ABSTRACT
Plague is an infectious disease transmitted from rodents to humans. This disease is considered an endemic disease in western Iran. The last officially reported case of human plague in Iran was in 1965. In the last few decades, human plague has been reported in Iran' neighboring countries. Also, according to some recent evidence witnessing infected rodents in western Iran, it is probable to have new outbreaks of the disease in the near future in Iran. Thus, it is very important for the physicians and health care personnel to know how the disease can transmit. This study is a report of the outbreak of the disease in Gavmichan village in northern Kermanshah province in 1952, based on the available historical reports. In this outbreak, the diagnoses were confirmed by getting biopsies of parotid, auxiliary and groin glands, running bacteriology tests, smears and cultures and injecting guinea pigs. During this 20-day outbreak, 14 people were infected, of whom eight died. In 11 cases [78.57% of the patients], a close association with an infected patient was reported. Fever and swollen lymph nodes was the frequent clinical symptoms in the patients. The mean [SD] duration of the infection until death was 4.26 [0.42] days. Apparently the source of this outbreak was the wild animals in the fields around the village. It is recommended to do a comprehensive study in the western region of the country to determine the status of the plague and to monitor the disease in this region. Health care workers should be alerted to the current status of the disease in order to be able to respond appropriately to potential outbreaks
ABSTRACT
Different studies have demonstrated that a small proportion of healthy individuals receiving the hepatitis B [HB] vaccine do not produce protective levels of anti-HB antibody, a phenomenon which could be linked to certain human leukocyte antigen [HLA] class-II alleles or haplotypes. The present study was undertaken to determine the frequency of HLA class-II alleles in Iranian healthy adult responders and non-responders to HB vaccine. Twelve non-responders [anti-HBs antibody < 10 IU/L] and 46 responders [anti-HBs antibody > 100 IU/L] were tissue typed for HLA class-II. HLA-DRB1, DQB1 and DQA1 alleles were determined using polymerase chain reaction based on sequence specific primers [PCR-SSP] technique. Accessibility to excess amount of genomic DNA was possible using Epstein-Barr virus [EBV]-transformed B-cells established from all vaccinees. Our results demonstrated increased frequencies of HLA- DRB1*07, DRB1*03, DRB1*04, DQB1*0201, DQA1*0201 alleles and HLA- DRB1*07/DQB1*0201/DQA1*0201 and DRB1*04/DQB1*0302/DQA1*03011 haplotypes in the non-responder group. Comparison between responders and non-responders revealed only a significant difference for DQB1*0201 allele [p < 0.05]. These findings confirm the association of certain HLA alleles and haplotypes with the lack of antibody response to HB vaccine in an Iranian population