An outbreak of histoplasmosis in a prison.

An investigation of three suspected cases of pulmonary histoplasmosis among 600 employees at a New York prison in a nonendemic area resulted in identification of 12 additional previously unrecognized cases. The 15 cases presented with diagnostic findings between February 1978 and October 1981; 10 were in prison employees, three in inmates and two in community persons. Unlike other outbreaks, cases presented over several years with chronic pulmonary lesions in the absence of an episode marked by acute respiratory illnesses.

The use of DFP32 as a red cell tag with and without simultaneous tagging with chromium 51 in certain animals in the presence or absence of random destruction.

DFP(32), used to label erythrocytes in vitro, combines with cell constituents in two stages, the first almost immediate and involving tributyrinase inactivation, the second slower (more than 40 minutes) involving cholinesterase inactivation. Raising the DFP concentration increases the amount irreversibly bound, but increases even more the immediate post-transfusion elution, and DFP is unsuited for investigating erythrocyte viability of stored samples. In vivo tagging by intramuscular injection is satisfactory and normal survival curves are linear since the sample tagged has normal age distribution of cells in absence of random destruction.