One of the most striking features of the Covid-19 pandemic from my perspective has been the massive volume of scientific papers released on the internet. There have been 10’s of thousands of papers which is both amazing and worrying. But why is it worrying, surely the faster we have more information the better? Well maybe not…
 
According to recent studies 2% of researchers admit that they have committed fraud in their work, but they thought that 14% of their colleagues had also committed fraud… fraud is basically lying…. Also in a study of 20,000 biomedical research papers 2% contained deliberately falsified images… this was reported on BBC Inside Science - Science Fraud & Bias, Immunity to COVID-19. [My wife told me about this radio broadcast she heard whilst cuddling our two new Cats Protection foster kittens (Toes and Splodge)!]

“I have a patient with a bright red nose” said the junior Doctor.
 
The Microbiologist double-checked his calendar to make sure it wasn’t March 15th and the junior performing a joke for Comic Relief’s “Red Nose Day”, a charity day here in the UK!
 
“What do you mean a bright red nose” the Microbiologist asked, adding “it’s not Comic Relief Day, you know?” heading off the “fooled you” prank.
 
“What!?”... The junior inhaled deeply, ignored the Microbiologist, and continued “It’s a kind of reddish purple and very painful. It looks a bit like cellulitis but it is in a very odd place, and the patient doesn’t have a fever. What antibiotics do you think we should give?”
 
Muttering, “this isn’t just a dial an antibiotic line”, the Microbiologist decided he would like to see this patient’s nose and find out what was going on himself before advising what treatment should be started…
 
He added “your patient needs a diagnosis before throwing random drugs at them to see if they get better”.
 
As the Microbiologist walked into the patient’s room to introduce himself he couldn’t help but see that the patient did indeed have a bright red nose. He chuckled to himself; the patient definitely didn’t need one of those plastic red noses.
 
After a brief embarrassed pause the Microbiologist finally introduced himself. The patient smiled and then unconsciously reached up and stroked his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
 
With sudden understanding the Microbiologist asked “do you have anything to do with animals, either work or at home?”
 
“I am a keen keeper of Koi carp and have just finished transferring them to their new pond… I designed it myself” the patient said proudly.
 
It was the Microbiologists turn to smile. “You have erysipeloid” he told the patient confidently.
 
“Eh, sip, what? No, I have Koi carp, they’re fish!” said the patient, confused.

I came across a story this week about a patient from Florida, USA, who had been diagnosed with a really unusual infection caused by a microorganism called Naegleria fowleri. It caught my attention because firstly it is very rare and so I was intrigued and secondly because during a lockdown it should be extremely difficult to catch it! So I had to investigate further…
 
What is Naegleria fowleri?
Naegleria fowleri is a free-living amoeba found in freshwater and soil throughout the World, preferring temperatures between 30-45 oC. It does not survive in seawater. The most common risk factor for acquiring N. fowleri is contact with water through sports such as swimming, water skiing and diving as well as messing around in mud or bathing in contaminated hot springs (it is “free-living” after all!). So this explains my curiosity as to how this patient had acquired their infection as it should be very difficult to “get exposed” to N. fowleri during a lockdown, because there wouldn’t be any water sports or other exposures going on at this time!

Bats are getting a hard time at the moment. They seem to be being blamed for all of the infections threatening our species, from Ebola, Marburg, Rabies, Nipah, Hendra and now SARS Cov2. The name for these animal-related human infections is zoonoses. I can just imagine the bats cringing every time the news comes on wondering what they’re going to be blamed for next.
 
You have to admit, it’s not great PR to be associated with the scariest viruses known to cause deadly human infections. But is this fair? Are bats really MORE likely to be the source of infections in humans? Do bats harbour more nasty viruses than other animals? Or are they just getting a bad press and we should cut them some slack?

“What antibiotics should we start for Nipah Virus?” asked the newly qualified Doctor.
 
The Microbiologist nearly fell off his chair.
 
“What?! Nipah Virus? Who the heck do you think has Nipah Virus?” exclaimed the Microbiologist.
 
“I have a patient with a headache and confusion and I’ve been reading about the causes of encephalitis and want to treat them in case it is Nipah Virus” the Doctor replied.
 
The Microbiologist muttered to himself… the only one confused here was surely this Doctor… why did this always happen on a Friday… I’m the only one with a headache…
 
“Has the patient travelled? Have they had any contact with animals? Have they been in contact with anyone else unwell?” asked the Microbiologist.
 
“Well no, but Nipah Virus can cause encephalitis so we should rule it out at least” said the Doctor defensively.
 
The Microbiologist sighed, “let me tell you a bit about Nipah virus….”

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?!]

So we have been let loose and lockdown is being de-escalated slowly but have we gone too soon? We don’t have a vaccine, treatments give only modest benefits and we’re not so good at social distancing on a beach! “Experts” are a little alarmed at the pace of release and I think we’re going to be stuck with Covid-19 for a while yet, so what shall I blog about this week?

One of the stories that keeps grumbling along in the background of Covid-19 is the potential to use antibodies from patients who have survived the infection to treat patients with active infection. It’s known as plasma therapy and it’s not as crazy it might at first sound.

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….

As the saying goes, “there ain’t no flies on us, there ain’t no flies on us, there may be flies on some of you guys but there ain’t no flies on us!”
 
I had a great question last week from Michael Kamdar who asked me “if a healthcare professional who works within a hospital would have the flora of that of a normal person within the community or within a hospital?” Great question! And although I have no specific resources I can comment from experience… Firstly let’s go over the normal flora of non-hospitalised people.

SARS Coronavirus 2 (SARS Cov2), the cause of the infection Covid-19, is a zoonotic infection; it has been transmitted from an animal to a human. Genetic analysis of the virus has shown that SARS Cov2 is an intestinal bat coronavirus that has successfully made the jump from bats to humans, probably as a result of human contact with bat guano.
 
Although that sounds alarming, zoonotic infections are actually quite common and have been a problem for Homo sapiens/humans ever since we crawled out of the primordial slime millions of years ago.