Of all British colonies New Zealand is the one that most closely resembles Great Britain in size, in situation, and in climate. And the inhabitants of the two countries are of practically the same race. The vital statistics of New Zealand are therefore eminently suitable for comparison with those of Great Britain. In the present paper comparison has been restricted to the birth-rates and death-rates, and in this limited survey several points of interest present themselves.

1. Meningococcal cerebrospinal meningitis in the Sudan does not materially differ in its progress and end result from the disease as found in Europe.

2. There is no racial peculiarity in response to infection or to chemotherapy.

3. There is no sex or age peculiarity in incidence. Both sexes and all ages respond to chemotherapy.

4. Sulphapyridine is superior to sulphanilamide in the shortening of invalidism and in the prevention of complications.

5. Oral administration of sulphapyridine is in the majority of cases as effective as intramuscular.

6. Dosage is related to the clinical stage of the disease, and to its duration before treatment. An initial dose of 2·5 g. sulphapyridine for adults, and 1·0—1·5 g. for children is prescribed for the serious case, with subsequent gradation of treatment to provide a maintenance dose.

7. Treatment, if it is going to give a good result, will produce a response within 24 hr. It need not be prolonged beyond 7 days. The third, fourth and seventh days of treatment are critical.

The global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is greatly threatening the public health in the world. We reconstructed global transmissions and potential demographic expansions of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 based on genomic information. We found that intercontinental transmissions were rare in January and early February but drastically increased since late February. After world-wide implements of travel restrictions, the transmission frequencies decreased to a low level in April. We identified a total of 88 potential demographic expansions over the world based on the star-radiative networks and 75 of them were found in Europe and North America. The expansion numbers peaked in March and quickly dropped since April. These findings are highly concordant with epidemic reports and modelling results and highlight the significance of quarantine validity on the global spread of COVID-19. Our analyses indicate that the travel restrictions and social distancing measures are effective in containing the spread of COVID-19.

Gye and Kettle (1922), from a study of the effects of subcutaneous inoculation of silica alone, tubercle bacilli alone and tubercle bacilli with silica, arrived at the conclusion that there is, after the introduction of tubercle bacilli with silica, “a much greater local reaction than with an infection of tubercle bacilli alone and, further, that general dissemination is earlier and more active.” As a result, “a small dose of bacilli becomes a dose of considerable magnitude and, inasmuch as an important factor in determining an infectious process is the number of organisms introduced, a simple explanation is forthcoming of the effect of silica upon such tuberculous lesions as we have described.”

During an epidemic of Sonne dysentery in Tooting Bec Hospital of which the epidemiological aspects have been described by one of us (Buckle, 1938), and during a recurrence of this epidemic, a number of strains were isolated of the causal organism (140) and various bacilli which were somewhat similar in their cultural and biochemical behaviour. It was thought that a close bacteriological and serological examination of these might be useful in giving information about the constancy of behaviour of the Sonne group, the question of possible biochemical subgroups of Sonne bacilli (Bojlén. 1934), and the relationship of the dysenteroid organisms isolated to the true dysentery bacilli, their classification, and significance.

Hay Fever is a disease which on account of its peculiar interest has attracted the attention of the medical world ever since it was first accurately described by Bostock of London in 1819. To what extent the disease occurred before his time is difficult to determine; but from the fact that his observations were at once confirmed by a number of contemporary medical men it is probable that at the time of his writing it was not very uncommon. We have no exact knowledge of the existence of the disease in England prior to the nineteenth century, and indeed many authors hold that the chief etiological factors were not present in earlier times. It is my purpose in this paper to discuss the researches recently carried out by Prof. Dunbar at the State Institute of Public Health in Hamburg, which have very considerably increased our knowledge of the interesting malady, and have also narrowed the field for its future investigation.

Three influenza A (H3N2) reassortant whole virus vaccine strains with differing antibody-inducing capacities in hamsters were investigated morphologically and antigenically. Although initial measurements of virion circumference, from electron micrographs of vaccine preparations, suggested a relationship of small virion size with low immunogenicity, subsequent immunization with, and morphological investigation of, vaccine virions separated on sucrose gradients, failed to obtain populations whose antibody-inducing capacity clearly correlated with constituent virion density, size, morphology or integrity.

However, antigenic investigation using single radial haemolysis (SRH) and monoclonal antibodies revealed significant differences in antigenic specificity between the strains. Furthermore, a series of H3N2 isolates, derived using standard reassortment procedures, also showed differences in antigenic specificity in their haemagglutination-inhibition (HI) reactions with monoclonal antibodies after five passages in allantois-on-shell cultures. Variation between these isolates and their A/Victoria parent virus could be detected using SRH and hamster sera raised against each isolate.

These results demonstrate variation between candidate influenza A virus vaccine strains, all possessing the same surface (H3N2) glycoproteins, expressed as a consequence of the reassortant system used for their production.

1. Naturally occurring agglutinins to paracolon bacilli have been found in seven out of ten sera from non-immunized rabbits and in one anti-Salmonella and two anti-paracolon immune rabbits' sera after complete absorption with the immunizing strain.

2. The a antigen of Stamp & Stone, which is known to occur as a natural agglutinin, has been demonstrated in one out of nine paracolon bacilli.

3. Rabbits which before immunization show agglutinins to the immunizing strain or to an α antigen should not be used for the preparation of diagnostic antisera for intestinal Gram-negative bacilli.

