A Streptococcus pneumoniae lineage usually associated with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) serotypes is the most common cause of serotype 35B invasive disease in South Africa, following routine use of PCV.

Pneumococcal serotype 35B is an important non-conjugate vaccine (non-PCV) serotype. Its continued emergence, post-PCV7 in the USA, was associated with expansion of a pre-existing 35B clone (clonal complex [CC] 558) along with post-PCV13 emergence of a non-35B clone previously associated with PCV serotypes (CC156). This study describes lineages circulating among 35B isolates in South Africa before and after PCV introduction. We also compared 35B isolates belonging to a predominant 35B lineage in South Africa (GPSC5), with isolates belonging to the same lineage in other parts of the world. Serotype 35B isolates that caused invasive pneumococcal disease in South Africa in 2005-2014 were characterized by whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Multi-locus sequence types and global pneumococcal sequence clusters (GPSCs) were derived from WGS data of 63 35B isolates obtained in 2005-2014. A total of 262 isolates that belong to GPSC5 (115 isolates from South Africa and 147 from other countries) that were sequenced as part of the global pneumococcal sequencing (GPS) project were included for comparison. Serotype 35B isolates from South Africa were differentiated into seven GPSCs and GPSC5 was most common (49 %, 31/63). While 35B was the most common serotype among GPSC5/CC172 isolates in South Africa during the PCV13 period (66 %, 29/44), 23F was the most common serotype during both the pre-PCV (80 %, 37/46) and PCV7 period (32 %, 8/25). Serotype 35B represented 15 % (40/262) of GPSC5 isolates within the global GPS database and 75 % (31/40) were from South Africa. The predominance of the GPSC5 lineage within non-vaccine serotype 35B, is possibly unique to South Africa and warrants further molecular surveillance of pneumococci

The Shadows Took Shape

The Shadows Took Shape is a dynamic interdisciplinary exhibition exploring contemporary art through the lens of Afrofuturist aesthetics. Coined in 1994 by writer Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future,” the term “Afrofuturism” refers to a creative and intellectual genre that emerged as a strategy to explore science fiction, fantasy, magical realism and pan-Africanism. With roots in the avant-garde musical stylings of sonic innovator Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, 1914–1993), Afrofuturism has been used by artists, writers and theorists as a way to prophesize the future, redefine the present and reconceptualize the past. The Shadows Took Shape will be one of the few major museum exhibitions to explore the ways in which this form of creative expression has been adopted internationally and highlight the range of work made over the past twenty-five years. The exhibition draws its title from an obscure Sun Ra poem and a posthumously released series of recordings. Providing an apt metaphor for the long shadow cast by Sun Ra and others, the exhibition features more than sixty works of art, including ten new commissions, charting the evolution of Afrofuturist tendencies by an international selection of established and emerging practitioners. These works span not only personal themes of identity and self-determination in the African-American community, but also persistent concerns of techno-culture, geographies, utopias and dystopias, as well as universal preoccupations with time and space

Migratory birds as vehicles for parasite dispersal? Infection by avian haemosporidians over the year and throughout the range of a long-distance migrant

Aim: The role of migratory birds in the spread of parasites is poorly known, in part because migratory strategies and behaviours potentially affecting transmission are not easy to study. We investigated the dynamics of infection by blood parasites through the annual cycle of a long-distance Nearctic–Neotropical migratory songbird to examine the role of this species in dispersing parasites between continents. Location: The Americas. Taxon: Grey-cheeked Thrush (Catharus minimus, Aves, Passeriformes, Turdidae), Birds. Methods: We used molecular and microscopy screening of haemosporidian parasites (Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon) to examine the prevalence, distribution, and diversity of lineages through the annual cycle (breeding, migration, and wintering) of the grey-cheeked thrush in North and Central America, Santa Marta mountains, the Andes, and the Amazon. We aimed to identify transmission areas, to examine the degree of sharing of haemosporidian lineages with resident birds in various areas and to assess the potential role of immunologically naïve juvenile individuals in parasite transmission. Results: Prevalence and lineage diversity of haemosporidians varied significantly over time, being higher during breeding and fall and spring migration, and declining during wintering. Grey-cheeked thrush shared few parasite lineages with tropical resident birds and slightly more lineages with other migratory and resident boreal species. We detected gametocytes in blood during spring migration stopover, but these were of lineages not found in resident tropical birds, indicating relapses of parasites transmitted elsewhere. Transmission likely occurs mostly on the breeding grounds, where juveniles and adults carried lineages restricted to closely related species of thrushes and other species of boreal birds. Main conclusions: Long-distance migratory songbirds are likely not important dispersers of blood parasites because there are ecological and evolutionary barriers to the interchange of parasites across vastly separated areas. Further work with thorough spatial and temporal sampling across other species, and considering the role of vectors, is necessary to understand the ecological and evolutionary factors explaining the distribution of parasites over broad scales

