ABO Blood Groups and Cholera: An Investigation of an Infectious Disease as an Agent of Natural Selection.

In a 1949 landmark paper Haldane proposed that infectious diseases may act as agents of natural selection. Apart from the well-established link between sickle-cell anaemia and malaria, direct evidence for the selective effect of infectious disease is scarce. There is some evidence to suggest that blood group O individuals may be more susceptible than individuals from other blood groups to life-threatening cholera infections. Cholera is endemic to the Ganges River Delta in India, a region whose current population appears to represent the lowest global frequency of the 0 allele. Using a model proposed by Svanborg-Eden and Levin (1991) as the framework of investigation, this paper evaluates the evidence for cholera operating as an agent of natural selection in the Ganges River Delta. This model proposes a series of six conditions that must be met in order to accept an infectious disease-mediated selective effect. All six conditions could not be satisfied by the existing evidence, and it is therefore concluded that cholera cannot be accepted as further evidence of infectious diseases acting as agents of natural selection in human populations.

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Patterns of smallpox mortality in London, England, over three centuries

PLoS Biology ◽

10.1371/journal.pbio.3000506 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 18 (12) ◽

pp. e3000506

Author(s):

Olga Krylova ◽

David J. D. Earn

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Infectious Disease ◽

Time Series ◽

Spectral Analysis ◽

Infectious Diseases ◽

Health Policies ◽

Human Populations ◽

Public Health Policies ◽

History Of ◽

History Of Control

Smallpox is unique among infectious diseases in the degree to which it devastated human populations, its long history of control interventions, and the fact that it has been successfully eradicated. Mortality from smallpox in London, England was carefully documented, weekly, for nearly 300 years, providing a rare and valuable source for the study of ecology and evolution of infectious disease. We describe and analyze smallpox mortality in London from 1664 to 1930. We digitized the weekly records published in the London Bills of Mortality (LBoM) and the Registrar General’s Weekly Returns (RGWRs). We annotated the resulting time series with a sequence of historical events that might have influenced smallpox dynamics in London. We present a spectral analysis that reveals how periodicities in reported smallpox mortality changed over decades and centuries; many of these changes in epidemic patterns are correlated with changes in control interventions and public health policies. We also examine how the seasonality of reported smallpox mortality changed from the 17th to 20th centuries in London.

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Hydrostratigraphy and Its Relation to Ground-Water Potentiality of an Area of the Ganges River Delta in Bangladesh

World Journal of Engineering and Technology ◽

10.4236/wjet.2016.41002 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 04 (01) ◽

pp. 10-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

M. Shahinuzzaman ◽

Sajib Mostafa ◽

Khan M. Nasir Uddin ◽

M. Khairul Islam ◽

Md. Alibuddin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ground Water ◽

River Delta ◽

Ganges River ◽

The Ganges

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The Eye as a Window to Systemic Infectious Diseases: Old Enemies, New Imaging

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm8091392 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (9) ◽

pp. 1392 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Pirani ◽

Pelliccioni ◽

De Turris ◽

Rosati ◽

Franceschi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Infectious Disease ◽

Infectious Diseases ◽

Clinical Evaluation ◽

Multimodal Imaging ◽

Ocular Involvement ◽

Tertiary Referral Center ◽

Imaging Examination ◽

Previous Diagnosis ◽

Life Threatening ◽

Examination Methods

Background: Syphilis, tuberculosis and toxoplasmosis are major infectious diseases worldwide; all of them are multisystem pathologies and share a possible ocular involvement. In this context, a fundamental help for the definitive diagnosis is provided by the ophthalmologist, through clinical evaluation and with the aid of a multimodal imaging examination. Methods: We hereby describe selected cases who came to our attention and were visited in our eye clinic. In all clinics, the use of retinal and optic disc multimodal imaging during ophthalmological evaluation allowed to make a diagnosis of an infectious disease. Results: In our tertiary referral center more than 60 patients with syphilis, tuberculosis and toxoplasmosis have been evaluated in the last two years: In 60% of cases the ophthalmological evaluation was secondary to a previous diagnosis of an infectious disease, while in the remaining cases the ophthalmologist, with the help of a multimodal imaging examination and clinical evaluation, represented the physician who leads to the diagnosis. Conclusion: Our results confirm how in these life-threatening pathologies a prompt diagnosis is mandatory and may benefit from a multidisciplinary and multimodal imaging approach, especially during ophthalmological evaluation.

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