Introduction:Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common infectious diseases. With the emergence of multidrug resistance (MDR), therapeutic options for treatment of UTIs are becoming limited. Fosfomycin has emerged as a novel oral therapeutic option with bactericidal activity against the MDR uropathogens. We evaluated the susceptibility pattern of uropathogens to this antibiotic.Methods:A prospective study was conducted for 6 months in a tertiary care hospital in Eastern India to evaluate whether the common uropathogens were susceptible to fosfomycin. Identification of organisms causing significant bacteriuria was done by conventional biochemical and VITEK 2 Compact System™. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed against these pathogens by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Minimum inhibitory concentrations were measured for certain drugs by E-strips and VITEK 2 Compact System.Results:A total of 2229 urine samples were referred for culture during the study period, which yielded 356 significant bacterial isolates. Among these isolates, 64.78% were extended-spectrum beta-lactamases producers, 15.97% were carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, and 42.7% isolates were found to be MDR Enterobacteriaceae (MDRE). However, 95.18% of the total isolates and 95.93% of MDRE were found to be susceptible to fosfomycin.Conclusion:The common uropathogens, including MDR isolates, show high in vitro susceptibility to fosfomycin, which therefore has the potential to emerge as a promising alternative oral agent for outpatient therapy of UTIs.

Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) is the cause of most genital herpes while HSV-1 is responsible for orolabial and facial lesions. In immunocompromised individuals, like HIV patients, impaired immunity leads to more frequent symptomatic and asymptomatic HSV infection. Fifty-two blood samples from HIV patients with clinically diagnosed HSV infection were taken as cases, while 45 blood samples each from HIV-infected (HIV control) and noninfected patients without any herpetic lesion (non-HIV control) were taken as control. Serum was tested for IgM and IgG antibodies of both HSV-1 and HSV-2 by ELISA. The seroprevalence was compared among the three groups of study population, considering the demographic and socioeconomic parameters. The HSV-2 IgM was significantly higher (p < 0.005) in the HIV patient group (34.6%) than the HIV control (2.2%) and non-HIV control (2.2%) groups, whereas HSV-2 IgG seroprevalence was higher in both HIV patient (61.5%) and HIV control (57.8%) groups than the non-HIV control group (17.8%). The prevalence of HSV-2 was significantly higher in persons with multiple partners and in the reproductive age group. The overall seroprevalence of HSV-1 IgM was too low (<5%), whereas it was too high (about 90%) with HSV-1 IgG in all three study groups.

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Surgical-site infections (SSIs) increase morbidity and mortality in post-surgical patients as well as represent an economic burden to healthcare systems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the in-vitro efficacy of triclosan coated polyglactin 910 suture against the common bacteria isolated from post-operative wound infection. Our goal was to establish whether the use of a triclosan coated suture would reduce the incidence of microbial colonisation of suture material thus reducing the rate of surgical site infection. Similar length (4cm) of triclosan coated and uncoated sutures were put on the lawn culture made on Mueller Hinton agar by 0.5 McFarland standard suspensions prepared by touching 4-5 colonies of each bacterium isolated from post-operative wound infections. after overnight incubation at 37°C, the zone of inhibition around triclosan coated sutures was compared to the zone of inhibition that was found around uncoated sutures. among 271 (81.87%) positive cultures from 331 post-operative wound samples, the commonest bacterial isolates were Staphylococcus aureus (29.52%), followed by Escherichia coli (17.34%), Klebsiella spp. (15.13%), Coagulase negative Staphylococcus (9.96%), Pseudomonas spp. (9.22%), Proteus spp. (6.64%), Enterococcus spp. (5.53%), Citrobacter spp. (3.69%), and Acinetobacter spp. (2.95%). It was found that after overnight incubation at 37°C, a good zone of inhibition was present around triclosan coated sutures in all isolates except Pseudomonas spp. and Enterococcus spp.-but minimal or no such zone was seen around uncoated sutures. Triclosan coated suture showed good antibacterial activity in-vitro and may be assumed to significantly reduce the SSI rate, cost and duration of hospital stay as it is highly effective in-vitro against the common bacteria isolated from post-operative wound infection.

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A two-day-old male neonate presented with recurrent subtle generalized clonic seizure in the neonatal ICU of a tertiary care 350 bedded hospital in Kolkata. He was delivered by caesarean section in our hospital with the indication of cephalopelvic disproportion in a post-caesarean mother with no other medical illness. The baby was the second child in a non-consanguineous marriage born in 36 weeks 2 days. He had birth weight of 2.45 kilograms and APGAR score of 9 and 10 at 1 minute and 5 minutes post-delivery respectively.The baby was doing well on the first day after birth. On the second day he presented with recurrent generalised clonic seizure. On examination, his reflexes and sucking were fair in the interictal phase.On investigation, serum glucose (88 mg/dl) and CSF glucose (72 mg/dl), calcium (5 mg/dl), sodium (138 meq/L) and potassium (3.8 meq/L) were within normal range. His haemoglobin was 16 g/dl, total lymphocyte count (TLC) was 13800/ µL and neutrophil 34%. He was put on intravenous phenobarbitone. An USG of brain did not reveal any abnormality. Blood culture was sent on the same day by using the automated blood culture system BacT/Alert-3D (bioMérieuxInc, France). While report of the culture was awaited, in the day-1 of ICU, the C-reactive protein (CRP) was found to be raised to 30 mg/dl, and intravenous cefotaxime (50mg/Kg TDS) and amikacin (15 mg/Kg OD) was initiated. On the Day-2 evening, provisional report of blood culture was obtained, which was found to be positive within 0.48 days of incubation and a Gram stain finding of plenty monomorphic Gram negative bacilli was reported. While the actual bacterial identification and susceptibility profile was awaited, on the day-3, he developed thrombocytopenia (platelet count 30,000/ml) and the child was put on meropenem (20 mg/Kg BD), intravenous immunoglobulin (0.5 g/Kg OD) and group matched packed platelet concentrate.In the laboratory, once the blood culture was found to be positive for Gram negative bacilli, in day-2 it was subcultured on blood agar, chocolate agar and MacConkey agar. After overnight incubation light yellow coloured non-haemolytic colonies were seen on blood agar and non-lactose fermenting colonies were seen on MacConkey agar. The organism was identified as P. agglomerans on the 3 rd day, by the Vitek-2 system (bioMerieux Inc, France) and also showed characteristic reactions by conventional biochemical methods including catalase positive, oxidase negative, glucose, Keywords: C-reactive protein, Neonatal seizure, Thrombocytopenia Antibiotic susceptibility was performed by both disc diffusion method on Mueller Hinton agar and Vitek-2 system and interpretation was done according to the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines (M100-S25) version 2015.The isolate was susceptible to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, piperacillin/tazobactam, ceftriaxone, cefepime, ertapenem, meropenem, imipenem, amikacin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole and colistin.Sensitivity was reported to the clinicians on day-4 of the admission o...

Scrub typhus, a zoonosis caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, is an important cause of acute febrile illness in India. This preliminary study determines the seroprevalence of scrub typhus in healthy Indian adults by measuring IgM and IgG antibodies to scrub typhus by ELISA in 100 healthy blood donors. Our study demonstrates a 15% seroprevalence of scrub typhus in adults. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings especially in children.