Bronchopneumonia in children

Conclusions drawn from the personal observation of forty one (41) cases at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, and from the study of some of the records of the hospital.BRONCHO PNEUMONIA : also known as CATARRHAL or LOBULAR pneumonia is essentially the pneumonia of children. The great majority of cases of primary pneumonia occurring during the first three years of life are of this type, and so also are practically all cases of secondary pneuricnia during the first seven or ten years. Bronche pneumonia is only a term used to describe the lesions associated with several different forms of bacterial infection cf the lungs, and does not describe any one disease.The mortality is extremely high, because the resisting powers are weak during infancy, and because the disease is so often secondary to the acute ineffective diseases

Tuberculosis Problem: some observations on the present-day outlook, with special reference to the etiology, epidemology, prophylaxis and treatment of phthisis in the Western highlands and the Isles

The evidence afforded, by statistics can leave us no doubt as to the importance of Tuberculosis as a factor operating to the detriment of communal welfare. A somewhat similar nosition with regard to the problem exists in the majority of European countries and in the United States of America. Tt will now be found appropriate to discuss, more intimately, the basic elements of the problem and the principles underlying our modern system of treatment and prevention.The experience of half a century has made it abundantly clear that infection in phthisis is an Intimate process, involving the close proximity of donor and recipient. In the human family, the infection, once acquired, takes up an almost unassailable position. An endo-parasite in the strictest sense, it may lie latent for years before reasserting its virulence in yet another member of the family circle. The classical fallacy of "hereditary" consumption admits of a rational interpretation when the fact is recognised that tuberculous infection, if not as the blood that flows in its victims' veins, is certainly as the air they breathe

Winners and losers from Johne’s disease eradication from the Scottish dairy herd: a Markov-Chain simulation

In this paper, we evaluated the welfare effects of a hypothetical programme of Johne's disease eradication from the Scottish dairy herd on different stakeholders in the domestic milk market. We undertook the evaluation using a Markov-Chain simulation and applying an economic welfare analysis which takes into consideration the effects of an eradication programme on product price, on output quantity, on cost and on milk yield for given levels of supply and demand elasticities. We found that, following the eradication of the disease, milk yield per cow increased for all herd sizes in Scotland whereas price and unit cost of milk production fell. Consequently, milk consumers gained around £14.3 million in discounted economic surplus and producers with infected herds around £13.4 million whereas producers with uninfected herds lost around £10.7 million in discounted surplus. The gain in surplus made by consumers and owners of infected herds, however, more than made up for the loss in surplus made by owners of un-infected herds. Therefore, on balance, Scotland gained a net economic surplus of £17 million from the programme.Johne's, eradication programme, economic welfare effects, economic surplus, I180,

Evaluation of approaches to control of Maedi-Visna disease of sheep using a Markov chain simulation model for a range of typical British Flocks

An epidemiological model is described that closely mimicked results of a published serological study of natural transmission of Maedi-Visna virus in a low ground flock of sheep. We adjusted parameters in the model from this baseline to explore the possible implications for the control of Maedi-Visna virus in typical British flocks. On closed hill farms, low probability of effective contact was most critical for control. In open low ground flocks, purchasing accredited replacements eliminated disease spread, otherwise flock size was the most important factor governing flock prevalence. Results highlighted the need for more epidemiological information about Maedi-Visna, particularly whether hill farms act as a hidden reservoir of virus or reduce the impact of this disease on the industry by providing a source of clean replacementsLivestock Production/Industries, Maedi-Visna, Model, Markov Chain, Sheep, Control,

Measuring the economic benefits and costs of Bluetongue virus outbreak and control strategies in Scotland

This paper provides an ex-ante economic analysis, comparing six alternative control strategies for the eradication of Bluetongue virus 8 against five incursion scenarios in cattle and sheep populations. The economic analysis assumes a common baseline unavoidable cost of public and private measures that together contribute to prevention of incursion of BTV8 into Scotland. These costs continue over the five year horizon of this analysis regardless of whether a BTV8 epidemic ensues in Scotland and their total present value was found to be approximately £141m over the 5year period. The benefit of this investment is the costs of a BTV8 outbreak avoided; which depends on the time, location and nature of the incursion, on the control strategies adopted to counter each incursion, on the persistence of the incursion and on the opportunities to mitigate the damage. Specific variations in all these aspects were explored. The benefit-cost ratios were ranked within each incursion scenario to evaluate the efficiency of control outlays. Although the economic model found that benefit-cost ratios were greater than 1 for all interventions strategies examined, the control strategy option with 100% vaccination and protection zone set at Scottish Borders were economically preferable. This implies that if avoided this control option would deliver the greatest benefit from investment in baseline prevention costs. However, in terms of outbreak losses, this vaccination strategy was always most costly. On the other hand, the control strategy with 50% vaccination and all Scotland as a protection zone often provides the lowest benefits in all control options examinedbluetongue virus, epidemiology, direct and indirect costs, benefit analysis, Risk and Uncertainty,

Woolf et als GWAS by subtraction is not useful for cross-generational Mendelian randomization studies

Mendelian randomization (MR) is an epidemiological method that can be used to strengthen causal inference regarding the relationship between a modifiable environmental exposure and a medically relevant trait and to estimate the magnitude of this relationship1. Recently, there has been considerable interest in using MR to examine potential causal relationships between parental phenotypes and outcomes amongst their offspring. In a recent issue of BMC Research Notes, Woolf et al (2023) present a new method, GWAS by subtraction, to derive genome-wide summary statistics for paternal smoking and other paternal phenotypes with the goal that these estimates can then be used in downstream (including two sample) MR studies. Whilst a potentially useful goal, Woolf et al. (2023) focus on the wrong parameter of interest for useful genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and downstream cross-generational MR studies, and the estimator that they derive is neither efficient nor appropriate for such use.Comment: 8 pages, 0 figure

Phylogeny and potential virulence of cryptic clade Escherichia coli species complex isolates derived from an arable field trial

Analysis of Escherichia coli taxonomy has expanded into a species-complex with the identification of divergent cryptic clades. A key question is the evolutionary trajectory of these clades and their relationship to isolates of clinical or veterinary importance. Since they have some environmental association, we screened a collection of E. coli isolated from a long-term spring barley field trial for their presence. While most isolates clustered into the enteric-clade, four of them clustered into Clade-V, and one in Clade-IV. The Clade -V isolates shared >96% intra-clade average nucleotide sequence identity but <91% with other clades. Although pan-genomics analysis confirmed their taxonomy as Clade -V (E. marmotae), retrospective phylogroup PCR did not discriminate them correctly. Differences in metabolic and adherence gene alleles occurred in the Clade -V isolates compared to E. coli sensu scricto. They also encoded the bacteriophage phage-associated cyto-lethal distending toxin (CDT) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, including an ESBL, blaOXA-453. Thus, the isolate collection encompassed a genetic diversity, and included cryptic clade isolates that encode potential virulence factors. The analysis has determined the phylogenetic relationship of cryptic clade isolates with E. coli sensu scricto and indicates a potential for horizontal transfer of virulence factors