Incidence of Medically Attended Acute Respiratory Illnesses Due to Respiratory Viruses Across the Life Course During the 2018/19 Influenza Season.

Background: Although multiple respiratory viruses circulate in humans, few studies have compared the incidence of different viruses across the life course. We estimated the incidence of outpatient illness due to 12 different viruses during November 2018 through April 2019 in a fully enumerated population.

Methods: We conducted active surveillance for ambulatory care visits for acute respiratory illness (ARI) among members of Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA).

The Seattle Flu Study: a multiarm community-based prospective study protocol for assessing influenza prevalence, transmission and genomic epidemiology.

Introduction: Influenza epidemics and pandemics cause significant morbidity and mortality. An effective response to a potential pandemic requires the infrastructure to rapidly detect, characterise, and potentially contain new and emerging influenza strains at both an individual and population level. The objective of this study is to use data gathered simultaneously from community and hospital sites to develop a model of how influenza enters and spreads in a population.

Cryptic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Washington state.

After its emergence in Wuhan, China, in late November or early December 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus rapidly spread globally. Genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 allows the reconstruction of its transmission history, although this is contingent on sampling. We analyzed 453 SARS-CoV-2 genomes collected between 20 February and 15 March 2020 from infected patients in Washington state in the United States.

Cryptic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Washington State.

Following its emergence in Wuhan, China, in late November or early December 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has rapidly spread throughout the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic. Genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 strains allows for the reconstruction of transmission history connecting these infections.

A sensitive liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry-based assay for quantitation of amino-containing moieties in lipid A.

A novel sensitive liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry-based assay was developed for the quantitation of aminosugars, including 2-amino-2-deoxyglucose (glucosamine, GlcN), 2-amino-2-deoxygalactose (galactosamine, GalN), and 4-amino-4-deoxyarabinose (aminoarabinose, AraN), and for ethanolamine (EtN), present in lipid A. This assay enables the identification and quantitation of all amino-containing moieties present in lipopolysaccharide or lipid A from a single sample. The method was applied to the analysis of lipid A (endotoxin) isolated from a variety of biosynthetic and regulatory mutants of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and Francisella tularensis subspecies novicida.

Ribosomal RNA sequences of Clostridium piliforme isolated from rodent and rabbit: re-examining the phylogeny of the Tyzzer's disease agent and development of a diagnostic polymerase chain reaction assay.

We used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology to amplify the 16S rRNA gene, the intergenic spacer, and most of the 23S rRNA gene from 6 isolates (2 mice, 1 hamster, 1 rat, and 2 rabbit isolates) of the Tyzzer's disease agent (Clostridium piliforme) and C. colinum. Sequence similarity searches of GenBank identified 45 closely related bacteria, which we used for phylogenetic analysis by parsimony and maximum-likelihood methods using Escherichia coli to root the resulting phylogram.