Detection of a Human Adenovirus Outbreak, Including Some Critical Infections, Using Multipathogen Testing at a Large University, September 2022-January 2023.

Background: Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) can cause outbreaks of flu-like illness in university settings. Most infections in healthy young adults are mild; severe illnesses rarely occur. In Fall 2022, an adenovirus outbreak was identified in university students. Methods: HAdV cases were defined as university students 17-26 years old who presented to the University Health Service or nearby emergency department with flu-like symptoms (eg, fever, cough, headache, myalgia, nausea) and had confirmed adenovirus infections by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Demographic and clinical characteristics were abstracted from electronic medical records; clinical severity was categorized as mild, moderate, severe, or critical. We performed contact investigations among critical cases. A subset of specimens was sequenced to confirm the HAdV type. Results: From 28 September 2022 to 30 January 2023, 90 PCR-confirmed cases were identified (51% female; mean age, 19.6 years). Most cases (88.9%) had mild illness. Seven cases required hospitalization, including 2 critical cases that required intensive care. Contact investigation identified 44 close contacts; 6 (14%) were confirmed HAdV cases and 8 (18%) reported symptoms but never sought care. All typed HAdV-positive specimens (n = 36) were type 4. Conclusions: While most students with confirmed HAdV had mild illness, 7 otherwise healthy students had severe or critical illness. Between the relatively high number of hospitalizations and proportion of close contacts with symptoms who did not seek care, the true number of HAdV cases was likely higher. Our findings illustrate the need to consider a wide range of pathogens, even when other viruses are known to be circulating.

Contribution of Biologic Response Modifiers to the Risk of Coccidioidomycosis Severity.

BACKGROUND: The risk of coccidioidomycosis (CM) as a life-threatening respiratory illness or disseminated CM (DCM) increases as much as 150-fold in immunosuppressed patients. The safety of biologic response modifiers (BRMs) as treatment for patients with autoimmune disease (AI) in CM-endemic regions is not well defined. We sought to determine that risk in the Tucson and Phoenix areas. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study reviewing demographics, Arizona residency length, clinical presentations, specific AI diagnoses, CM test results, and BRM treatments in electronic medical records of patients ≥18 years old with International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes for CM and AI from 1 October 2017 to 31 December 2019. RESULTS: We reviewed 944 charts with overlapping ICD-10 codes for CM and AI, of which 138 were confirmed to have both diagnoses. Male sex was associated with more CM (P = .003), and patients with African ancestry were 3 times more likely than those with European ancestry to develop DCM (P < .001). Comparing CM+/AI+ (n = 138) with CM+/AI- (n = 449) patients, there were no significant differences in CM clinical presentations. Patients receiving BRMs had 2.4 times more DCM compared to pulmonary CM (PCM). CONCLUSIONS: AI does not increase the risk of any specific CM clinical presentation, and BRM treatment of most AI patients does not lead to severe CM. However, BRMs significantly increase the risk of DCM, and prospective studies are needed to identify the immunogenetic subset that permits BRM-associated DCM.

Foraging behavior and locomotion of the invasive Argentine ant from winter aggregations.

The collective behavior of ant colonies, and locomotion of individuals within a colony, both respond to changing conditions. The invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) thrives in Mediterranean climates with hot, dry summers and colder, wet winters. However, its foraging behavior and locomotion has rarely been studied in the winter. We examined how the foraging behavior of three distinct L. humile colonies was related to environmental conditions and the locomotion of workers during winter in northern California. We found that colonies foraged most between 10 and 15°C, regardless of the maximum daily temperature. Worker walking speed was positively associated with temperature (range 6-24°C) and negatively associated with humidity (range 25-93%RH). All colonies foraged during all day and night hours in a predictable daily cycle, with a correlation between the rate of incoming and outgoing foragers. Foraging activity was unrelated to the activity of a competing native ant species, Prenolepis imparis, which was present in low abundance, and ceased only during heavy rain when ants left foraging trails and aggregated in small sheltered areas on trees.

Evolution of Visual Processing in the Human Retina.

Motion detection in humans is based on luminance differences, now shown likely to be processed by a specialized set of cone cells, separate from the cone cells that process color. Humans appear to have evolved a mechanism analogous to that proposed for the double cones of other vertebrates, lost as vision simplified in our nocturnal ancestors.

Environmental and Social Change Drive the Explosive Emergence of Zika Virus in the Americas.

Since Zika virus (ZIKV) was detected in Brazil in 2015, it has spread explosively across the Americas and has been linked to increased incidence of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). In one year, it has infected over 500,000 people (suspected and confirmed cases) in 40 countries and territories in the Americas. Along with recent epidemics of dengue (DENV) and chikungunya virus (CHIKV), which are also transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus mosquitoes, the emergence of ZIKV suggests an ongoing intensification of environmental and social factors that have given rise to a new regime of arbovirus transmission. Here, we review hypotheses and preliminary evidence for the environmental and social changes that have fueled the ZIKV epidemic. Potential drivers include climate variation, land use change, poverty, and human movement. Beyond the direct impact of microcephaly and GBS, the ZIKV epidemic will likely have social ramifications for women's health and economic consequences for tourism and beyond.