BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVESVisceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a life-threatening infection caused by Leishmania species. In Sudan, VL is caused by L donovani. Most drugs used to treat VL, especially pentavalent antimony compounds (sodium stibogluconate, SSG), are potentially hepatotoxic. A number of fatal catastrophes happened because patients with VL-hepatitis B/C coinfection were indiscriminately treated with SSG in settings where VL and viral hepatitis coexist. This study aimed to study biochemical and hematological parameters of patients with VL-hepatitis B/C coinfections with the aim to modify treatment protocols to reduce coinfection-added morbidity and mortality.DESIGN AND SETTINGSThis was a prospective analytical, hospital-based, and case-controlled study. The study was done at Kassab Hospital and Professor Elhassan Centre for tropical medicine during the period of February 2008 to April 2013.MATERIALS AND METHODSFollowing informed consent by the participants, 78 parasitologically confirmed VL patients with either hepatitis B or C or both and 528 sex- and age-unmatched VL patients without hepatitis B/C coinfection (control group) were enrolled sequentially. Diagnosis of hepatitis B or C was made using immunochromatographic test kits and confirmed by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.RESULTSVL patients with hepatitis B/C coinfections had significantly increased levels of AST, ALT, and total bilirubin compared to the control group (P=.0001 for all), with significantly decreased levels of albumin and platelets counts (P=.0029 for both).CONCLUSIONVL-hepatitis B/C coinfections are an emerging entity that needs anti-leishmanial treatment modification. Alternative treatments like paromomycin and amphotericin B (AmBisome) could be reserved for these patients.
This study was done to characterize at the species level Mycobacterium spp. isolates from Yemeni pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Early-morning sputum samples were collected from 170 patients referred to the National Tuberculosis Institute in Sana'a city with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis. Samples were processed with Ziehl-Neelsen stain and cultured in Ogawa and Lowenstein-Jensen media. The rpoB gene target sequence was amplified using mutagenesis forward and reverse primers followed by HindIII enzyme digestion. Of the 120 isolates analysed, 118 (98.3%) were identified as M. tuberculosis complex and 2 (1.7%) were identified as mycobacteria other than M. tuberculosis. The results showed that those 2 isolates were multi-drug resistant and the DNA sequencing analysis showed that the alignment of nucleic acid of DNA in isolates of mycobacteria other than M. tuberculosis was different from that of M. tuberculosis complex.
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