In Romania, the first phase of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign prioritized medical personnel, which included healthcare students. This study aimed to assess their knowledge, attitudes towards, and perception of COVID-19 vaccination. An anonymous, single-answer, 42-item online survey was conducted from 12 January until 3 March 2021, in the country’s largest University of Medicine and Pharmacy. Among the 1581 respondents (14.9% response rate), 88.5% were pro-vaccination, 7.8% were undecided, and 3.7% were vaccine resistant. The main reason for vaccine rejection was the perceived speed of vaccine development (strong agreement among the vaccine resistant, moderate agreement among the undecided, p < 0.001). Concern over long-term adverse reaction was present in only 11.5% of the respondents, significantly more frequent in the undecided and vaccine resistant. Perceived knowledge on the vaccines’ safety, efficacy, and technology correlated with a pro-vaccine attitude (p < 0.001). Most respondents had a positive stance towards vaccination in general, influencing their behaviour as future parents (99.3% of the pro-vaccination, 95.1% of the undecided, and 89.1% of the vaccine resistant will vaccinate their children, p < 0.001) and as medical professionals (99.7% of the pro-vaccination, 93.5% of those undecided, and 89.8% of the vaccine resistant would advise parents to vaccinate their children, p < 0.001). Healthcare students can thus serve as important vectors for scientifically sound information, influencing vaccine uptake in the community.

Pediatric multi-systemic inflammatory syndrome (PIMS) has gained attention throughout the medical world due to the ongoing SARS COV 2 pandemic. Being a systemic inflammatory response, cardiovascular complications are no exception, thus awareness of such conditions must be raised, as well as of prompt and accurate diagnosis and treatment. Attention is particularly brought to PIMS due to the fact that symptoms of it overlap with Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome. The aim of this paper is to present cardiac findings and short-term outcomes in children with PIMS admitted to one of the main pediatric emergency health care units in Romania. This current paper draws data from a single center, and is an observational, prospective study. The number of patients that were included in this study is 26, with age range between 1 month and 17 years, hospitalized between December 2020 and April 2021 in the ‘Grigore Alexandrescu’ Emergency Hospital for Children, Bucharest. The main criterion for inclusion was PIMS as defined by CDC/WHO case definition. Out of all symptoms, persistent fever and gastrointestinal conditions were de most frequent ones (88% and 69%, respectively). Cardiac involvement was found in 11 patients (42%), being represented by: left ventricular dysfunction (26%), coronary artery abnormalities (15%), atrioventricular valve regurgitation (30%), with only one patient showing pericardial effusion and one an ECG anomaly. Improvement of initial clinical symptoms was paralleled by alleviation of cardiac symptomatology, as well as normalization of cardiac and inflammatory laboratory findings. Our study shows that cardiac involvement is frequent in pediatric population with systemic inflammatory syndrome and we believe that PIMS in SARS COV 2 infected patients should be thoroughly screened and treated by a multi-disciplinary team. 24 out of 26 patients were fully recovered and discharged without sequelae, but two patients with persistent coronary artery aneurysmal findings.