[Outbreak of gastroenteritis at a home for the aged in Albacete]. / Brote de gastroenteritis en una residencia de ancianos de Albacete.

BACKGROUND: We describe the investigation of an acute gastroenteritis outbreak with an explosive beginning, probably waterborne, that occurred in an nursing home in Albacete, in November 1999 and affected 104 inmates and 35 employees. The dominant symptoms were diarrhea and vomiting. METHODS: A case-control study was designed. We carried out a descriptive analysis of facts and crossing of variables with the help of simple tables. A multivariant analysis, by models of logistic regression, was conducted both for the explosive phase and for that of transmission person-to-person. RESULTS: The attack rate for inmates was 45.8% and for employees, 33.7%. An association was found between the use of the main dining-room of the nursing home and the explosive beginning of the outbreak and between the previous presence of a case-patient in the shared bedrooms and the person-to-person transmission. Norwalk-like virus was isolated from faeces samples of four cases. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of the clinical and epidemiological findings as well as the laboratory results proved the implication of a Norwalk-like virus in this outbreak.

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Seminario dirigido por J.-A. Miller realizado en Madrid el 28 de noviembre de 1998

[Simultaneous determination of total and immature neutrophil C-reactive protein in normal, diseased, and infected newborn infants]. / Determinación simultánea de la proteína C reactiva cuantitativa y de neutrófilos inmaduros en recién nacidos normales, patológicos e infectados.

C. reactive protein and immature neutrophils/total neutrophils ratio are measured in 146 newborns. Three groups are considered: 37 healthy, 90 pathologic non infected and 19 bacteriologically confirmed infected newborns. Pathologies other than infection do not alter CRP nor I/T. Levels lower than 20 mg/l for CRP and 0.18 for I/T are considered normal. Both tests are considered very useful for neonatal infection diagnosis (p less than 0.001). CRP shows a higher sensitivity than I/T in neonatal infection diagnosis even in its initial period (84% versus 63%).

Nuclear inclusions in the neurons of the developing cerebral cortex of Gallus gallus.

In this work an ultrastructural analysis of the nuclear inclusions of neurons of chick (Gallus gallus) dorsomedial cerebral cortex during different perinatal stages has been made. Two types of nuclear inclusions could be identified: a) membranous nuclear inclusions and b) nuclear bodies. Into the type of membranous nuclear inclusions we distinguish compact and pleomorphic membranous inclusions. Compact membranous nuclear inclusions are located close to the nuclear envelope and they are circularly shaped; the largest inclusions of this type frequently contain a fine granular material. Pleomorphic membranous inclusions are irregularly shaped and do not contain any electrondense material; this type of membranous inclusions can be mainly seen in newborn and rarely at later stages. These features suggest a transport mechanism cytoplasm-nucleus and nucleus-cytoplasm which coincides with the hyperactivity of these neurons during these perinatal stages. The nuclear bodies can be exclusively seen in the newborn stage and they possibly have an important role related to the cellular hyperactivity of these stages of the development.