Salmonella Weltevreden food poisoning in a tea garden of Assam: An outbreak investigation.

Background: Salmonella enterica serovar Weltevreden has been a rare cause of acute gastroenteritis occurring worldwide. Here, we report an outbreak of food poisoning in a tea garden. Objectives: To determine the aetiological agent and risk factors responsible for the outbreak and to take necessary steps for prevention of future outbreaks. Materials and Methods: Affected area was visited by a team of microbiologists for collecting stool samples/rectal swabs from affected patients. Samples were processed by culture followed by confirmation of the isolates biochemically, automated bacterial identification system, conventional serotyping and molecular typing. Water samples were also processed for detection of faecal contamination. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed by Kirby–Bauer disc diffusion technique according to the Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute guidelines. Results: The isolates were confirmed as S. enterica subspecies enterica serovar Weltevreden. They were found sensitive to ampicillin, amoxycillin‑clavulanic acid, ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, norfloxacin, cefotaxime, ceftriaxone, co‑trimoxazole and doxycycline. Water samples showed high‑level faecal contamination. Source of outbreak was found to be drinking water contaminated with dead livestock. House to house visit was made for early diagnosis and treatment of the cases, awareness campaigning and chlorination of drinking water. Conclusions: This report emphasises the geographical distribution of this organism in Assam. As S. Weltevreden is widely distributed in domestic animals, people should be made aware of immediate reporting of any unusual death among the livestock and their safe disposal which can significantly reduce the incidence of non‑typhoidal salmonellosis in the country.

Isolation of Shewanella algae from rectal swabs of patients with bloody diarrhoea.

Shewanella algae is an emerging bacteria rarely implicated as a human pathogen. It was infrequently recovered from clinical specimens probably because of inadequate processing of non-fermenting oxidase-positive gram-negative bacilli. We report here isolation of S. algae in pure culture and mixed with E. coli from two cases of acute gastroenteritis with bloody mucous containing diarrhea occurring at the same time. As this organism is not a normal flora of the gut, the possible source of infection may be fish contaminated with the organism. Whether this bacterium can be considered an enteric pathogen needs to be evaluated. The cases were clinically diagnosed as acute bacillary dysentery. The bacterium was identified by 16S r-RNA gene sequence analysis.

Necessity of antibiotics prophylaxis during extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy.

A total of 360 patients with renal and ureteral calculi who had sterile urine before extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) and did not have any increased risk of infection received Tab.Ciprfloxacin (500 mg) 12 hourly for the next 5 days or no prophylaxis were included in this prospective study. Patients were followed by urinalysis and culture together with clinical evaluations. In antibiotic prophylactic group 10 (6.4%) had post ESWL urine culture positive while in without prophylaxis 13 (8.8%) had positive urine culture. The incidence of urinary tract infection after ESWL is extremely low, provided that patients have sterile urine before the procedure.

Lymphangiovenous malformation--a rare cause of giant retroperitoneal cyst.

A giant retroperitoneal cyst manifesting as congenital inguino-scrotal swelling to begin with, is reported. The abdominal swelling became clinically obvious at the age of five years because of rapid enlargement over a period of one month. A multiloculated cyst was revealed on preoperative ultrasonography. Intracystic hemorrhage necessitated emergency surgical exploration and excision. Histology of the cyst revealed lymph-angio-venous malformation.

Infant feeding practices in a rural community of west Bengal.

A study on breast feeding and weaning practices was carried out in a sample of 57 lactating mothers of rural community. Although early start and prolonged breast feeding was an universal practise, but timely weaning was neglected and offered to 54.5% of infants only. On the contrary, introduction of artificial milk to young infants was a culturally accepted baby feeding.

Influence of maternal, foetal and socio-economic factors on neonatal morbidity: a study on hospital born babies.

Present study revealed several significant associations. Firstly, two related variables, like duration of antenatal care and birth-weight of newborn were significantly associated with incidence of neonatal morbidity. Apart from these, attributes like mother's educational status and per capita family income were also found as important factors determining occurrence of illness during neonatal period. Moreover, children of working mothers suffered more from illness. However, it should be pointed out here that majority of the attributes discussed here, such as, occupation, literacy, income etc, are inter-dependant. So, to quantify correctly the relative risk and attributable risk of these factors in causing childhood disease needs cohort study with matched control to neutralise the effects of confounding variables.

Molecular biology of tubulin: Its interaction with drugs and genomic organization.

Microtubules are ubiquitous cellular structures found in eukaryotic organisms and responsible for a variety of functions. These functions include mitosis, motility, cytoskeletal architecture, intracellular transport and secretion. The major structural component of microtubules is tubulin, a dimeric protein molecule consisting of two similar but nonidentical subunits (α and β) each of about molecular weight 55,000. With the introduction of radioactive colchicine for the first time it has been reported that colchicine binds specifically to tubulin. At this point microtubule research stepped up to a new era linking microtubules with other spindle poisons which are structurally diverse as well as binding at different sites on to the tubulin heterodimer. These antimicrotubular agents have already provided valuable information regarding microtubule-mediated cellular functions and its association and dissociation phenomena. Tubulins appear to be conserved proteins based on in vitro copolymerization and comigration on polyacrylamide gel electrophoretic properties. Further, amino acid sequences of both α and β subunits from a variety of sources also appear to be mostly conserved. The evolutionary conservation of tubulin genes is highly reflected at the nucleic acid level as well. The estimation of the number of genes for tubulin and their organization in a variety of organisms have opened up a new dimension to microtubule and tubulin research. The multigene family for tubulins comprising also pseudogenes is suggestive that more than one gene for each α and β tubulin is functional in the cell. Therefore, it has been speculated that different tubulin gene products contribute to functionally different microtubules at specific stages in cell cycle and cell growth. Heterogeneity in both α and β tubulins has already been established during different stages of development of the cell. Obviously, it reflects that tubulin genes are highly regulated and this regulation might be at the transcriptional and/or translational level. Whatever is the actual control mechanism it appears that cells can detect an enhanced pool of depolymerized subunits and a rapid and specific control in tubulin gene expression at the transcriptional and/or post transcriptional level does occur.