Casting a Vote - Complexities and Strategies among “First-Time Voters” in their Approach to Elections

When asked directly, most young people show a relatively low level of political interest. Despite this, Scandinavian youth exhibit reasonable voter turnout compared to most countries. In this study of young Danish first-time voters, we elaborate the peculiarities of their political reasoning and orientations. We approach our analysis on the basis of rationalistic theories of voting as well as the use of heuristics in voting decisions. We also build on the theory of political socialization and voters’ loyalties to family in their decisions. Methodologically, we use the oral stories of ten students from upper secondary school on how they arrived at a voting decision. The article elaborates the decisions, paradoxes, and ambivalences which these young people display in the process of casting a vote. We claim that the individuals in our study handled this discrepancy by the active use of different strategies. Students particularly tried to simplify their choice of party by focusing on one or two important issues. They used strategic rationalism as well as value rationalism and idealistic approaches to decision-making. Above all, students used cognitive heuristics extensively. Generally, first-time voters often find themself in complex decisions facing an overload of information and sometimes trapped between loyalties, particularly to their families, but rarely to their social class. Based on our findings, we suggest that teachers should sometimes provide meaningful heuristics to guide students’ complex choices as first-time voters

A mosaic tetracycline resistance gene tet(S/M) detected in an MDR pneumococcal CC230 lineage that underwent capsular switching in South Africa

OBJECTIVES: We reported tet(S/M) in Streptococcus pneumoniae and investigated its temporal spread in relation to nationwide clinical interventions. METHODS: We whole-genome sequenced 12 254 pneumococcal isolates from 29 countries on an Illumina HiSeq sequencer. Serotype, multilocus ST and antibiotic resistance were inferred from genomes. An SNP tree was built using Gubbins. Temporal spread was reconstructed using a birth-death model. RESULTS: We identified tet(S/M) in 131 pneumococcal isolates and none carried other known tet genes. Tetracycline susceptibility testing results were available for 121 tet(S/M)-positive isolates and all were resistant. A majority (74%) of tet(S/M)-positive isolates were from South Africa and caused invasive diseases among young children (59% HIV positive, where HIV status was available). All but two tet(S/M)-positive isolates belonged to clonal complex (CC) 230. A global phylogeny of CC230 (n=389) revealed that tet(S/M)-positive isolates formed a sublineage predicted to exhibit resistance to penicillin, co-trimoxazole, erythromycin and tetracycline. The birth-death model detected an unrecognized outbreak of this sublineage in South Africa between 2000 and 2004 with expected secondary infections (effective reproductive number, R) of ∼2.5. R declined to ∼1.0 in 2005 and <1.0 in 2012. The declining epidemic could be related to improved access to ART in 2004 and introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in 2009. Capsular switching from vaccine serotype 14 to non-vaccine serotype 23A was observed within the sublineage. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of tet(S/M) in pneumococci was low and its dissemination was due to an unrecognized outbreak of CC230 in South Africa. Capsular switching in this MDR sublineage highlighted its potential to continue to cause disease in the post-PCV13 era

A mosaic tetracycline resistance gene tet(S/M) detected in an MDR pneumococcal CC230 lineage that underwent capsular switching in South Africa

