Tertiary treatment of real abattoir wastewater using combined acoustic cavitation and ozonation.

This work reports the influence of ultrasound alone and combined with ozone for the treatment of real abattoir wastewater. Three different frequencies were studied (44, 300 and 1000 kHz) at an applied power of 40 W. The injected ozone dose was fixed at 71 mg/L and the treatment time varied from 1 to 60 min.

Population screening for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease using a novel blood test: diagnostic accuracy and feasibility study.

Importance: Our study indicates a prototype blood-based variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) assay has sufficient sensitivity and specificity to justify a large study comparing vCJD prevalence in the United Kingdom with a bovine spongiform encephalopathy-unexposed population. In a clinical diagnostic capacity, the assay's likelihood ratios dramatically change an individual's pretest disease odds to posttest probabilities and can confirm vCJD infection.

Objectives: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of a prototype blood test for vCJD and hence its suitability for clinical use and for screening prion-exposed populations.

Detection of prion infection in variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: a blood-based assay.

Background: Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder originating from exposure to bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-like prions. Prion infections are associated with long and clinically silent incubations. The number of asymptomatic individuals with vCJD prion infection is unknown, posing risk to others via blood transfusion, blood products, organ or tissue grafts, and contaminated medical instruments.

A standardized comparison of commercially available prion decontamination reagents using the Standard Steel-Binding Assay.

Prions are comprised principally of aggregates of a misfolded host protein and cause fatal transmissible neurodegenerative disorders of mammals, such as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle. Prions pose significant public health concerns through contamination of blood products and surgical instruments, and can resist conventional hospital sterilization methods. Prion infectivity binds avidly to surgical steel and can efficiently transfer infectivity to a suitable host, and much research has been performed to achieve effective prion decontamination of metal surfaces.