SUMMARYA prevalence study of personnel on a Royal Naval Air Station revealed that 23-0 % of 2479 personnel were carrying a meningococcus. Selected groups of personnel were subsequently swabbed monthly for a year. We have shown that it is only by repeated swabbing and the use of optimal methods including enrichment media that one can have a hope of identifying the 'true' carriage rate. A presumed virulent strain of Neisseria meningitidis B 15 P 1. 16 was repeatedly isolated from three personnel who remained well, as did their colleagues both at their work place and socially. The study served to emphasize our lack of knowledge of the virulence factors associated with N. meningitidis.

SUMMARYThe survival of salmonellas on the finger-tips is considered with reference to the ease with which they can be transferred to food by handling.Escherichia coli and several Salmonella serotypes were shown to survive on the finger-tips for various periods of time, for example, S. anatum could be recovered 3 hr. after artificially contaminating them with between 500 and 2000 organisms. S. anatum could also be recovered from the finger-tips after contaminating them with more than 6000 organisms followed by a 15 sec. hand-wash 10 min. later. Similarly, the survivors from minimal inocula of less than 100 S. anatum/finger-tip were, after 10 min., still capable of infecting samples of corned beef and ham. E. coli was isolated from the finger-tips of 13 of 110 butchers soon after they had left the meat line at a meat products factory, but was not detected on the finger-tips of 100 volunteers at the Central Public Health Laboratory.The implications of the present findings to the spread of salmonellas from raw to cooked foods, and the relevance of this to outbreaks of Salmonella infection in the general population and in hospitals, are discussed.

SUMMARYTwo connected outbreaks of gastroenteritis in separate hospitals associated with a small round structured virus morphologically indistinguishable from the Norwalk virus are described. The virus was most probably introduced on chicken sandwiches prepared by a member of the kitchen staff who was incubating the disease.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

A solid-phase immune electron microscopy method that uses protein A, goat anti-human immunoglobulin M (IgM), and human serum is described. Evaluation of the method with different immunoglobulin fractions showed that human IgM constituted the major virus capture antibody. The method appeared to distinguish between two Norwalk-like virus serotypes and demonstrated specific IgM responses to these serotypes in infected individuals. Further work is being carried out to define the relationship of these two serotypes to the previously described Norwalk agent (A. Z. Kapikian, R. G. Wyatt, R. Dolin, T. S. Thornhill, A. R. Kalica, and R. M. Chanock, J. Virol. 10:1075-1081, 1972), and four subsequent hospital outbreaks are being studied.

A case of giant orf granuloma is described in a normal 12-year-old child. CASE REPORT