Aims
Human Enteroviruses (HEVs) infections have a significant impact on public health, being implicated in outbreaks of meningitis, encephalitis, hand‐foot‐mouth disease and other acute and chronic ...manifestation. In the strategic plan for poliomyelitis eradication, the environmental surveillance of poliovirus (PV) has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an activity that can complement the surveillance of polio. Having wastewater samples available for PV surveillance allows us to study nonpolio enteroviruses (NPEVs) circulating in the study population, which are widely spread.
Methods and Results
This study was carried out according to the WHO guidelines for environmental surveillance of PV and analysed the circulation of PV and NPEVs through the isolation of viruses in cell cultures in Milan area; from 2006 to 2010, 321 wastewater samples were collected, regularly over time, at the inlet of three diverse waste water treatment plants (WWTPs).
Culturable HEVs were isolated in 80% of sewage samples: all isolates belonged to the HEV‐B group and those circulating more intensely were CVB5 and Echo 6, while CVB4 was the predominant serotype found in 2010. In this study, two type 2 PVs were isolated, both characterized as Sabin like.
Conclusion
Environmental monitoring of HEVs in Milan has proved to be an interesting tool to investigate the circulation and distribution of viruses.
Significance and Impact of the Study
The detection of PV and other NPEV could be predictive of possible re‐emergence of these viruses with an impact on public health. NPEV monitoring could also be a powerful public health tool to investigate the possible role of NPEV in different clinical manifestations.
Sewage surveillance in seven Italian cities between 2005 and 2008, after the introduction of inactivated poliovirus vaccination (IPV) in 2002, showed rare polioviruses, none that were wild-type or ...circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV), and many other enteroviruses among 1,392 samples analyzed. Two of five polioviruses (PV) detected were Sabin-like PV2 and three PV3, based on enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and PCR results. Neurovirulence-related mutations were found in the 5'noncoding region (5'NCR) of all strains and, for a PV2, also in VP1 region 143 (Ile>Thr). Intertypic recombination in the 3D region was detected in a second PV2 (Sabin 2/Sabin 1) and a PV3 (Sabin 3/Sabin 2). The low mutation rate in VP1 for all PVs suggests limited interhuman virus passages, consistent with efficient polio immunization in Italy. Nonetheless, these findings highlight the risk of wild or Sabin poliovirus reintroduction from abroad. Non-polio enteroviruses (NPEVs) were detected, 448 of which were coxsackievirus B (CVB) and 294 of which were echoviruses (Echo). Fifty-six NPEVs failing serological typing were characterized by sequencing the VP1 region (nucleotides nt 2628 to 2976). A total of 448 CVB and 294 Echo strains were identified; among those strains, CVB2, CVB5, and Echo 11 predominated. Environmental CVB5 and CVB2 strains from this study showed high sequence identity with GenBank global strains. The high similarity between environmental NPEVs and clinical strains from the same areas of Italy and the same periods indicates that environmental strains reflect the viruses circulating in the population and highlights the potential risk of inefficient wastewater treatments. This study confirmed that sewage surveillance can be more sensitive than acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance in monitoring silent poliovirus circulation in the population as well as the suitability of molecular approaches to enterovirus typing.
Genetic and environmental factors are thought to contribute to the etiology of the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis (MG). Viral involvement has long been suspected, but direct evidence of ...involvement has not been found. We recently reported that Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-a key activator of innate immunity-was overexpressed in the thymus of some patients with MG, suggesting that thymic infection by pathogens might be involved in MG pathogenesis. We searched for evidence of intrathymic infection in patients with MG.
Twenty-seven MG thymuses (6 involuted, 7 hyperplastic, 5 thymitis, and 9 thymoma) previously tested for TLR4 expression, 18 nonpathologic control thymuses, and 10 pathologic control thymuses from patients without MG (8 thymoma and 2 hyperplastic) were analyzed for cytomegalovirus, varicella-zoster virus, herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2, eubacteria, respiratory syncytial virus, and enteroviruses using PCR techniques. Immunohistochemistry and double immunofluorescence were used to detect enterovirus capsid protein VP1 in thymic specimens and analyze TLR4 expression in VP1-positive cells.
