Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
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Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#2(1973)
Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#3(1973)
Would have added it but the title was too long
Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#4Whenever I see a paper from this long ago, I immediately check to see how often it's been referenced in the literature.
Google Scholar says this study has been cited by a measly 16 papers since it was published in 1973:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1453678737796934715...
Without any other context, I would assume that the relative lack of studies that reference this paper suggests that there might be issues with reputability.
But who knows? Maybe it's a gem that never got the attention it deserved.
Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#5Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#6Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#7Amusingly, I currently have a flu and can't focus for more than 5 minutes, could someone give me a summary of the findings (if there are any)?
Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#8Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#9Viruses can linger in the body and "hide" waiting for immune system to weaken.
This is how people get shingles many decades later after chicken-pox, it's the same virus, just hid in nerve cells and spinal cord.
Re: Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973)
#10It's interesting that the "Environment" section mentions this in passing:
> Food comes mainly from packets or tins [...] There is a daily bread bake, and special occasions merit the thawing of a small amount of meat from a -20 C. freezer or from an ice cave in the nearby glacier.
Then in the "Discussion" section:
> The occurrence of a common cold during isolation, when the chances of introduction of new infection from the outside are virtually nil, implies that in some way virus persisted, either in the environment or in the men
It then goes on to suggest animal reservoirs as a potential cause, as well as inanimate objects and that a virus "might have persisted in the respiratory tract of one or more men".
But one of these packets of meat being opened and thawed isn't mentioned as a potential cause. I could find a couple of papers claiming that viruses survive for months or even years in food. Mystery most likely solved without the need for hitherto unknown or unlikely transmission vectors.
That seems to me to obviously be the most likely cause. Someone sneezed on or otherwise contaminated a packet of meat that was then frozen and thawed months later.
These people aren't truly "isolated" in the sense that they're going through a continual process of opening time frozen time capsules from the past.
One of the papers that cite this one (published in the same year) discusses such "time capsule" effects, although not with food, but from opening presents kept in storage, unpacking stored clothing etc.[1]
1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...