Faculty Bibliography

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers will begin going from house to house next week to give polio immunizations to 63 million children in 10 countries in the World Health Organization's latest effort to eliminate the disease. The program is to begin Monday in Nigeria and Niger, where polio is endemic

Lassa fever is one of the hemorrhagic fever viruses, and its discovery was as striking as any in the history of virology. Yale halted research into it because infections acquired in the laboratory there killed one worker, in addition to making Dr. Casals deathly ill. Dr. Casals's team found the Lassa fever virus in the blood of three missionary nurses from the United States who had become ill in northern Nigeria. Two of the nurses died there. The third was Lily Pinneo, who had cared for her two nursing colleagues in Nigeria. She flew to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, where she recovered after a nine-week stay. Dr. Casals first felt ill in June 1969, shortly after he began working with the virus. But he said he did not think he had Lassa fever because his severe thigh-muscle aching was a symptom the nurses had escaped. A friend persuaded him to go to Columbia-Presbyterian. As Dr. Casals's illness became increasingly severe, his doctors grew to suspect the virus he was investigating

Lassa fever is one of the hemorrhagic fever viruses, and its discovery was as striking as any in the history of virology. Yale halted research into it because infections acquired in the laboratory there killed one worker, in addition to making [Jordi Casals-Ariet] deathly ill. Casals' team found the Lassa fever virus in the blood of three missionary nurses from the United States who had become ill in northern Nigeria. Two of the nurses died there. The third was Lily Pinneo, who had cared for her two nursing colleagues in Nigeria. She flew to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, where she recovered after a nine-week stay

Dr. [Jordi Casals-Ariet] first felt ill in June 1969, shortly after he began working with the virus. But he said he did not think he had Lassa fever because his severe thigh-muscle aching was a symptom the nurses had escaped. A friend persuaded him to go to Columbia- Presbyterian. As Dr. Casals' illness became increasingly severe, his doctors grew to suspect the virus he was investigating. Jordi Casals-Ariet was born in Spain and served with the Spanish Army before earning his medical degree from the University of Barcelona in 1934. After interning there, Dr. Casals moved to Manhattan and worked at Cornell University Medical College from 1936 to 1938, when he joined the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. In 1952, Dr. Casals joined the Rockefeller Foundation. It supported field stations around the world where scientists collected samples from people and animals and sent them to Dr. Casals, asking his team to identify them

Jordi Casals-Ariet, the epidemiologist who was nearly killed in 1969 by Lassa fever while his team at Yale was discovering the virus that causes it, died in Manhattan on Feb. 10, his wife, Ellen, said on Friday. He was 92. Casals's team found the Lassa fever virus in the blood of three missionary nurses from the United States who had become ill in northern Nigeria. Two of the nurses died there. The third was Lily Pinneo, who had cared for her two colleagues in Nigeria. She flew a hospital in Manhattan, where she recovered. Casals first felt ill in June 1969, shortly after he began working with the virus. But he said he did not think he had Lassa fever because his severe thigh-muscle aching was a symptom the nurses had escaped. A friend persuaded him to go to Columbia- Presbyterian. As his illness grew more severe, Casals's doctors began suspecting the virus

MedImmune's hopes that its competitors' exhausted supplies would raise sales of FluMist were dashed, Dr. [Peter A. Patriarca] said, even though the company engaged in a comprehensive promotional program about the dangers of influenza and advertised FluMist directly to consumers. Current recommendations caution people receiving FluMist, particularly health workers, to limit contact with such patients. But Dr. Patriarca contended that the recommendations had been overinterpreted to mean that FluMist should not be used by health workers. MedImmune plans to ask the F.D.A. to expand approval for FluMist to include children younger than 5 and adults ages 50 to 64. Also, Dr. Patriarca said that MedImmune was conducting trials at colleges and schools to determine FluMist's safety and effectiveness among students

Health officials say that any new case of avian flu must be taken seriously because it can spread rapidly among birds and it can be quite serious in humans on the rare occasions when they are infected. In recent years, cases of avian flu in Asia, Europe and North America have prompted the slaughter of millions of chickens and ducks. The World Health Organization has sounded an alarm because some strains of the virus -- not the one found in Westchester -- have killed people, including at least 16 victims in Vietnam and Thailand early this year. It was not until February that C.D.C. tested the sample, when scientists there found that the virus was not from the H1 group, Dr. [Nancy J. Cox] said. A subsequent test ruled out another family of flu viruses, Type B. Further testing showed that it was Type A, but not the H1, H3 or H5 subtypes. Finally, on March 17, scientists using other tests identified the virus as H7N2. The next day, Dr. Cox said, C.D.C. notified health officials in New York that they had a suspect human case of avian flu. To be certain that the sample had not been contaminated in a laboratory, they did further tests

China said yesterday it had sealed off its main laboratory for SARS research after an apparent safety breach there led to four confirmed and suspected cases, including a death, in a new outbreak of the respiratory disease. As officials tried to determine the extent of the new outbreak, they set up emergency controls and began tracing contacts of all those confirmed or suspected to have contracted SARS. The four patients had been cared for in five hospitals but were not initially put in isolation. One patient travelled on three trains while she had symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Song and [Li] were confirmed cases. [Wei] and [Yang] are suspected cases of SARS, officials said

There is also concern about the recent travels of one of the cases, a 26-year-old medical graduate student, surnamed Song, who studied at the SARS lab. She traveled on at least three trains; two of the trips came after she had developed a fever and other symptoms. Song's mother, who cared for her and traveled with her, fell ill with pneumonia symptoms in April and died on Monday. She has been posthumously identified as a suspected SARS case. Chinese officials, who were harshly criticized for their mismanagement of the original SARS outbreak, appeared to be responding swiftly. Efforts were under way to find people who had come into contact with the SARS patients

The findings suggest that unidentified nonalcoholic components in beer and spirits may play an important role in precipitating gout attacks, a form of arthritis, said the head of the team, Dr. Hyon Choi of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The participants in Choi's study were 47,150 gout-free male health professionals who answered a questionnaire when they entered the study in 1986 and then every two years until 1998. Of the participants, 730 developed the disease. More research is needed to identify such possible factors and to determine whether changing the type of alcoholic beverage or reducing the consumption of alcohol would cut the incidence of gout, Choi's team said