Variants

Medicine has issued preventive and control measures regarding the spread of the disease since the death toll has risen above 15, with a total number of reported cases exceeding 29. Since June 2024, a total of 78 suspected cases of Chandipura virus have resulted in 28 deaths, with the majority of cases reported from the state of Gujarat. Since then, sporadic cases have been reported, leading to a lag in preventive and curative measures for the virus until an outbreak in 2003 in central India due to the high case fatality rate above 50 %. There were 329 reported cases with 183 fatalities in Andhra Pradesh due to neurological illness, which was later attributed to the Chandipura virus as the etiology. The outbreak in the state of Gujarat during this period resulted in 26 cases and 18 fatalities, and that in Maharashtra resulted in 118 deaths [1,5]. First discovered in India in 1966, in the city of Pune, the Chandipura virus, belonging to the family Rhabdoviridae, is a negative sense RNA virus encoding several proteins. The P protein and the M protein are important since they play roles in the viral replicative cycle and the morbid nature, respectively. It is an arthropod-borne virus selective to India and has been isolated from humans, sandflies (Phlebotomus spp.), mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti), and hedgehogs [2]. It is transmitted mainly by phlebotomine sandflies, where the virus resides in the salivary gland and is transferred to humans during bites. Chandipura virus is considered the most important vesiculovirus of public health due to its high case fatality rate. The infection manifests as a sudden onset of high-grade fever with gastrointestinal manifestations including vomiting and diarrhea. Neurological manifestations are the most concerning and dreaded feature of the disease. These include altered mental status, impaired neurological functions resulting in dysarthria, blurring of vision, and loss of balance. It may result in signs of meningeal irritation, namely headaches, photophobia, neck stiffness, and seizures. The signs and symptoms are of great clinical significance due to the rapidly developing acute encephalitis, which either leads to death within 24-48 hours or recovery [3,4]. Rapid diagnostic techniques were introduced due to the rapid progression, including reverse transcriptase PCR and real-time PCR. The mainstay of treatment is supportive care and prevention of secondary bacterial infections since there is no specific antiretroviral treatment or vaccination against the virus. However, research and clinical trials have been carried out to develop a new recombinant and inactivated vaccine, which was carried out in mice, but human trials are yet to be done. The prevention strategies are similar to any other vector-borne infection, including the elimination of breeding sites for sandflies and the prevention of bites with protective clothing [5].

The identification of women at high risk of breast cancer (BC) is crucial for
personalized screening strategies. Pathogenic and likely pathogenic variants (PVs/LPVs) in susceptibility risk genes explain part of the individual risk. Moreover, a polygenic background, summarized as a polygenic risk score (PRS), contributes to the risk of BC and may modify the individual risk in carrier and non-carrier members of BC families. Methods: We performed a retrospective pilot study evaluating PRS in women from a subset of high- (BRCA1 and BRCA2) and moderate-risk (PALB2 and ATM) BC families.
We included PVs/LPVs carriers and non-carriers and evaluated a PRS based on 577,113 BC-associated variants. Using BOADICEA, we calculated the adjusted lifetime BC risk. Results: Our data showed that in BRCA1/BRCA2 carriers, PVs have a major role in stratifying the lifetime risk, while PRS improves risk estimation in non-carriers of these families. A different scenario may be observed in PALB2 and ATM families where PRS combined with PV/LPV carrier status gives a more informative lifetime risk.
Conclusions: This study showed that in BC families, the PRS might help to quantify the weight of the genetic familial background, improving the individual risk stratification and contributing to personalized clinical management for carrier and non-carrier women.

Infectious bronchitis (IB) is a disease with significant economic impacts both on the costs of control strategies and on productive losses. Various vaccination protocols are applied, depending on homologous or heterologous protection against IB and finding the optimal balance between costs and benefits as a choice by a responsible veterinarian. The current case study aimed to demonstrate the efficacy of a heterologous vaccine combination against field IBV GI-23 (Variant 2) infection when vaccination quality was properly monitored. Two groups, each consisting of six flocks, were examined before and after improving the quality of IB vaccine application in the hatchery. These groups were vaccinated with H-120 and 1/96 vaccine strains for heterologous protection. The study involved field visits, necropsies, serology via ELISA, and oropharyngeal sampling for RT-PCR follow-up activities. Moreover, performance parameters including average body weight, feed conversion ratio, and 7 days plus total mortality were analyzed at the end of the production cycle at 40-45 days of age. Results indicated that the group with enhanced vaccination quality in the hatchery exhibited a significant decrease in IBV titers and an absence of IBV GI-23 field infection. Additionally, there was an improvement in performance data in terms of average body weight, FCR and total mortality. Hatchery vaccination proved to be more controllable and practical compared to traditional on-farm vaccination, ensuring better control of the vaccination process and massive coverage of the farm population.

Uncommon anatomical variations in venous structures continue to intrigue anatomists and clinicians alike. Here, we present a rare case of a unilateral persistent sciatic vein observed in the right thigh of an adult male cadaver. Unlike the commonly associated Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome, this finding emerged as an isolated phenomenon. During routine dissection, a conspicuous enlarged sciatic vein of lower type morphology was discovered in the right lower limb. This prominent vein, comparable in size to the sciatic nerve, originated from the confluence of posterior tibial, central soleal and peroneal veins at the distal end of the popliteal fossa. It ran a short course along the posterior thigh medial to the sciatic nerve, before terminating into the profunda femoris vein. This case underscores the importance of recognizing rare venous anatomical occurrences such as a persistent sciatic vein which predisposes one to deep vein thrombosis.