The effect of emergency manuals on team performance during two different simulated perioperative crises: A prospective, randomized controlled trial.

Study Objective: Whether having an emergency manual (EM) available for use during perioperative crises enhances or detracts from team performance, especially for multi-factorial diagnostic situations that do not explicitly match a chapter of the EM.

Design: A simulation-based, prospective randomized trial based upon two perioperative crises, one involving a patient with a transfusion reaction for which the EM contains a specific chapter, and the other involving a patient with refractory hypotension progressing into septic shock for which the EM does not have a specific chapter.

Setting: 52 regularly scheduled 6-h courses at the Center for Medical Simulation in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Identification of morbilliviruses of probable cetacean origin in carcases of Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus).

Two morbilliviruses were isolated from carcases of Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus) which had died in coastal areas of Greece and Mauritania. They were characterised as being closely related to the previously identified dolphin and porpoise morbilliviruses on the basis of their serological cross-reactivities in immunofluorescence assays, and sequence homologies in their N and P genes. The results suggest that morbilliviruses of aquatic mammals may cross barriers between species of different orders.

Morbilliviruses in Mediterranean monk seals.

Two morbilliviruses were isolated from Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus), one from a stranded animal in Greece and the other one from carcasses washed ashore during a mass die-off in Mauritania. From both viruses N and P gene fragments were sequenced and compared to those of other known morbilliviruses. The monk seal morbilliviruses most closely resembled previously identified cetacean morbilliviruses, indicating that interspecies transmission from cetaceans to pinnipeds has occurred.

Monk seal mortality: virus or toxin?

During the past few months, more than half of the total population of about 300 highly endangered Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus) on the western Saharan coast of Africa, died in a mysterious disease outbreak. Epizootiological and postmortem findings were reminiscent of similar outbreaks amongst pinniped and cetacean species in recent years, which were caused by an infection with newly discovered morbilliviruses (for review see osterhaus et al.).