Browsing by Subject "Influenza"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Black October : the impact of the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918 on South Africa
    (1984) Phillips, Howard, 1949-; Le Cordeur, B A
    This is the first serious study of the worst natural disaster in South African' history and of the impact of this disaster on the country and its people. utilising both published and unpublished official and unofficial sources, newspapers, periodicals and the recollections of over 200 'flu survivors, it traces the course of the epidemic in five main areas where its severity paralysed everyday life, viz. the Witwatersrand gold mines, Cape Town, Kimberley, Bloemfontein and the Transkei. Each of these five chapters concludes with an examination of the results which the epidemic produced locally, in spheres such as housing, sanitation, welfare schemes, the provision of medical facilities and racial segregation. Part 2 of the study surveys the makeshift efforts of the small sub-department of Public Health to combat the epidemic and makes clear how its inadequate performance brought about wide-scale agreement as to the urgent need for the creation of a fully-fledged Ministry of Public Health. Part 3 focusses on fundamental medical and aetiological issues which the epidemic raised and discusses the range of answers offered by contemporaries to questions relating to the identity, treatment and cause of the Spanish 'flu. Both medical and lay opinion on these matters are investigated and it is suggested that in 1918 most South Africans found 'scientific' answers to these questions foreign to their thinking. The attempts of the lay public to explain why the disaster occurred provide sharp insights into the prevailing world-view of much of the population. Part 4 concentrates on the results of the epidemic at a national level, both in the short and in the long term. Chapter 9 deals with its demographic impact and concludes that the Spanish 'flu epidemic was the single most important episode in South Africa's demographic history. Chapters 10 and 11 examine its more creative results - from the provision of facilities for the thousands of 'flu orphans and the rush for life insurance to the passing of the Public Health Act of 1919 and the establishment of an autonomous Ministry of Public Health. Less obvious consequences are noted too: Central Government recognition of the importance of the social welfare of (White) citizens and an enhanced anxiety about the dangers of infection across racial and class barriers and the measures taken to reduce this threat. The Conclusion argues that the Spanish 'flu epidemic was a landmark in South African social, medical and administrative history. Coming at a time when features of the new state were still being moulded, the epidemic impressed its mark on, the country in a number of fundamental ways. In addition, a study of the episode highlights aspects of contemporary South African life and thought usually hidden from the historian. The glimpses which it affords of prevailing attitudes, anxieties and assumptions at a popular level in 1918 are invaluable. Finally, the Conclusion considers why the devastating 'flu epidemic has been ignored by historians and forgotten by the majority of the people of South Africa.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Phylogenetic exploration of nosocomial transmission chains of 2009 influenza A/H1N1 among children admitted at Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa in 2011
    (Public Library of Science, 2015) Valley-Omar, Ziyaad; Nindo, Fredrick; Mudau, Maanda; Hsiao, Marvin; Martin, Darren Patrick
    Traditional modes of investigating influenza nosocomial transmission have entailed a combination of confirmatory molecular diagnostic testing and epidemiological investigation. Common hospital-acquired infections like influenza require a discerning ability to distinguish between viral isolates to accurately identify patient transmission chains. We assessed whether influenza hemagglutinin sequence phylogenies can be used to enrich epidemiological data when investigating the extent of nosocomial transmission over a four-month period within a paediatric Hospital in Cape Town South Africa. Possible transmission chains/channels were initially determined through basic patient admission data combined with Maximum likelihood and time-scaled Bayesian phylogenetic analyses. These analyses suggested that most instances of potential hospital-acquired infections resulted from multiple introductions of Influenza A into the hospital, which included instances where virus hemagglutinin sequences were identical between different patients. Furthermore, a general inability to establish epidemiological transmission linkage of patients/viral isolates implied that identified isolates could have originated from asymptomatic hospital patients, visitors or hospital staff. In contrast, a traditional epidemiological investigation that used no viral phylogenetic analyses, based on patient co-admission into specific wards during a particular time-frame, suggested that multiple hospital acquired infection instances may have stemmed from a limited number of identifiable index viral isolates/patients. This traditional epidemiological analysis by itself could incorrectly suggest linkage between unrelated cases, underestimate the number of unique infections and may overlook the possible diffuse nature of hospital transmission, which was suggested by sequencing data to be caused by multiple unique introductions of influenza A isolates into individual hospital wards. We have demonstrated a functional role for viral sequence data in nosocomial transmission investigation through its ability to enrich traditional, non-molecular observational epidemiological investigation by teasing out possible transmission pathways and working toward more accurately enumerating the number of possible transmission events.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Plant-based vaccines against viruses
    (2014-12-03) Rybicki, Edward P
    Plant-made or “biofarmed” viral vaccines are some of the earliest products of the technology of plant molecular farming, and remain some of the brightest prospects for the success of this field. Proofs of principle and of efficacy exist for many candidate viral veterinary vaccines; the use of plant-made viral antigens and of monoclonal antibodies for therapy of animal and even human viral disease is also well established. This review explores some of the more prominent recent advances in the biofarming of viral vaccines and therapies, including the recent use of ZMapp for Ebolavirus infection, and explores some possible future applications of the technology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Plant-based vaccines against viruses
    (2014) Rybicki, Edward P
    Plant-made or "biofarmed" viral vaccines are some of the earliest products of the technology of plant molecular farming, and remain some of the brightest prospects for the success of this field. Proofs of principle and of efficacy exist for many candidate viral veterinary vaccines; the use of plant-made viral antigens and of monoclonal antibodies for therapy of animal and even human viral disease is also well established. This review explores some of the more prominent recent advances in the biofarming of viral vaccines and therapies, including the recent use of ZMapp for Ebolavirus infection, and explores some possible future applications of the technology.