Isospora belli infection in a malnourished child.

Isospora belli, a coccidian parasite usually causes a self limiting illness of acute onset with fever, diarrhoea and colicky pain in a normal host. In immunocompromised patients human isosporiasis becomes chronic. We report a case of a malnourished 9 year old female child who presented with complaints of loose stools, nausea, vomiting and weight loss for the past three months. Stool examination revealed immature oocysts of Isospora belli. The patient was successfully treated with TMP-SMX.

Evaluation of a two step AFB cold staining method and simplified concentration technique for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Ziehl Neelsen (Z-N) stain is the commonly used procedure for demonstration for AFB. A Simple cold stain technique and Simplified concentration technique were compared with the conventional methods on 1484 sputum samples over a period of 3 months. A positivity rate of 9.3% was observed on direct microscopy with an increase in the yield by 30% after concentration. It was observed that the simple cold staining and simplified concentration are viable alternatives for demonstration of mycobacteria in busy clinical laboratories.