RESUMO
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Leptospirosis, a spirochetal zoonosis, is underreported from the northern States of India. This study reports results of a 10-year retrospective sero-epidemiological survey of leptospirosis conducted in a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi, India. METHOD: A total of 1453 patients clinically suspected for leptospirosis were included and investigated initially by IgM ELISA. A proportion of these were subjected to culture, microscopic agglutination test (MAT) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). RESULTS: Of the 1453 patients, 391 (26.90%) were positive serologically by IgM ELISA. Seropositive and seronegative patients revealed no significant difference in clinical features and laboratory parameters. Amongst the IgM seropositive cases, culture for leptospires was positive in 5 of 192 (2.6%), MAT in 50 of 138 (36.23%), PCR from blood and urine in 10 of 115 (8.7%) and 10 of 38 (26.31%) cases, respectively. In Leptospira spp. positive patients co-infections with viral hepatitis E, malaria and dengue fever were diagnosed in 27 cases. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: The overall seropositivity for leptospirosis was 26.9 per cent in our study. A decreasing trend in seropositivity was observed in recent years. Co-infections with malaria, dengue, hepatitis A and E were also seen. Since leptospirosis is a treatable disease, correct and rapid diagnosis may help in effective management of patients.
Assuntos
Anticorpos Antibacterianos/isolamento & purificação , Leptospira/isolamento & purificação , Leptospirose/sangue , Leptospirose/microbiologia , Adolescente , Adulto , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Testes de Aglutinação , Anticorpos Antibacterianos/sangue , Criança , Coinfecção/imunologia , Coinfecção/microbiologia , Dengue/sangue , Feminino , Humanos , Imunoglobulina M/sangue , Índia , Leptospira/genética , Leptospira/imunologia , Leptospirose/epidemiologia , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Estudos Retrospectivos , Sorotipagem , Atenção Terciária à SaúdeRESUMO
The single cell gel electrophoresis assay (SCGE), a very rapid and sensitive method, has been applied to follow gamma-irradiation induced DNA damage in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Spheroplasting the gamma-irradiated yeast cells by enzyme glusulase, before subjecting them to electrophoresis, resulted in a well-defined appearance of comets. Yeast comets look quite different from mammalian comets. A linear relationship was observed between the doses of irradiation and the tail moments of comets. These studies were extended to follow the action of known radio-protectors, i.e., caffeine and disulfiram. The results revealed the usefulness SCGE as applied to yeast in studies of the gamma-irradiation-induced DNA breaks and also radio-protection by chemicals at doses that are not feasible with other eukaryotes.
