ABSTRACT
The authors analyze the diagnostic errors that occurred at bacteriologic laboratories of one of the districts of Russia and that led to misrepresentation of the true etiologic structure of acute enteric infections and therefore to useless ineffective antiepidemic measures. They emphasize strict adherance to a certain order of stages of laboratory diagnosis and to methodologic recommendations on microbiologic diagnosis of diseases induced by enterobacteria.
Subject(s)
Dysentery, Bacillary/diagnosis , Bacteriological Techniques , Diagnostic Errors , HumansABSTRACT
On the basis of special data on the registered cases of Grigor'ev-Shiga dysentery on the territory of the former USSR the spread of this nosological form of Shigella infections since 1980 until the present moment has been analyzed. As shown by this analysis, Grigor'ev-Shiga dysentery is not widely spread on the whole territory of the former USSR, the cases of this disease being mostly registered in Namangan (the Uzbek Republic). The study has shown that the area of the circulation of Shigella dysenteriae 1 is not completely determined. This disease is quite widely spread in some areas of Central Asia, penetrating from these areas to other regions. Everyday contacts have shown to play the main role in the transmission of S. dysenteriae 1 due to poor municipal sanitation facilities and pronounced deficiency in the level of general and sanitary education. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan has led to the rapid improvement of the epidemiological situation on the territory of the former USSR as the result of a sharp decline in the "import" of Shigella dysenteriae 1.
Subject(s)
Dysentery, Bacillary/epidemiology , Shigella dysenteriae , Adolescent , Adult , Age Distribution , Child , Child, Preschool , Dysentery, Bacillary/transmission , Female , Food Microbiology , Humans , Incidence , Infant , Male , Middle Aged , Prevalence , Sex Distribution , USSR/epidemiology , Water MicrobiologyABSTRACT
Strains of Shigella flexneri isolated from patients in 4 geographic regions of the former USSR have been studied by plasmid analysis and fingerprinting techniques. It has been shown that these methods make possible to differentiate phenotypically identical strains for 9 genotypic patterns (7 different plasmid profiles and 3 specific hybridization patterns). Strains of Shigella flexneri isolated from each region possess the similar hybridization patterns independent of serovar and plasmid profiles. Similar hybridization patterns were found among the strains isolated in Erevan and Dushanbe. The strains isolated in Kiev are related to Erevan and Dushanbe strains, but they also possess the specific additional hybridization bands. Tashkent isolates are different from the strains isolated in other geographic regions. They are also of clonal origin in spite of the different serovars and plasmid profiles registered for these strains. Positive correlation has been found between serovar and plasmid profile characteristics of the strains. The clonal origin of the Tashkent isolates is different from the one of Erevan, Dushanbe and Kiev isolates, the latter having a similar clonal origin.
Subject(s)
Polymorphism, Genetic , Shigella flexneri/genetics , Genes, Bacterial , Georgia (Republic) , Humans , Kyrgyzstan , Nucleic Acid Hybridization , Shigella flexneri/isolation & purification , Tajikistan , UkraineABSTRACT
The properties of 71 S. dysenteriae 1 strains isolated from patients in the USSR and India in 1986-1988 were studied. The cultures possessed typical biochemical and serological properties. As revealed in this investigation, high fastidiousness of this infective agent to the quality of synthetic nutrient could become the cause of false negative reactions in different substrates used for the identification of enterobacteria, thus leading to diagnostic mistakes. The variability of the biochemical activity of different strains with respect to arginine, glycerol, maltose and trehalose (as well as the stability of these signs) was regarded as the theoretical substantiation of the possibility, in principle, to work out the scheme for the subdivision of S. dysenteriae 1 into independent biochemical variants.
