Clinical presentation and pathology of suspected vector transmitted African horse sickness in South African domestic dogs from 2006 to 2017

2018 ◽  
Vol 182 (25) ◽  
pp. 715-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolize O’Dell ◽  
Luke Arnot ◽  
Chris Eric Janisch ◽  
Johan CA Steyl

African horse sickness (AHS) is a fatal vector transmitted viral disease of horses caused by the African horse sickness virus (AHSV). This disease is characterised by circulatory and respiratory failure, resulting from vascular endothelial injury affecting many organs. The susceptibility of dogs to AHS has been demonstrated in the past following experimental infection through consumption of infected horse meat. Thirty three clinical cases of AHS in dogs (cAHS) have been documented, without a history of ingesting infected horse meat, over a period of 12 years. The clinical cases included in this study presented with a history of acute respiratory distress syndrome or sudden death. The macroscopic and histological changes were mostly characterised by acute interstitial pneumonia, serofibrinous pleuritis and mediastinal oedema. Confirmation of cAHS was obtained by AHS specific NS4 antibody immunohistochemistry and/or AHSV specific duplex real time RT-quantitative PCR. Here, we document the clinical and postmortem diagnostic features of confirmed cAHS cases with no history of ingestion of AHS infected horse meat.

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
V.M. Loskot ◽  
G.B. Bakhtadze

Geographic distribution and habitat preferences of Saxicola rubicola rubicola (Linnaeus, 1766), S. maurus variegatus (S.G. Gmelin, 1774), and S. m. armenicus (Stegman, 1935) inhabiting the Caucasian Isthmus and adjacent areas are described in detail. We examined the individual, sexual, age, seasonal and geographical variations of seven main diagnostic features of both plumage and morphometrics (exactly, the length of wing and tail) using 381 skin specimens. Substantially improved diagnoses of S. m. variegatus and S. m. armenicus are provided. After a thorough examination of the materials and history of the expedition of Samuel Gmelin in 1768–1774, and his description of Parus variegatus, it was concluded that the type locality of this taxon was the vicinity of Shamakhi in Azerbaijan not Enzeli in North-Western Turkey. It is also shown the fallacy of the recently proposed attribution of the holotype of the northern subspecies S. m. variegatus to the southern taxon S. m. armenicus and synonymisation of these names, as well as the replacement of the name S. m. variegatus by its junior synonym S. m. hemrichii Ehrenberg, 1833 for the northern subspecies.


Author(s):  
Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’A Mphahlele)

The history of the Christian Bible’s reception in South Africa was part of a package that included among others, the importation of European patriarchy, land grabbing and its impoverishment of Africans and challenged masculinities of African men. The preceding factors, together with the history of the marginalization of African women in bible and theology, and how the Bible was and continues to be used in our HIV and AIDS contexts, have only made the proverbial limping animal to climb a mountain. Wa re o e bona a e hlotša, wa e nametša thaba (while limping, you still let it climb a mountain) simply means that a certain situation is being aggravated (by an external factor). In this chapter the preceding Northern Sotho proverb is used as a hermeneutical lens to present an HIV and AIDS gender sensitive re-reading of the Vashti character in the Hebrew Bible within the South African context.


Author(s):  
Gerald O. West

Liberation biblical interpretation and postcolonial biblical interpretation have a long history of mutual constitution. This essay analyzes a particular context in which these discourses and their praxis have forged a third conversation partner: decolonial biblical interpretation. African and specifically South African biblical hermeneutics are the focus of reflections in this essay. The South African postcolony is a “special type” of postcolony, as the South African Communist Party argued in the 1960s. The essay charts the characteristics of the South African postcolony and locates decolonial biblical interpretation within the intersections of these features. Race, culture, land, economics, and the Bible are forged in new ways by contemporary social movements, such as #FeesMustFall. South African biblical studies continues to draw deeply on the legacy of South African black theology, thus reimagining African biblical studies as decolonial African biblical studies—a hybrid of African liberation and African postcolonial biblical interpretation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 154 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S153-S154
Author(s):  
E Conner ◽  
D Troxclair ◽  
H Khokhar ◽  
W Beversdorf

Abstract Introduction/Objective Acute interstitial pneumonia (AIP) is a rare disease clinically characterized by rapidly progressing respiratory failure in individuals with no history of respiratory illness or other inciting factors. While most often diagnosed in middle-aged adults, it may present in any age group. Initial presentation is described as influenza- like, and respiratory failure requiring ventilatory support often progresses within weeks to months. Prognosis is poor, with an estimated mortality rate approaching 80% without treatment. Methods We present the case of a 44-year-old male nonsmoker with no significant medical history, who presented in 2018 with 1.5 months of dyspnea and headache initially diagnosed as atypical pneumonia. Chest imaging revealed bilateral opacities; however, microbial workup revealed no evidence of infectious etiology. Autoimmune serology studies were likewise unrevealing. Despite aggressive supportive and medical management, he deteriorated to respiratory failure and succumbed. Results At autopsy, the lungs were symmetrically congested and edematous (combined weight 2,340 g) but free of evident consolidation or discrete lesions. Microscopic examination revealed diffuse alveolar damage with extensive hyaline membrane formation, interstitial edema, and fibroblastic proliferation. The vasculature was severely congested, and the alveoli contained hemorrhage and scattered macrophages. No fungal or mycobacterial elements were identified by staining. Based on the histologic features and clinical context, the diagnosis of AIP was made. Conclusion AIP is a rare, aggressive, and diagnostically challenging disease that includes a broad range of both clinical and histologic differentials. Timely recognition and intervention with aggressive respiratory support and high- dose glucocorticoids are the mainstays of clinical management. The diagnostic role of histology is significant, but hinges on early clinical consideration of AIP as disease progression may later preclude the biopsy procedure. We share this case to raise awareness of this rapidly progressive and diagnostically troubling interstitial lung disease while emphasizing the importance of clinicopathologic correlation.


