Occurrence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in pork and poultry products from a cattle-rearing area of France.

Meat products were collected from public retail outlets and tested for the presence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in an area with a high prevalence of VRE reported in human fecal samples. VRE were detected in 66% of the samples, and a predominance of VanC strains was found, which is also true for human fecal samples.

Prevalence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in fecal samples from hospitalized patients and nonhospitalized controls in a cattle-rearing area of France.

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have emerged as nosocomial pathogens over the last decade, but little is known about their epidemiology. We report on the prevalence of VRE fecal colonization on the basis of a prospective study among patients hospitalized in a hematology intensive care unit and among nonhospitalized subjects living in the local community. A total of 243 rectal swabs from hematology patients and 169 stool samples from the control group were inoculated onto bile-esculin agar plates with and without 6 mg of vancomycin per liter and into an enrichment bile-esculin broth supplemented with 4 mg of vancomycin per liter. A total of 37% of the hospitalized patients and 11.8% of the subjects from the community were found to be VRE carriers. A total of 65 VRE strains were isolated: 12 (18.5%) E. faecium, 46 (70.7%) E. gallinarum, and 7 (10.8%) E. casseliflavus strains. No E. faecalis strains were detected. All the E. faecium strains were of the vanA genotype. Molecular typing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis revealed a different pattern for each vanA VRE strain that originated from an individual subject. To our knowledge, this is the first study to be carried out in a cattle-rearing region of France. It reports a higher VRE prevalence than that reported in previous European or U.S. studies. A partial explanation is the use of an enrichment broth step which enabled detection of strains which would otherwise have been missed, but the fact that subjects and patients were recruited from a predominantly agricultural area where vancomycin-related antibiotics have recently been used in animal husbandry could also contribute to the high levels of VRE in patients and subjects alike.

[Ocular bacterial infections : present and prospective methods of diagnosis]. / Infections oculaires bactériennes: méthodes di diagnostic actuelles et prospectives.

Bacteriological samples and tests are essentiel for the diagnosis of superficial ocular infections and endophtalmitis. The direct examination and the traditional culture of the samples can be in the futur associated with new diagnostic approach using antigen detection (immunofluorescence, enzyme immunosorbent assays) and genome research by hybridation or better by amplification for Chlamydia and for the most frequent species responsible of endophtalmitis. An original genomic strategy of bacterial endophtalmitis diagnosis was developped.

[Primary cytomegalovirus infection and pregnant women: epidemiological study on 1100 women at Limoges]. / Primo-infection à cytomégalovirus et femmes enceintes: étude épidémiologique portant sur 1100 femmes à Limoges.

During 13 months, 1101 women attending for antenatal care at Limoges University Hospital were prospectively studied to determine the prevalence of Cytomegalovirus (CMV) antibodies: 47.9% of these women were CMV seropositive. Ethnic group was strongly associated with CMV status: 42.6% of metropolitan and 94.5% of immigrant women were seropositive. Seropositivity was associated with increasing parity and older age. The risk of a susceptible woman to acquire CMV infection during pregnancy is 0.7%. Among the 4 seroconversions, 3 children were infected, with developmentally and neurologically normal status in one case, moderate ear damage in an other case and a disseminated infection in the third case requiring a provoked abortion.