Poliovirus was detected in 4 MG thymuses (14.8%; 2 thymitis and 2 thymoma). No virus was detected in any control thymus. A linear correlation between plus and minus strand poliovirus RNA levels was observed in all 4 thymuses, suggesting persistent thymic infection. VP1 protein was detected in the cytoplasm of CD68-positive macrophages scattered through thymic medulla in all PV-positive thymuses. VP1 and TLR4 colocalized in infected cells.
Poliovirus-infected macrophages are present in thymus of some patients with myasthenia gravis, suggesting a viral contribution to the intrathymic alterations leading to the disease.
The study focused on factors affecting the commercialization of food legumes - cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), bambara groundnuts (Vigna subterranea), groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea) and soybeans (Glycine ...max) in two departments (Benoue and Mayo-Louti) of the North Region of Cameroon. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data. Qualitative methods involved focus group discussions and direct observations. A structured interview guide was administered in major peri-urban and urban markets to get supportive quantitative data. The respondents were selected using purposive sampling technique. A content analysis was conducted and quantitative data was analyzed with the aid of XLSTAT 2007 software and Excel. A cross-section of the age and gender population was involved in the marketing of food legumes. Women constituted more than 80% in the retail sector on peri-urban markets. The study found that 100% of the vendors had never got any form of training on business management before engaging into the sector. Socio-cultural factors were determinant factors that impacted negatively in promoting an entrepreneurial culture among women. The marginalization of women, the restriction of land ownership by traditional tenure and poor distribution of land for agriculture were some of the main constraints faced by women. The impediments of women's empowerment include their lack of access to the decision-making process, low participation in local governance and limited access to technology inputs and credit. Traditional practices forbid women and girls to have or manage large amounts of money. Such restrictions have serious consequences on agricultural production. Instead of exploiting the productive capacity of women at all levels, including food production and transformation, some of the traditions simply stifle their potential energies. In addition to socio-cultural factors, major bottlenecks faced in the production and commercialisation of food legumes includes social structural and institutional, agronomic, natural (biotic and abiotic stress) and climatic factors. Development of intervention strategies through exogenous innovation techniques might act as an incentive for smallholder farmers to invest more of their land and energy in cultivation of food legumes. More attention should be focused on market research and development with crop improvement programmes that are economically profitable, if food legumes are to continue making a greater contribution to the household income, nutrition and sustainable development in North Cameroon.
Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection can cause malformations of cortical development (MCD). It is difficult to establish CMV as a cause of MCD several months postpartum. This can now be done by ...detection of CMV DNA in dried blood spots (DBS test) on Guthrie cards. The authors used DBS tests to assess 10 patients with MCD of unknown cause. Four of the 10 patients were positive for CMV.
The T2K fine-grained detectors Amaudruz, P.-A.; Barbi, M.; Bishop, D. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
12/2012, Letnik:
696
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
T2K is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment searching for νe appearance in a νμ beam. The beam is produced at the J-PARC accelerator complex in Tokai, Japan, and the neutrinos are detected ...by the Super-Kamiokande detector located 295km away in Kamioka. A suite of near detectors (ND280) located 280 m downstream of the production target is used to characterize the components of the beam before they have had a chance to oscillate and to better understand various neutrino interactions on several nuclei. This paper describes the design and construction of two massive fine-grained detectors (FGDs) that serve as active targets in the ND280 tracker. One FGD is composed solely of scintillator bars while the other is partly scintillator and partly water. Each element of the FGDs is described, including the wavelength shifting fiber and Multi-Pixel Photon Counter used to collect the light signals, the readout electronics, and the calibration system. Initial tests and in situ results of the FGDs' performance are also presented.
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