Tuberculosis among newly arrived foreign spouses before obtaining citizenship, Taiwan, 2006-2011.

BACKGROUND: Taiwan's criterion for admissions of new immigrants is a normal chest X-ray (CXR). Subsequent tuberculosis (TB) screening for new foreign spouses is mandatory before acquiring citizenship. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the TB burden among new-entry foreign spouses and their close contacts. RESULTS: Of 768 new foreign spouses with TB, of whom 98.6% were female, 721 (94.0%) had come from South-East Asian countries (Viet Nam, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand) or China. Rates of TB (40.3-176.2 per 100 000/year) among newly emigrant wives aged 20-49 years were 1.7- to 7.3-fold higher than among Taiwanese females of corresponding ages. TB prevalence among the 2698 close contacts of 768 foreign spouse index cases was 1.2%, according to a 2-year follow-up investigation. Respectively 87.9% (675/768) and 11.1% (85/768) of all TB cases had abnormal and normal CXRs; of these, 35.4% (239/675) of patients with an abnormal and 14.1% (12/85) of those with a normal CXR were smear-negative, culture-positive. CONCLUSIONS: Foreign wives from endemic countries had a relatively high risk of TB. Regular TB screening of foreign spouses within at least 1-2 years of entry from TB-endemic regions, rather than after application for citizenship, is recommended. A more sensitive TB test could facilitate better diagnosis.

Detection and rapid differentiation of human enteroviruses following genomic amplification.

By employing a nested PCR (n-PCR) with specific primers derived from the 5' nontranslated and consensus region of the human enterovirus genome, we detected enterovirus RNA from 32 different serotypes of prototypic strains. A specific 297-bp fragment was amplified by this method from all of these strains. Not only was the method highly sensitive, detecting enterovirus RNA extracted from 0.01 50% tissue culture infective dose/50 microl (which is more sensitive than our current routine method of enterovirus diagnosis, based on the virus isolation and serotypic neutralization), but it was also relatively rapid. By using this technology, we also detected enterovirus RNA in uncultured specimens (including throat swabs and stools) from patients with respiratory illness and acute flaccid paralysis syndrome. This method enabled us to rapidly and directly distinguish enterovirus-infected specimens from nonenterovirus specimens in laboratory diagnosis. Furthermore, restriction fragment length polymorphism was assessed as an alternative means of differentiating various serotypes of prototypical enteroviruses. Fourteen of 16 human enterovirus-infected specimens exhibited restriction patterns identical to those of the corresponding prototypes.

Identification of a measles virus isolate from a recent outbreak in northern Taiwan.

Specimens were collected during a recent outbreak. Those specimens displaying both CPE positive in B95-8 lymphocyte cell culture and positive by IFA were checked by a RT-PCR with a specific set of measles virus primers derived from the C-terminal of the nucleoprotein. Such RT-PCR method was found ideal for routine diagnostic purposes. Product from this RT-PCR was treated for plasmid construction before transformed into E. coli. One of those transformed clones, i. e. T94, was further studied for its DNA sequence. Since T94 is found to bear several evident different characteristics from those ever published, we conclude that this isolate is neither a vaccine derived strain nor one of those reported previously with specific amino acid residues, but unique in its own right. This isolate can well be a local lineage of wild measles virus in Taiwan.