Coxiella burnetii is a zoonotic agent responsible for human Q fever, a potentially severe disease that can lead to persistent infection. This cross-sectional study aimed to estimate the seroprevalence to C. burnetii antibodies and its association with potential risk factors in the human population of five regions of Québec, Canada. A serum bank comprising sera from 474 dog owners was screened by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay followed by confirmation of positive or equivocal sera by an indirect immunofluorescence assay. Observed seroprevalences of 1.2% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.0–6.6), 2.6% (95% CI: 0.5–7.4) and 5.9% (95% CI: 3.4–9.6) were estimated in the regions of Montréal, Lanaudière and Montérégie, respectively, which all included at least 83 samples. Having lived or worked on a small ruminant farm (prevalence odds ratio (POR) = 5.4; 95% CI: 1.6–17.7) and being a veterinarian or veterinary student (POR = 6.1; 95% CI: 1.6–24.0) were significantly associated with C. burnetii seropositivity. Antibodies against C. burnetii were detected in the human population of Québec. Although seropositivity to this agent was associated with occupational contact with domestic animals, antibodies were also detected in people with no reported professional exposure. No associations with ruminant farm proximity were identified.

Immunization of men with various amounts of salmonella antigens gave a linear relationship between the logarithm of the dose and the logarithm of the titres of the antibodies produced. No secondary response was observed for any of the doses used. These doses of salmonella vaccine did not interfere with or stimulate simultaneous primary or secondary vaccination with tetanus and diphtheria vaccine.

Tuberculosis (TB) is generally considered a disease that principally afflicts the low-income segments of a population. In the Nanshan District of Shenzhen, China, with the economic transformation and a new Headquarters Economy (HE) emerging, there are now more cases in office workers than in manufacturing workers. To illustrate this trend, we describe a small TB outbreak in an office building located in the centre of the rapidly growing HE district. Two active pulmonary tuberculosis cases were found in workers who shared an office, and whole genome sequencing showed that the genetic distance between the strains of the two cases was just one single nucleotide polymorphism, consistent with intra-office transmission. Investigation of 30 other workers in the same or adjacent offices with interviews, interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) and chest X-rays, identified one new TB case and latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in 40.0% (12/30) of the contacts. The offices were under-ventilated. None of the IGRA positive, asymptomatic contacts agreed to receive treatment for LTBI, presumably due to TB stigma, and over the next 2 years 69.0% (20/29) of the contacts were lost to follow-up. Treatment for LTBI and stigma of TB remain challenges here. Office workers in the HE of rapidly economic developing areas should be targeted with increased vigilance by TB control programmes.

Seroprevalence estimation using cross-sectional serosurveys can be challenging due to inadequate or unknown biological cut-off limits of detection. In recent years, diagnostic assay cut-offs, fixed assay cut-offs and more flexible approaches as mixture modelling have been proposed to classify biological quantitative measurements into a positive or negative status. Our objective was to estimate the prevalence of anti-HCV antibodies among drug users (DU) in France in 2011 using a biological test performed on dried blood spots (DBS) collected during a cross-sectional serosurvey. However, in 2011, we did not have a cut-off value for DBS. We could not use the values for serum or plasma, knowing that the DBS value was not necessarily the same. Accordingly, we used a method which consisted of applying a two-component mixture model with age-dependent mixing proportions using penalised splines. The component densities were assumed to be log-normally distributed and were estimated in a Bayesian framework. Anti-HCV prevalence among DU was estimated at 43.3% in France and increased with age. Our method allowed us to provide estimates of age-dependent prevalence using DBS without having a specified biological cut-off value.

In recent years, methicillin–resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates in Spain have increased dramatically; in 1986 there were only 1.2% MRSA amongst all nosocomial Staphylococcus aureus (SA) isolates, by 1989 this percentage had risen to 44% in some hospital causing a very serious epidemic situation in the country. We have characterized these isolates by direct, reverse and Fisk phage typing and we have also looked for an additional local set of phages to help us to differentiate these strains. We have been able to differentiate an epidemic strain from other MRSA strains which cause sporadic hospital outbreaks, and we have also distinguished between some variants of the epidemic strain.

When a 1:5 mixture of trimethoprim (TMP) and sulphadiazine was fed to pigs intra-nasally infected with Bordetella bronchiseptica, 10 mg/kg/day was shown to be highly effective in suppressing the organism. This dose level had little effect on numbers of TMP-resistant coliforms in faeces, but oral doses of 30 mg/kg/day eventually selected a resistant population. It is suggested that the proliferation of resistant coliforms would be minimized by administration of the lowest oral dose rates of antibacterial drugs compatible with efficacy.

When a number of persons is exposed to a particular pneumoconiosis-producing dust for the same period under apparently similar conditions, some of them develop the disease while others escape. It is possible that the less easily affected group comprises merely those who by chance or through some inborn or acquired local physical difference, e.g. nose-breathing, receive smaller doses of the noxious dust into the lungs. It is also possible that they are a selected group of peculiar constitutional type. The latter view has been accepted by some authorities and used in practice in selecting entrants to the mining industry, on the ground that by excluding certain anthropometric types the incidence of pneumoconiosis, or of pneumoconiosis complicated by tuberculosis, would thereby be reduced, though no adequate statistical data have so far been published to support this hypothesis.