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The increasing reports of vancomycin‑resistant enterococci (VRE) as a cause of neonatal septicemia are of recent interest. However, in majority of the cases, the source of VRE could not be located. As a consequence, the real importance of VRE and its control measures is undermined. Herein, we report a case of neonatal septicemia due to VRE (Enterococcus faecalis) of vanA genotype with VRE carriage in stool of the neonates as a possible source of sepsis. The report put forwards some lacunae in the infection control practices that are presently followed in the country.
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Aim: The study was carried out to investigate the prevalence of multidrug resistant Enterobacteriaceae (MDRE), their susceptibility to carbapenems and tigecycline, and subsequently carbapenemase producers among clinical isolates of Enterobacteriaceae. Study Design: Investigative. Place and Duration: The study was performed in the Microbiology Department, Institute of Medical Science, associated Sir Sunderlal hospital, Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, during January 2012 to August 2013. Methods: Samples were collected from patients in accordance with standard practice and Enterobacteriaceae identified by conventional biochemical procedures. Antibiotic susceptibility of isolates and Modified Hodge test were carried out according to the CLSI guide-lines. Results: A total of 761 isolates belonging to Enterobacteriaceae were obtained from the samples, dominated by 292 E. coli, 236 Klebsiella pneumoniae, 53 Citrobacter freundii, 51 C. koseri, and 36 K. oxytoca. Antibiogram revealed piperacillin-tazobactam as the most effective agent, with 21.9% of the isolates resistant to it, followed by amikacin (22.4%), levofloxacin (22.8%) and minocycline (23.5%). A total of 512 (67.3%) isolates were MDRE, of which 198 (38.7%) were resistant to at least one of the carbapenems, and 3(0.6%) to tigecycline. Of the isolates 322 (62.9%) were carbapenem resistant enterobacteria (CRE). Carbapenemase production was detected in 256 (50.0%) and 105 (20.0%) isolates among the MDRE by disk diffusion and Modified Hodge tests respectively. Conclusions: High prevalence of MDRE and CRE was observed. Tigecycline showed better in vitro activity over carbapenems indicating an increasing loss of efficacy among these comparators. There was a relatively wide disparity among likely carbapenemase producers identified by Modified Hodge and disk diffusion tests. Findings suggest the need for prudent antimicrobial and infection control policy.
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Background & objectives: One-fifth of the world’s new tuberculosis (TB) cases and two-thirds of cases in the South East Asian region occur in India. Molecular typing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates has greatly facilitated to understand the transmission of TB. This study was aimed to investigate the molecular epidemiology of M. tuberculosis genotypes in Varanasi, north India, and their association with clinical presentation among patients with pulmonary TB. Methods: M. tuberculosis isolates from 104 TB patients attending a tertiary referral hospital of north India were screened for susceptibility to isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RIF), ethambutol (EMB) and streptomycin (STR) by proportion method and multiplex-allele-specific-polymerase chain reaction (MAS-PCR). These were genotyped by spoligotyping. The spoligotype patterns were compared with those in the international SITVIT2 spoligotyping database. Results: Eighty three of 104 isolates were distributed in 38 SITs, of which SIT3366 was newly created within the present study. The mass of ongoing transmission with MDR-TB isolates in Varanasi, northern India, was linked to Beijing genotype followed by the CAS1_Delhi lineage. HIV-seropositive patients had a significantly higher proportion of clustered isolates than HIV-seronegative patients and compared with the wild type(wt) isolates, the isolates with katG315Thr mutation were considerably more likely to be clustered. Interpretation & conclusions: This study gives an insight into the M. tuberculosis genetic biodiversity in Varanasi, north India, the predominant spoligotypes and their impact on disease transmission. In this region of north India, TB is caused by a wide diversity of spoligotypes with predominance of four genotype lineages: Beijing, CAS, EAI and T. The Beijing genotype was the most frequent single spoligotype and strongly associated with multi drug resistant (MDR)-TB isolates. These findings may have important implications for control and prevention of TB in north India.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is a major public-health problem in India, having the highest number of incident and multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB cases. The study was carried out to appraise the prevalence of first-line anti- TB drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) and its patterns among different types of TB patients from different settings in a province of North India. Of 3,704 clinical specimens, 345 (9.3%) were culturepositive, and drug-susceptibility testing was carried out for 301 MTB strains. A high level of primary and acquired drug resistance of MTB was observed in the region studied, with weighted mean of 10.5% and 28.08%, 12.81% and 29.72%, 17.12% and 29.94%, 11.97% and 27.84%, and 10.74% and 23.54% for rifampicin, isoniazid, streptomycin, ethambutol-resistant and MDR cases respectively. Drug resistance was significantly higher in pulmonary (p=0.014) and acquired drug-resistant TB cases (p<0.001). Any drug resistance (p=0.002) and MDR TB were significantly (p=0.009) associated with HIV-seropositive cases. An urgent plan is needed to continuously monitor the transmission trends of drug-resistant strains, especially MDR-TB strains, in the region.
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The objective of the study was to evaluate the performance of nitrate reductase assay (NRA) as a rapid, reliable and inexpensive method for drug-susceptibility testing (DST) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis against firstline antitubercular drugs, such as rifampicin (RIF), isoniazid (INH), streptomycin (STR), and ethambutol (EMB). In total, 286 isolates were subjected to test by proportion method (PM) and NRA. By comparing the results of NRA with those of the gold standard PM, sensitivities and specificities were 98.4%, 97%, 88.5%, and 94.2% and 100%, 100%, 94%, and 99% for RIF, INH, STR, and EMB respectively. The positive predictive values were 100%, 100%, 95%, and 98% for RIF, INH, STR, and EMB respectively. The negative values were 99%, 98%, 87%, and 96% for RIF, INH, STR, and EMB respectively. The median time of obtaining results was shorter using NRA (10 days) compared to PM (28 days). An excellent agreement was observed between the two phenotypic tests with the κ values of 0.98, 0.97, 0.81, and 0.93 for RIF, INH, STR, and EMB respectively. The results demonstrated that NRA is suitable for the early determination of INH and RIF resistance and has the potential to be a useful tool for rapid drug-sensitivity test of M. tuberculosis in resource-constrained settings.
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Immunomodulatory effect of ethanolic extract (50%) of M. oleifera leaves (MOE) has been studied in normal and immunosuppressed mice models. Different doses of MOE i.e. 125, 250 and 500 mg/kg body weight of mice were administered orally for 15 days. Cyclophosphamide at a dose of 30 mg / kg body weight was administered orally for the next 3 days. On day 16 and 19, hematological parameters like white blood cell (WBC) count, red blood cell (RBC) count, haemoglobin level (Hb), percent neutrophils and organ weight were recorded. Effect of MOE on phagocytic activity of mice macrophages was determined by carbon clearance test. MOE showed significant dose dependent increase in WBC, percent neutrophils, weight of thymus and spleen along with phagocytic index in normal and immunosuppressed mice. The results indicate that MOE significantly reduced cyclophosphamide induced immunosuppression by stimulating both cellular and humoral immunity.