The activity and circulation of influenza viruses in Argentina was studied during 2012 as part of the Argentinean Surveillance for Influenza and other Respiratory Viruses, in the context of Global Influenza Surveillance. The antigenicity and molecular characteristics of haemagglutinins (HA) of circulating influenza A and B viruses were analysed to assess the emergence of virus variants. Susceptibility to oseltamivir and zanamivir was evaluated by enzymatic assay and results were backed-up by sequencing of the neuraminidase (NA) genes. During the 2012 season, influenza virus circulation in Argentina was detected from weeks 24 to 51. The HA sequences of the studied A(H1N1)pdm09 subtype viruses segregated in a different genetic group compared to those identified during the 2009 pandemic, although they were still closely related antigenically to the vaccine virus A/California/07/2009. The HA sequences of the A(H3N2) viruses analysed fell into the A/Victoria/208/2009 clade, genetic group 3C. A mixed circulation of virus variants belonging to B/Victoria and B/Yamagata lineages was detected, with B/Victoria being dominant. All viruses tested were sensitive to oseltamivir and zanamivir except one. This isolate, an A(H1N1)pdm09 virus possessing the substitution NA-N295S, showed highly reduced inhibition by oseltamivir and reduced inhibition by zanamivir. Virological and epidemiological surveillance remains critical for detection of evolving influenza viruses.

Two strains of type SAT 2 foot-and-mouth disease virus which gave high titres of haemagglutinin activity reacted type-specifically in direct haemagglutinationinhibition tests with reference, bovine convalescent antisera. Comparisons of the haemagglutination-inhibition and the serum neutralization tests using cattle sera showed that both were equally specific and sensitive for detecting virus antibody.

One of us (S. L. C.), with C. Weatherall and E. T. Waters, published in 1931 the results of some experiments on the adsorption of the active principle of tuberculin by the dust of anthracite coal and showed that the activity of a diluted tuberculin was greatly diminished after contact with pulverized anthracite. In view of this fact, we made the suggestion that some such adsorbent action of autotuberculin by the finely divided coal-dust retained in the lung tissues of silico-anthracotic coal-miners might, perhaps, explain the relative freedom of these latter from the progressive pulmonary tuberculosis so commonly noted as a sequel to silicosis in gold-miners and others exposed to silicious dust free from admixture with coal-dust. These experiments have since been repeated by us with similar results and we, therefore, planned to try out the adsorption effects of other dusts liable to be inhaled in the course of coal-mining in South Wales.

The results presented in this paper confirm the existence of two types of tetracycline resistance in Shigella sonnei. One group of strains had a high level of resistance to tetracycline and oxytetracycline, with a variable level of minocycline resistance. The second group had a lower level of tetracycline resistance and were sensitive to minocycline. After conjugation with E. coli K12 the selected E. coli transconjugants had the same levels of resistance as the parent Sh. sonnei strain, with one exception. Sh. sonnei 87 was resistant to a high level of tetracycline, but was able to transfer only low level resistance. It is suggested that Sh. sonnei 87 carries two plasmids: pSU1, a conjugative plasmid conferring a low level of tetracycline resistance, and pSU2, a non-conjugative plasmid which confers a high level of resistance to tetracycline.

Since 1985. nosocomial infections have been frequently treated with a new fluoroquinolone, pefloxacin, at the Cardiological and Neurological Hospital in Lyon. From 1986 to 1988. the incidence of resistance of clinical Staphylococcus epidermidis strains to pefloxacin increased from 31 to 57%. Dispersion of these resistant strains in the hospital environment was recognized when they were detected on 22% of staff members' fingers (139 samples were investigated) and in 28% of the environmental samples (180 were investigated). There was an association between carriage rate and work place. Most of the pefloxacin-resistant S. epidermidis were resistant to oxacillin, gentamicin. erythromycin, cotrimoxazole and fosfomycin. Intensive use of pefloxacin selected multiresistant S. epidermidis which became ubiquitous in the hospital environment.

Much data has been gathered by the EWGLINET scheme on the distribution of cases of travel-associated Legionnaires' disease (TALD) by country of infection, but less analysis has been carried out on the distribution of these cases within countries. Travel-associated cases with onset in 2002 linked to France, Italy, Spain and Turkey were mapped. Rates of Legionnaires' disease per 100000 tourists were calculated for internal and foreign visitors for the regions of each country, and mapped. Rates of 1·5 cases/100000 and 2 cases/100000 tourists were classified as ‘high’ and ‘very high’ respectively. Cases of TALD were concentrated in certain regions, but when rates were calculated using tourist data, the results were relatively constant throughout each country. Rates were higher among foreign visitors than internal visitors; three of the countries had at least one region with ‘high’ rates, whilst Turkey additionally had three regions with ‘very high’ rates.

