Fifteen infants with pneumonia caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and 19 infants with bronchiolitis caused by RSV were studied for the influence of homologous, circulating neutralizing antibody on the severity of their illness. All infants were under nine months of age. Although maternal neutralizing antibody did not prevent infection with RSV and illness, the severity of pneumonia caused by RSV was inversely related to the level of neutralizing antibody. The severity of bronchiolitis caused by RSV was unrelated to maternal antibody levels. Chest roentgenograms showed pneumonia to be slightly more severe than bronchiolitis. Neither the severity of illness nor the presence of maternal neutralizing antibody was related to the development of complement-fixing antibody.

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, the temporal pattern of respiratory syncytial virus infection was investigated in infants and children younger than 18 months hospitalized for acute lower respiratory tract disease. Of 4696 infants and children with acute lower respiratory tract disease admitted to the Cook County Hospital, 2530 were tested for virus infection by virus isolation or serologic procedures or both. Overall, respiratory syncytial virus infections were detected in 12% and parainfluenza 3 virus in 10.8% of individuals tested. Other respiratory viruses were less commonly identified. Respiratory syncytial virus epidemics occurred annually and were temporally synchronous with the peak periods of respiratory disease admissions. Only during epidemics of respiratory syncytial virus did admission for respiratory tract disease usually reach 40 patients or more weekly. The peak months of respiratory syncytial virus epidemics were

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Absfract. Thirty-seven healthy volunteers who received a pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine were tested 4, 5, or 6 years after immunization for circulating type-specific pneumococcal antibody by radioimmunoassay of their sera. Each volunteer was immunized with one of four different pneumococcal vaccines containing 50 pg of each of 6, 8, 9, or 13 capsular polysaccharides; a few volunteers received octavalent or tridecavalent pneumococcal vaccines combined with bivalent influenza virus vaccine in a single syringe. Four years after immunization, the mean antibody level was 90% of the level achieved 4 weeks after vaccination. Among volunteers tested 5 years after immunization (including three 6 years after vaccination), the mean antibody level was 76% of that 4 weeks after inoculation. These findings confirm the long-term persistence of vaccine-induced type-specific pneumococcal antibodies and suggest that the interval between repeated doses of pneumococcal vaccine should be at least 5 years. 270

The increase in managed honeybees (Apis mellifera) in many European cities has unknown effects on the densities of wild bees through competition. To investigate this, we monitored honeybees and non-honeybees from 01 April to 31 July 2019 and 2020 at 29 species of plants representing diverse taxonomic and floral-functional types in a large urban garden in the city of Munich in which the same plant species were cultivated in both years. No bee hives were present in the focal garden, and all bee hives in the adjacent area were closely monitored by interviewing the relevant bee keepers in both 2019 and 2020. Honeybee numbers were similar in April of both years, but increased from May to July 2020 compared to 2019. The higher densities correlated with a significant increase in shifts from wild bee to honeybee visits in May/June/July, while visitor spectra in April 2019 and 2020 remained the same. Most of the species that experienced a shift to honeybee visits in 2020 were visited mostly or exclusively for their nectar. There were no shifts towards increased wild bee visits in any species. These results from a flower-rich garden have implications for the discussion of whether urban bee keeping might negatively impact wild bees. We found clear support that high honeybee densities result in exploitative competition at numerous types of flowers.

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