Antiviral susceptibility of cytomegakovirus isolated

Two wild-types clinical cytomegalovirus [CMV] isolates were plaque purified and the individual plaque variants were then randomly picked and passed 3-5 times in human foreskin fibroblast [MRHF] to increase viral titer and test for susceptibility to the antiviral ganciclovir [DHPG]. Different susceptibility pattern to DHPG has been identified among the individual plaques tested with an inhibitory concentration 50 [ID50] ranged from 0.08-14.2 muM. Also, a fully sensitive [DHPG ID50 <5 muM], intermediate resistant [DHPG ID50 between 6-10 muM] and resistant [DHPG ID50 >10 muM] plaque purified viral isolates were further tested for susceptibility to other antiviral agents [foscarnet and HPMPC]. All the tested individual strains [DHPG sensitive and resistant] remained susceptible to foscarnet and HPMPC. It may be concluded that within any resistant population of CMV to DHPG, there was a marked heterogenicity with some subsets of the population remaining susceptible to the drug and others exhibiting considerable level of resistance. DHPC resistant CMV isolates remained susceptible to the other antiviral drugs [foscarnet and HPMPC meaning that therapy with these two antiviral agents would still be available

Acute sporadic hepatitis E among hospitalized patients in Alexandria, Egypt

Two hundred and two acute hepatitis patients were enrolled in this study. Patients were interviewed for demographic data as well as risk behaviors for contracting hepatitis infection. Serum and stool specimens were collected from patients. The sera were tested for HEV [IgM and IgG antibodies] by ELISA, while stool specimens were tested for HEV genome by RT-PCR. Among the 202 sera tested, anti-HEV IgM was detected among 42 subjects with the highest seropositivity among group aged 20-29 years; while, 90 subjects tested positive for anti-HEV IgG. HEV-RNA genome could be detected in only 5.4% of the studied stool specimens