies on prevalence and mo...

Background and Objectives: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women throughout the world. There are controversial reports on the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in breast carcinogenesis. The aim of this study was to assess the presence of HPV-DNA in invasive breast carcinoma to determine the association between HPV infectio...

Lack of recognition of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection especially in children and delayed implementation of effective control programs makes HIV infection as a major cause for concern. Information on HIV epidemiology in Iran as well as other Islamic countries is limited. The aim of our study was to describe the clinical manifestation a...