Back in the blog in August called “My pandemic is worse than your pandemic” I mentioned I might do a future blog on the ancient disease called Cocoliztli, which I had never heard of before… well for once I’ve remembered I said I would do a particular topic and here it is!
 
So I’ve delve into my historical medical books (and Google!) to look further into the unknown pandemic of Cocoliztli.
 
It is well known that imported infections from Europe with the Spanish Conquistadors caused many deaths; Smallpox for example was imported in about 1520 and killed about 8 million people. In fact during the 16th Century about 90% of the native population of Mexico was wiped out by disease. But as if Smallpox wasn’t enough, this was followed in 1545 by the first Cocoliztli epidemic which killed a further 15 million people. Local people called this disease Cocoliztli or “pest” and as pandemics go this one seems pretty bad! A further Cocoliztli epidemic in 1576 killed another 50% of the population, so by this time more than 90% of the natives had been killed in just over 50 years!

Did you know that guinea pigs cough? I didn’t… but then I’ve never had a pet guinea pig… In fact I’ve discovered that all mammals cough, who knew?! Guinea pigs apparently have a cough pathway (from something stimulating a cough through neural networks and chemical signals to the actual cough) that is the same as humans so they are a great animal model for studying coughs in humans…??

One of life’s unsolved mysteries is “how did life on Earth begin?” Did it start here spontaneously as “God created us” or did Darwin get it right with his “evolution theory”? And are we alone in our universe? Let’s skip the God versus Darwin bit and jump straight to the question “did life arrive from outer space” and “can life survive in space?”
 
When times get “trying” here on planet Earth ECIC wishes she was on Pluto with her cats, her rules and no people! But she may not be alone!! The newest research suggests that bacteria can survive in the hostile environment of space; maybe the dream of living on Pluto with remote “homeworking” for a Consultant Microbiologist might be a reality (our hospital computer system is called Enterprise after all!)
 
No, No, No, stick with me!!! It’s true, those pesky microorganisms have been found to survive on the outside of the ISS (International Space Station). There’s even a named theory… the theory that living organisms can survive and transfer through space is known as “panspermia”. 

Editor Chief in Charge and I have spent the weekend trying to work out what we’re going to do if/when we can’t go on holiday later this year because of a certain unmentionable pesky virus. The basic answer is that we might not be going somewhere exotic! But why might not being able to go on holiday somewhere exotic be a good idea?!?
 
I know… pufferfish!
 
Pufferfish are tropical fish found especially in Asia. They are called pufferfish because they have a rather unusual defence strategy; they can fill their stomachs with water so that they balloon up into a ball shooting numerous spiky spines outwards. Any predator stupid enough to try and eat a pufferfish gets a mouth or stomach full of spines and probably chokes… nasty. Bloat, from the Disney film “Finding Nemo” was a pufferfish; he blows up like a beach ball every time something startles him… he’s my favourite character and he’s hilarious!

The Editor-Chief-in-Charge is a curd nerd… she not only loves to eat cheese BUT she also makes her own cheese. There is nothing quite as tasty as homemade cheese but it’s certainly not fast food. In fact it’s a very, very, very slow food. It takes a day to make, a couple of days to press, and months or years to mature…. But it is great fun and it might surprise you to know that it is also a lesson in microbiology. [I wonder if the ECIC will still be a curd nerd after reading this?!]

The government are allowing us to visit the beach but are advising us to stay out of the water as there are no lifeguards on duty and do not want additional casualties in hospital. But there might be another reason for us to consider staying out too! Viruses!!! Really!!? Can you actually find viruses in the sea? It’s a simple question but not one many of us have considered before… including me, but then why would we?
 
You might think that seawater is too salty for viruses and that they would never survive in such a hostile environment. Alternatively you might think that if viruses can survive on surfaces like plastic, metal and cardboard then why not also in the sea. But do we know?
 
Well back in 1990 Scientists confirmed that viruses can indeed be found in seawater; while looking at seawater with transmission electron microscopes (TEM) they saw “something unusual” but they didn’t actually know at that time what it was… however they could see them! So they started to study them. Remember, TEMs can “see” much smaller objects than normal light microscopes; the limit of magnification of a light microscope is about 1,000x, not enough to see a virus, whereas TEMs can magnify 10,000,000x! OK I know you youngsters think 1990 seems a long time ago but in scientific terms it’s not that long, it’s only since these discoveries in the 1990s that they actually confirmed viruses were there, even though “infection” from contaminated seawater was suspected.
 
Further studies have shown that in fact there are lots and lots and lots of viruses in seawater….

There seems to be huge amount of confusion about what tests are available for Covid-19. It doesn’t help that politicians and the media keep using the wrong terms and don’t understand what the different tests tell us. The squabbles seem to surround the numbers delivered rather than correct testing!
 
There are 3 main tests that are currently being discussed:

1. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) commonly referred to as a “molecular test”
2. Antigen (Ag)
3. Antibody (IgM and IgG)

 
In order to understand the value of these tests it is important to understand the basic structure of a virus.
 
The structure of a virus

The Microbiologist picked up the phone to call out a result.
 
“This one looks interesting” he said to himself even though he knew he had been told never to use the word interesting in relation to microbiology…. Ever…!
 
“You have a baby boy on the ward with salmonellosis, what’s the story?” he asked when the Paediatric SHO answered the phone.
 
“He’s a six week old who developed bloody diarrhoea a couple of days ago and started vomiting. He was febrile and looked septic so we started him on empirical IV Ceftriaxone.”
 
“Any pets?” asked the Microbiologist.
 
“He’s only 6 weeks old, why would he have any pets?” answered the tired junior.
 
“Not him, the family; specifically reptiles. Any snakes or lizards?”
 
“I have no idea.”
 
“Well carry on with the IV Ceftriaxone as he has a Salmonella species in his blood culture and call me back about the reptiles… no wait, I’ll come up and ask myself.”
 
The junior doctor hung up. Muttering to himself about mad Microbiologists he wandered off to get on with some other work.
 
So why did the Microbiologist want to know about reptiles? Was he just mad or was there method to his madness?