Haemophilus influenzae circulantes en Cuba. Caracterización de cepas aisladas de meningitis / Circulating Haemophilus influenzae in Cuba. Characterization of strains isolated from meningitis

Haemophilus influenzae B(Hib) is often associated with serious systemic infections in children under 5 years of age. Since 1993, it is the most frequent agent isolated in meningoencephalitis. All the strains isolated in the country have been characterized in the National Reference Laboratory at the "Pedro KourÝ" Tropical Medicine Institute. Results revealed that 97 of strains isolated from bacterial meningoencephalitis in Cuba during the period 1993-1995 corresponded to serotype B, 0.6 to serotype A and 2.4 not belong to any serotype. The classification of serotype B-strains into biotypes proved that 76 was biotype I and 21 biotype II, 8 to biotype III and 1.2 was biotype V. This study found the following resistance to ampicillin 40, to chloranphenicol 43.3, sulpha metoxazol 36, trimetroprim 37.3 and tetracycline 31.

Producción y purificación parcial de la hemolisina principal (Neumolisina) de Streptococcus pneumoniae / Production and partial purification of the main hemolysin (pneumolysin) of Streptococcus pneumoniae

The capacity of 36 Cuban strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae to produce pneumolysin was studied, and 94.4 of them were determined to be producers of that enzyme. One of the best producers was cultured at a great scale and the pneumolysin found in the supernatan was partially purified through an ion-exchange chromatography in mono-Q column. This method made it possible to recover the enzyme whose purity level increased by 4.39 with 100 output.