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Early and rapid detection of the causative organism is necessary in tuberculosis, particularly tuberculous meningitis, as the disease affects mainly children and if untreated or improperly treated can cause severe central nervous system disorders and can often be fatal. An in-house-developed PCR technique was developed for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA, in which the target for amplification was a 340 bp nucleotide sequence located within the 38 kDa protein gene. The test can detect as small an amount of DNA as 10 fg, which is equivalent to two to three organisms, and is highly specific. Amplified product was detected by ethidium bromide staining after electrophoresis and Southern hybridization. Evaluation of test sensitivity and specificity was carried out using acid-fast bacilli-positive sputum samples from patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and an equal number of non-tuberculosis patient samples as negative controls. In a double-masked study 30 cerebrospinal fluid samples from tuberculous meningitis patients and 30 samples from nontuberculous meningitis patients were investigated. Out of the 30 samples 22 were positive by ethidium bromide-stained gel electrophoresis and 27 gave positive results by Southern hybridization. All of the 30 control samples showed negative results. The sensitivity of this PCR was 90 % and specificity, 100 %.

This article reports the first national serological prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in India. In total, 23,094 serum samples were tested for T. gondii IgG and IgM antibodies with the use of a solid-phase immunocapture ELISA. Antibodies (IgG) were found in 24.3%; IgM antibodies were detected in 2% of the samples. The lowest seroprevalences were in the northern parts of India, with the highest in the south. These data probably reflect the effects of significantly drier conditions and, therefore, a negative impact on the survivability of T. gondii oocysts.

This study demonstrates that PCR can be used as an effective tool to diagnose abdominal TB.

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