Vol. 72, No. 3; June 1974 On page 478, Table 4, column 1 (Properties) in line 13, for If I read If 1

Instances are recorded in the literature of mammalian -tubercle bacilli having lost their virulence completely during long cultivation on artificial media. In a paper published in 1925 I gave an account of the results of investigating two such strains which had been deposited in the National Collection of Type Cultures by Dr Nathan Raw. These strains were stated by Dr Raw to be lineal descendants of strains which had been given to him in 1906, one (human) by Prof. R. Koch, who had isolated it from the sputum of a case of human pulmonary tuberculosis, the other (bovine) by Prof. A. Calmette, who had obtained it from a mesenteric gland of a cow.

Two unidentified mycoplasmas, N3 and N11, isolated from the respiratory tract of horses, were found to cross-react with strains of M. mycoides subsp. mycoides in indirect immunofluorescence tests, growth-inhibition tests carried out by the running drop/agar-well method, and in complement-fixation and double immunodiffusion tests. Serologically, the equine mycoplasmas were not completely identical with any of the reference strains of M. mycoides with which they were compared. Their cultural characteristics, ability to digest coagulated serum and casein, and survival at 45 °C, however, suggested that they were more closely related to strains of M. mycoides subsp. mycoides, such as Y-goat, which are found in goats, than to strains of that subspecies which are pathogenic for cattle.

A total of 45 strains of Vibrio cholerae O1 isolated from 10 different places in India where they were associated with cases of cholera between the years 2007 and 2008 were examined by molecular methods. With the help of phenotypic and genotypic tests the strains were confirmed to be O1 El Tor biotype strains with classical ctxB gene. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis by double – mismatch amplification mutation assay PCR showed 16 of these strains carried the ctxB-7 allele reported in Haitian strains. Sequencing of the ctxB gene in all the 45 strains revealed that in 16 strains the histidine at the 20th amino acid position had been replaced by asparagine and this single nucleotide polymorphism did not affect cholera toxin production as revealed by beads enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. This study shows that the new ctxB gene sequence was circulating in different places in India. Seven representatives of these 45 strains analysed by pulsed – field gel electrophoresis showed four distinct Not I digested profiles showing that multiple clones were causing cholera in 2007 and 2008.

The community burden of enterovirus is often monitored through syndromic monitoring systems based on reported cases of enterovirus-related infection (EVI) diagnoses. The extent to which this is affected by under- and over-diagnosis has not been reported. In Taiwan, children often make more than one healthcare visit during an episode of infection. We used change of diagnosis within an episode of infection as a guide of diagnostic uncertainty in a nationally representative cohort of Taiwanese children (n = 13 284) followed from birth to the 9th birthday through electronic health records. We conducted a nested case-control analysis and estimated cross-diagnosis ratios (CDRs) as the observed proportion of acute respiratory infection (ARI) diagnoses following an EVI diagnosis in excess of background ARI burdens. With 19 357 EVI diagnoses in this cohort, the CDR within 7 days was 1·51 (95% confidence interval 1·45–1·57), confirming a significant excess of ARI diagnoses within the week following an EVI diagnosis. We used age-specific CDRs to calibrate the weekly EVI burden in children aged 3–5 years in 2008, and the difference between observed and calibrated weekly EVI burdens was small. Therefore, there was evidence suggesting a small uncertainty in EVI diagnosis, but the observed EVI burdens through syndromic monitoring were not substantially affected by the small uncertainty.

Twenty-three strains of rhinovirus were isolated from 102 patients who had common colds on arrival at a Royal Air Force recruit centre during a 6-month period from June to November, 1960. Three of these strains were M type rhino-viruses similar to ECHO 28 virus. Twenty strains were H type rhinoviruses which fell into six or more different antigenic types. Two of these types were similar to the prototypes Sal/1/58/H and Sheffield/1/60/H. Three types were antigenically distinct from those previously reported in this country and several strains are still unclassified. Other human respiratory viruses were not isolated from common colds occurring at this time among the population studied.

We are indebted to the Senior Medical Officer of R.A.F. Cardington for providing facilities for the investigation, to Squadron Leader M. Shearer for his help in collecting convalescent blood specimens, and to the Director-General of the Royal Air Force Medical Service for permission to publish this paper.

We wish to acknowledge the excellent technical assistance of Miss Ann Deacon. We should also like to thank Dr H. E. M. Kay of the Royal Marsden Hospital for supplying human embryo kidney.

The variation in fertility between different sections of the London area has been, and in spite of the decline, still is, considerable. In London as a whole the birth-rate has fallen by 56 per cent since 1870–2, while the potential rate shows a decline of only 6 per cent. The fertility of the boroughs is highly correlated with the index of their social status. A higher birth-rate is recorded in the areas with a large proportion of unskilled or semi-skilled labour, a lower birth-rate in the areas with a high proportion of the professional and more affluent members of society. Other indices of relative poverty and wealth and hygienic conditions give a similar answer. The decline in fertility during the past 20 years is not sensibly related to these indices but appears in its rate to have been broadly equivalent throughout the area.