Literator ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Steyn

A study of the history of South African universities from 1918 to 1948 showed that six factors influenced the use of a particular language as a language medium at a university, namely economic and political power, as well as the number of people in the language community (which determines matters such as the official status of the language and the availability of money for universities), lecturers' and students ’ knowledge of the language, its position as scholarly language, language loyalty and attitudes toward other languages and the support enjoyed by language and related ideologies. Whereas these factors were reasonably favourable for Afrikaans universities in the past, they currently pose a threat to the survival of Afrikaans-medium universities. The standpoint is defended that retaining Afrikaans as educational and scholarly language should be an important factor when making decisions on universities. The tension between internationalisation and retention of the own language and culture is also topical in Europe, and steps have been taken to try to protect the retention of Dutch as language medium at Dutch and Flemish universities.


2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A Leonard ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
Scott Glaberman ◽  
Robert C Fleischer ◽  
Adalgisa Caccone ◽  
...  

Twenty years ago, the field of ancient DNA was launched with the publication of two short mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences from a single quagga ( Equus quagga ) museum skin, an extinct South African equid ( Higuchi et al . 1984 Nature 312 , 282–284). This was the first extinct species from which genetic information was retrieved. The DNA sequences of the quagga showed that it was more closely related to zebras than to horses. However, quagga evolutionary history is far from clear. We have isolated DNA from eight quaggas and a plains zebra (subspecies or phenotype Equus burchelli burchelli ). We show that the quagga displayed little genetic diversity and very recently diverged from the plains zebra, probably during the penultimate glacial maximum. This emphasizes the importance of Pleistocene climate changes for phylogeographic patterns in African as well as Holarctic fauna.


1983 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Boucot ◽  
C. H. C. Brunton ◽  
J. N. Theron

SummaryThe Devonian brachiopod Tropidoleptus is recognized for the first time in South Africa. It is present in the lower part of the Witteberg Group at four widely separated localities. Data regarding the stratigraphical range of the genus elsewhere, combined with information on recently described fossil plants and vertebrates from underlying strata of the upper Bokkeveld Group, suggest that a Frasnian or even Givetian age is reasonable for the lower part of the Witteberg Group. The recognition of Tropidoleptus in a shallow water, near-shore, molluscan association, at the top of the South African marine Devonian sequence, is similar to its occurrence in Bolivia, and suggests a common Malvinokaffric Realm history of shallowing, prior to later Devonian or early Carboniferous non-marine sedimentation. It is noteworthy that Tropidoleptus is now known to occur in ecologically suitable environments around the Atlantic, but is absent from these same environments in Asia and Australia. Tropidoleptus is an excellent example of dispersal in geological time — first appearing in northern Europe and Nova Scotia, then elsewhere in eastern North America and North Africa, followed by South America and South Africa, while continuing in North America.


2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55
Author(s):  
Nathan Schlanger

Together with the welcome insights they have brought to the matters at hand, the archaeological dialogues here engaged have certainly made me appreciate where my claims could be modified and my arguments amplified. Since I have already been taxed with a questionable insistence on setting the record straight, and with a penchant for academically coup de poing-ing my way through the archaeological establishment and its established historiography, I may as well persevere and thank the commentators for helping me grasp the following key point: what has been motivating a substantial part of my investigations, I can now better specify, is a growing unease with the well-established paradigm of ‘colonial vindication’. This is not, let me hasten to add, a reference to the genuine injustice done to those indigenous populations whose pasts have been expropriated and denigrated by the colonizing powers (i.e. Trigger's sense of ‘colonial archaeology’). Likewise, there is obviously no denying that the globalization of archaeology in the colonial and post-colonial eras has entailed considerable intellectual and institutional struggles, alongside innumerable power games, financial calculations and scientific compromises – and here Shepherd is surely right to give as example the ‘cradle of humanity’, a shifting zone whose ideological, diplomatic and economic potential Smuts had already fully sized in the 1930s (cf. Schlanger 2002b, 205–6). Rather, what I wish here to open to scrutiny is this apparently long-standing notion that South African archaeology has been systematically ‘done down’, ‘passed over’ and ‘badly used’ (Shepherd's terms) by the metropole – making it quite evident that its history, if not its ethos, should be primarily geared towards securing due recognition and redress.


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