Objectives: We reported tet(S/M) in Streptococcus pneumoniae and investigated its temporal spread in relation to nationwide clinical interventions. Methods: We whole-genome sequenced 12 254 pneumococcal isolates from 29 countries on an Illumina HiSeq sequencer. Serotype, multilocus ST and antibiotic resistance were inferred from genomes. An SNP tree was built using Gubbins. Temporal spread was reconstructed using a birth-death model. Results: We identified tet(S/M) in 131 pneumococcal isolates and none carried other known tet genes. Tetracycline susceptibility testing results were available for 121 tet(S/M)-positive isolates and all were resistant. A majority (74%) of tet(S/M)-positive isolates were from South Africa and caused invasive diseases among young children (59% HIV positive, where HIV status was available). All but two tet(S/M)-positive isolates belonged to clonal complex (CC) 230. A global phylogeny of CC230 (n=389) revealed that tet(S/M)-positive isolates formed a sublineage predicted to exhibit resistance to penicillin, co-trimoxazole, erythromycin and tetracycline. The birth-death model detected an unrecognized outbreak of this sublineage in South Africa between 2000 and 2004 with expected secondary infections (effective reproductive number, R) of ∼2.5. R declined to ∼1.0 in 2005 and <1.0 in 2012. The declining epidemic could be related to improved access to ART in 2004 and introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) in 2009. Capsular switching from vaccine serotype 14 to non-vaccine serotype 23A was observed within the sublineage. Conclusions: The prevalence of tet(S/M) in pneumococci was low and its dissemination was due to an unrecognized outbreak of CC230 in South Africa. Capsular switching in this MDR sublineage highlighted its potential to continue to cause disease in the post-PCV13 era.Fil: Lo, Stephanie W.. Wellcome Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: Gladstone, Rebecca A.. Wellcome Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: van Tonder, Andries. Wellcome Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: du Plessis, Mignon. National Institute for Communicable Diseases; Sudáfrica. University of the Witwatersrand; SudáfricaFil: Cornick, Jennifer. University of Liverpool; Reino UnidoFil: Hawkins, Paulina A.. University Of Emory. Rollins School Of Public Health; Estados UnidosFil: Madhi, Shabir A.. University of the Witwatersrand; SudáfricaFil: Nzenze, Susan A.. University of the Witwatersrand; SudáfricaFil: Kandasamy, Rama. University of Oxford; Reino UnidoFil: Ravikumar, K.L.. Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital & Research Centre; IndiaFil: Elmdaghri, Naima. University of Casablanca; MarruecosFil: Kwambana Adams, Brenda. Colegio Universitario de Londres; Reino Unido. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; GambiaFil: Grassi Almeida, Samanta Cristine. Instituto Adolfo Lutz; BrasilFil: Skoczynska, Anna. National Medicines Institute; PoloniaFil: Egorova, Ekaterina. Moscow Research Institute for Epidemiology and Microbiology; RusiaFil: Titov, Leonid. Republican Research and Practical Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology; BielorrusiaFil: Saha, Samir K.. Dhaka Shishu Hospital; BangladeshFil: Paragi, Metka. National Laboratory of Health, Environment and Food; EsloveniaFil: Everett, Dean B. Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme; Malaui. University of Edinburgh; Reino UnidoFil: Antonio, Martin. London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; GambiaFil: Klugman, Keith P.. University of the Witwatersrand; Sudáfrica. National Institute for Communicable Diseases; Sudáfrica. University of Emory; Estados UnidosFil: Li, Yuan. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Estados UnidosFil: Metcalf, Benjamin J. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Estados UnidosFil: Beall, Bernard. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Estados UnidosFil: McGee, Lesley. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Estados UnidosFil: Breiman, Robert F.. University of Emory; Estados UnidosFil: Bentley, Stephen D. Wellcome Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: von Gottberg, Anne. National Institute for Communicable Diseases; Sudáfrica. University of the Witwatersrand; SudáfricaFil: Brooks, Abdullah W.. Global Pneumococcal Sequencing Consortium; Estados UnidosFil: Corso, Alejandra. Global Pneumococcal Sequencing Consortium; Estados UnidosFil: Faccone, Diego Francisco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

A Streptococcus pneumoniae lineage usually associated with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) serotypes is the most common cause of serotype 35B invasive disease in South Africa, following routine use of PCV

Supplementary Material for 'A Streptococcus pneumoniae lineage usually associated with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) serotypes is the most common cause of serotype 35B invasive disease in South Africa, following routine use of PCV', as published in Microbial Genomics