Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of Streptococcus suis Infections in Catalonia, Spain

Introduction: Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is a human zoonotic pathogen of occupational origin, with infection acquired through contact with live pigs or pig meat. Pig farming is one of Catalonia's biggest industries and as a result this region of Spain has one of the highest density pig populations per km2. The aim of our study was to describe the infections caused by S. suis occurring in that area over a 9-year period. Materials and Methods: A retrospective, multi-center study was carried out by searching records from 15 hospitals in Catalonia for the period between 2010 and 2019. Results: Over the study period altogether nine cases of S. suis infection were identified in five hospitals, with five of these cases occurring in the 2018-2019 period. The mean age of patients was 48 ± 8.9 years and all of them were males. Five patients (55.6%) worked in pig farms. The most frequent manifestation of infection was meningitis (5 cases; 55.6%) followed by septic arthritis (3 cases; 33.3%). None of the patients died at 30 days; nonetheless, 4 developed hearing loss as a long-term complication. Conclusion: The most commonly identified S. suis infection was meningitis. Over 50% of the episodes occurred in the last 2 years and have affected pig farm workers. Further surveillance is needed in order to know its prevalence

Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of Streptococcus suis Infections in Catalonia, Spain

Streptococcus suis (S. suis) is a human zoonotic pathogen of occupational origin, with infection acquired through contact with live pigs or pig meat. Pig farming is one of Catalonia's biggest industries and as a result this region of Spain has one of the highest density pig populations per km 2. The aim of our study was to describe the infections caused by S. suis occurring in that area over a 9-year period. A retrospective, multi-center study was carried out by searching records from 15 hospitals in Catalonia for the period between 2010 and 2019. Over the study period altogether nine cases of S. suis infection were identified in five hospitals, with five of these cases occurring in the 2018-2019 period. The mean age of patients was 48 ± 8.9 years and all of them were males. Five patients (55.6%) worked in pig farms. The most frequent manifestation of infection was meningitis (5 cases; 55.6%) followed by septic arthritis (3 cases; 33.3%). None of the patients died at 30 days; nonetheless, 4 developed hearing loss as a long-term complication. The most commonly identified S. suis infection was meningitis. Over 50% of the episodes occurred in the last 2 years and have affected pig farm workers. Further surveillance is needed in order to know its prevalence

Dynamic chronic rectal obstruction causing a severe colonic dilatation in a cat

Case summary A 5-year-old male neutered domestic shorthair cat was presented to our referral centre with a 13 month history of chronic tenesmus due to malunion of the right caudal iliac body. Constipation and pelvic canal stenosis were initially addressed by the referring veterinarian with a right femoral head and neck excision and a right acetabulectomy without observable clinical improvement. At admission, abdominal radiographs revealed severe colonic distension and a narrowed pelvic canal caused by the right proximal femur. Rectal examination and colonography revealed a dynamic compression of the rectum, which worsened with femoral abduction and improved with femoral adduction. A right hindlimb amputation was performed to relieve the obstruction. The cat defaecated 2 days postoperatively and was discharged uneventfully. Neither faecal tenesmus nor dyschaezia were observed over the following 10 months. Relevance and novel information The dynamic nature of the rectal obstruction most likely prevented the development of an irreversible colonic dilatation leading to a megacolon. This is the first report describing a chronic dynamic rectal compression, which was successfully managed with a right hindlimb amputation without the need for subtotal colectomy

Laboratori bibliotecari Fanzins Atemporals

El Servei de Biblioteques de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) ha celebrat els dies 7, 8 i 9 de febrer del 2024 el "Laboratori bibliotecari Fanzins Atemporals UAB", una experiència d'innovació, cocreació i participació ciutadana al campus de Bellaterra. La iniciativa forma part del projecte Laboratorios Bibliotecarios, de la Subdirecció General de Coordinació Bibliotecària (Ministeri de Cultura), i parteix d'una temàtica concreta: la Col·lecció Digital de Fanzins UAB, disponible en obert al repositori institucional Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB (DDD-UAB). La Col·lecció Fanzins UAB està formada per un total de 849 títols, recopilats al llarg de més de 30 anys pel professor de la Facultat de Ciències de la Comunicació (UAB) Eugeni Giral, des de la dècada dels 70 fins a principis dels anys 2000. Gràcies al procés de digitalització finançat amb diners públics, la Biblioteca de Comunicació i Hemeroteca General (UAB) retorna expressions (culturals) que s'han construït majoritàriament de forma col·lectiva. Els objectius d'aquest laboratori han estat: crear les condicions adients perquè la comunitat universitària i altres persones interessades reinterpretin i reutilitzin la Col·leció digitalizada Fanzins UAB; generar escenaris d'experimentació, codisseny i cocreació a partir d'una de les "col·leccions especials" del Servei de Biblioteques, la Col·lecció Fanzins UAB; prototipar col·lectivament nous usos de la Col·lecció Fanzins UAB; Crear una xarxa de persones i col·lectius interessats en les publicacions autoeditades i aspectes comuns que caracteritzen els fanzins i que permeten emergir expressions i visibilitzar actors que no apareixen en els mitjans de comunicació tradicionals. Participants, promotors i mentors del laboratori s'han organitzat en grups de treball i han prototipat dos projectes, que permeten ampliar els coneixements generats a través d'aquestes publicacions, sovint autoeditades i que defugen els circuits clàssics de distribució comercial. Les tres jornades del Laboratori Fanzins Atemporals UAB s'han celebrat al COMTEC Centre de la Biblioteca de Comunicació i Hemeroteca General (UAB). El Servei de Biblioteques UAB té previst seguir impulsant noves edicions de laboratoris bibliotecaris

Analysis of Latino populations from GALA and MEC studies reveals genomic loci with biased local ancestry estimation

Motivation: Local ancestry analysis of genotype data from recently admixed populations (e.g. Latinos, African Americans) provides key insights into population history and disease genetics. Although methods for local ancestry inference have been extensively validated in simulations (under many unrealistic assumptions), no empirical study of local ancestry accuracy in Latinos exists to date. Hence, interpreting findings that rely on local ancestry in Latinos is challenging. Results: Here, we use 489 nuclear families from the mainland USA, Puerto Rico and Mexico in conjunction with 3204 unrelated Latinos from the Multiethnic Cohort study to provide the first empirical characterization of local ancestry inference accuracy in Latinos. Our approach for identifying errors does not rely on simulations but on the observation that local ancestry in families follows Mendelian inheritance. We measure the rate of local ancestry assignments that lead to Mendelian inconsistencies in local ancestry in trios (MILANC), which provides a lower bound on errors in the local ancestry estimates. We show that MILANC rates observed in simulations underestimate the rate observed in real data, and that MILANC varies substantially across the genome. Second, across a wide range of methods, we observe that loci with large deviations in local ancestry also show enrichment in MILANC rates. Therefore, local ancestry estimates at such loci should be interpreted with caution. Finally, we reconstruct ancestral haplotype panels to be used as reference panels in local ancestry inference and show that ancestry inference is significantly improved by incoroprating these reference panels. Availability and implementation: We provide the reconstructed reference panels together with the maps of MILANC rates as a public resource for researchers analyzing local ancestry in Latinos at http://bogdanlab.pathology.ucla.edu. Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online