Giraffe
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- Jun 20, 2015
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Sucharit Bhakdi in a recent interview said something along the lines that he got a cold, and this does not mean that someone infected him. He had spent time outside when it was cold, and he got cold, and this caused the symptoms. People need to understand, that the viruses are in us, and we start getting symptoms after we got cold.
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An outbreak of common colds at an Antarctic base after seventeen weeks of complete isolation
They have been taking serum and nasal samples all the time during their stay at the base. It was sent to a lab, but a causative agent could not be identified. An allergic reaction to something was ruled out.
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An outbreak of common colds at an Antarctic base after seventeen weeks of complete isolation
SUMMARY
Six of 12 men wintering at an isolated Antarctic base sequentially developed symptoms and signs of a common cold after 17 weeks of complete isolation. Examination of specimens taken from the men in relation to the outbreak has not revealed a causative agent.
Twelve men were left at the Base, and on 14 July 1969 one man presented with respiratory symptoms closely resembling those of a mild to moderately severe cold as described by Tyrrell (1965). During the next 2 weeks, eight out of the 12 men at the Base suffered similar respiratory symptoms, and a further two had attacks of sneezing. The symptoms and signs were charted (Fig. 1).
They have been taking serum and nasal samples all the time during their stay at the base. It was sent to a lab, but a causative agent could not be identified. An allergic reaction to something was ruled out.
Virus might have persisted in the respiratory tract of one or more men at the Base. If such were the case it would be necessary to postulate a triggering mechanism to precipitate symptoms, and it is interesting to note that symptoms occurred 4 days after a precipitous fall in outside temperature, and during one of the coldest months of the year, which Hope-Simpson (1958) and Lidwell, Morgan & Williams (1965) have correlated with increased incidence of respiratory disease. There is disagreement about whether the viruses which cause common colds can be carried by adults, and how important this is in epidemiology. The pattern of virus infection revealed by long-term studies, such as the virus watch programme (Elveback et al. 1966), is of a series of short infections with different viruses, and in the case of influenza virus disappearance of the current strain when a new serotype appears. On the other hand, adenoviruses may be shed by children for periods of months and recovered from the tonsils in a high proportion of cases, without evidence of acute respiratory infection, and non-respiratory viruses such as those of the herpes group often persist for the lifetime of a man. Furthermore, observations in animals have shown that pigs can carry swine influenza and transmit infection to other pigs 3 months later (Blaskovic et al. 1970), turkeys may carry and shed influenza virus A after apparent recovery (Robinson, Easterday & Tumova, 1972), and cattle which have recovered from foot and mouth disease still reproduce virus in the pharynx, and can initiate epidemics on contact with non-immune cattle (Graves et al. 1971). There are thus precedents in both children and animals for persistence of respiratory viruses, but in adults the laboratory evidence for carriage and reactivation of common cold viruses is weak. It may be that such evidence can only be found in rather unusual conditions of isolation and stress, such as occur in Antarctica. It is likely to be a rare phenomenon, but it might well be important in explaining the persistence of the large number of rhinovirus serotypes which make an appearance in many areas when the temperature falls.