TIP - Training of Intensive medical support in the case of a Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a short-term sharp increase in the demand for auxiliary staff in emergency rooms and intensive care units. Against this background student tutors of the Medical Faculty Erlangen have developed a training concept. The aim was to familiarize students in the clinical section quickly and effectively with skills that are particularly important in a clinical assignment as (student) assistant in the care of corona patients (e.g.: personal protective equipment, intubation assistance, arterial blood collection, assessment of blood gas values and ventilation parameters). In a blended learning concept, learning materials were prepared in advance and then implemented and deepened in a presence phase. The selection of learning materials and the low supervision ratio (1:2) made it possible to realize an internally differentiated approach. The offer met with great interest among students of all clinical semesters and was evaluated very positively. The skills learned can be applied widely even independently of a pandemic.

High sequence diversity in infectious bursal disease virus serotype 1 in poultry and turkey suggests West-African origin of very virulent strains.

Fifty-eight outbreaks of Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) were observed in vaccinated chicken flocks in four Southwestern states of Nigeria between 1995 and 2000. Bursa samples from 40 flocks were found virus-positive in VP2-specific nested RT-PCR. Sequences of the hypervariable region of VP2 were compared to reference strains of the different IBDV variants including also 1988 isolates from Nigeria. Sequence analysis revealed that all 40 Nigerian isolates belonged to the very virulent (vv) variant. The maximum sequence diversity of 5.7% was higher than in all other vvIBDV sequences listed in Genbank (3.6%). Two clusters within Nigerian isolates are unique to this region. Serotype 1 IBDV was also detected in four symptomatic turkey flocks. The turkey isolates were found within 2 of the 3 VV-clusters of chicken isolates. Full length sequence of a turkey isolate (NIE009t) confirmed its close relation to vvIBDV strain D6948NET for both segment A (1.4% sequence diversity) and segment B (2.1%). Thus, turkeys should be considered susceptible to vvIBDV infection. The unusually high sequence diversity of vvIBDV may be an indication of a West-African origin of this virus, from where it spread to other continents.