Streptococcal Infections

Abstract

Historical BackgroundStreptococcal infections were recognized by Greek physicians by the 3rd century B.C. A description of erysipelas is recorded in Epidemicus and attributed to Hippocrates. In the Middle Ages, scarlet fever, or "scarlatina," as it was called in Italy, was an eye-catching and notable disease. Sydenham's description in 1676 clearly differentiated this disease from measles and other rashes, but it was not until 1924 that G.F. and G.H. Dick showed conclusively that streptococci were the causative agents. Until the advent of penicillin, childbed fever, or puerperal sepsis, remained one of the most frequent causes of death among otherwise healthy young women. The classic works of Holmes, in 1858, and Semmelweis, in 1861, described the transmission of this disease and provided guidelines for effective preventive measures that are still applicable today. Rheumatic fever was first described by Wells in 1812, and Bouillaud described the association of acute rheumatism and heart disease in 1835. In 1836, Bright published his account of "renal disease accompanied with secretion of albuminous urine."(l) Osler provided detailed descriptions of "malignant scarlet fever," which remained common until the advent of antibiotics (see Fig. 1). Severe invasive disease, including necrotizing 673 A. S. Evans et al. (eds.

Seasonality of Infectious Diseases

“…For example, the rainy season predominance of "tropical pyoderma," due to group A beta-hemolytic streptococcus, could relate to the effects of chronic moisture on host skin (35). Seasonal variation in the incidence of respiratory infections could be due to the effects of atmospheric pollutants on host mucociliary action (2,83).…”

The Higgs boson: shall we see it soon or is it still far away?

“…For the bottom quark the situation is more complicated because the mass of the bottom quark m b is essentially smaller than the scale M Z and so one has to take into account the running of this mass from the scale m b to the scale M Z . The procedure is the following [34,36,37]: one starts with the bottom-quark pole mass, m pole b = 4.94±0.15 [38] and finds the SM bottom-quark mass at the scale m b using the two-loop QCD corrections…”

“…Then, evolving this mass to the scale M Z and using a numerical solution of the two-loop SM RGEs [34,37] with α 3 (M Z ) = 0.12 one obtains m b (M Z ) SM = 2.91 GeV. Using this value one can calculate the sbottom masses and then return back to take into account the SUSY corrections from massive SUSY particles…”

Mechanisms of genome evolution of Streptococcus

“…Many of the pathogenic species cause severe, invasive infections that account for a high burden of morbidity and mortality (Gray, 1998; Mitchell, 2003), associated with high economic and health care costs. One of the most clinically relevant Streptococcus species colonizing humans is S. pneumoniae (or pneumococcus), whose control remains a challenge despite the availability of highly effective vaccines.…”

“…However, it can cause diseases such as otitis media, conjunctivitis, pneumonia, bacteremia and meningitis. Pneumococcal diseases are most prevalent in children, the elderly and immuno-compromised (French et al, 2007; Gray, 1998; Rubins et al, 2008). The introduction of conjugate vaccination in children worldwide has had profound consequences for the burden of pneumococcal diseases as well as the population structure of carriage and invasive strains.…”