Few prospective studies have documented the seropositivity among those children infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. From 2 April 2021 to 24 June 2021, we prospectively enrolled children between the ages of 2 and 17 years at three North Carolina healthcare systems. Participants received at least four at-home serological tests detecting the presence of antibodies against, but not differentiating between, the nucleocapsid or spike antigen. A total of 1,058 participants were enrolled in the study, completing 2,709 tests between 1 May 2021 and 31 October 2021. Using multilevel regression with poststratification techniques and considering our assay sensitivity and sensitivity, we estimated that the seroprevalence of infection-induced antibodies among unvaccinated children and adolescents aged 2–17 years in North Carolina increased from 15.2% (95% credible interval, CrI 9.0–22.0) in May 2021 to 54.1% (95% CrI 46.7–61.1) by October 2021, indicating an average infection-to-reported-case ratio of 5. A rapid rise in seropositivity was most pronounced in those unvaccinated children aged 12–17 years, based on our estimates. This study underlines the utility of serial, serological testing to inform a broader understanding of the regional immune landscape and spread of infection.

All respiratory illnesses which were reported to the medical officers between September 1966 and December 1967 on a Royal Air Force station of 350 men were studied virologically.

Three periods of increased respiratory infections were observed: two occurred in the autumn, one in each year, and the third in the winter during January and February. The autumnal outbreaks were associated mainly with rhinovirus infections, and high isolation rates (82·1, 65·9%) were achieved at these times. Few of the illnesses during the winter outbreak could be diagnosed in the laboratory, and no evidence was found of infection with ‘coronaviruses’.

Despite the entrance of 30 fresh recruits direct from civilian life every 5 weeks, the respiratory infections encountered on the station were very similar to those in the local population and were not predominantly infections with adenoviruses, Coevirus, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, as previously reported from larger military recruit centres.

It has been already shown by Darwin and others that reproduction is a function of environment and that unfavourable conditions of life are likely to increase the number of seeds formed or offspring produced; hence so many are reproduced that the chance of the species being perpetuated is maintained, despite the unfavourable conditions for survival. To extend this idea, and say that a dying species tends to reproduce faster than one actively evolving, is a suggestion worthy of enquiry. It has been argued that the varying birth rates in man may to some extent reflect the future biological possibilities of his race. In so far as all environments are really functions of time, or, to put it another way, we measure the nature of an environment by the length of time it takes to produce a certain result, it is quite a natural sequence to consider the effect of time, that is, age on fertility. Dr Matthews Duncan and others have dealt with the immediate effect of time, that is personal age, and the question of the transmitted effect, if any, remains to be considered. If the idea that a species which is dying out tends to reproduce more rapidly, holds good for man, then our previous finding, that the later born do not on the average live so long as the earlier born, would suggest that they might possess as compensation an enhanced fertility. To solve this problem we must correlate the number of offspring produced by each unit with the age of the parents when he or she was born, the reproductive period being made constant.

On the basis of starch synthesis and degradation by the strains three subdivisions of Group A streptococci were made. In defined cultural conditions about a third of the strains accumulated starch, the majority belonging to one subgroup. Of patients from whom starch-accumulating strains were isolated at the onset of infection, the observed numbers who developed either acute nephritis or acute rheumatic fever were more than three times the expected numbers. Of eighty-six strains, including forty-six members of Type 12, and forty belonging to several other serotypes, which were associated with either nephritis or rheumatic fever, more than 90% were starch-accumulating strains. Though 47% of all Type 12 strains accumulated starch, there was a primary association of starch-accumulating strains and the sequelae, irrespective of serotype. On the basis of type-frequency, and the starch synthesizing and degrading activities of the three most common serotypes, Types 1, 4 and 12, together with the host factor (for only 25% of patients infected with starch-accumulating strains developed the sequelae) the chances of Type 12 incidents are four to one against Types 1 and 4. The probability of the findings occurring by chance was considerably less than 0·001.

Technical assistance was paid for by grants from the Royal Free Hospital Endowment Fund, and I thank the Board of Governors of the Hospital. The drawings were made by Mrs Audrey Besterman, medical artist. For all their help and patience I wish to thank Dr R. E. O. Williams, Dr M. Patricia Jevons, Mr W. R. Maxted, Dr P. J. L. Sequeira, Dr W. J. Whelan and Dr Rebecca Lancefield.

The clinical characteristics of male patients with pulmonary Mycobacterium avium complex disease have not been clearly defined. We aimed to clarify the clinical characteristics of male patients with pulmonary Mycobacterium avium complex disease compared with female patients.

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients with pulmonary Mycobacterium avium complex disease who visited the outpatient clinic of the Shinshu University Hospital between 2003 and 2016 and compared the clinical characteristics of male and female patients.

A total of 234 patients with pulmonary Mycobacterium avium complex disease were identified (68 men and 166 women). Male patients were significantly older than female patients. Blood examination results showed that the lymphocyte count, total protein level and albumin level were significantly lower in men than in women. Chest imaging findings were broadly categorised into the fibrocavitary and nodular bronchiectasis types. There were no significant differences in chest imaging findings and the time from diagnosis to disease exacerbation between men and women.

During the study period, the incidence of the nodular bronchiectasis type of pulmonary Mycobacterium avium complex disease in male patients increased compared with previous reports. Men had no difference in time to exacerbation compared with women.