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Abstract Streptococcus pneumoniae continues to cause significant disease burden. Whilst pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) have substantially reduced this burden, serotype replacement partially negates this success due to increased disease associated with non-vaccine serotypes (NVTs). Continued surveillance is therefore essential to provide crucial epidemiological data. Annual cross-sectional surveillance of paediatric pneumococcal carriage was started in Southampton, UK following PCV7 roll-out in 2006. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from children

Abstract An array of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants have been isolated, propagated and used in in vitro assays, in vivo animal studies and human clinical trials. Observations of working stocks of SARS-CoV-2 suggest that sequential propagation in Vero cells leads to critical changes in the region of the furin cleavage site, which significantly reduce the value of the working stock for critical research studies. Serially propagating SARS-CoV-2 in Vero E6 cells leads to rapid increases in genetic variants while propagation in other cell lines (e.g. Vero/hSLAM) appears to mitigate this risk thereby improving the overall genetic stability of working stocks. From these observations, investigators are urged to monitor genetic variants carefully when propagating SARS-CoV-2 in Vero cells.

SARS-CoV-2 induces mild infection in ferret model. Here, Ryan et al. characterise optimal infection dosage inducing upper respiratory tract (UTR) viral shedding, progression time of viral shedding, and pathology in ferrets and finally provide evidence for protection after re-challenge.