To confirm the presence of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in Sudan, we tested serum of 8 patients with hemorrhagic fever in a rural hospital in 2008. Reverse transcription–PCR identified Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus. Its identification as group III lineage indicated links to virus strains from South Africa, Mauritania, and Nigeria.

Eight actinomycete strains, isolated from 8 out of 400 sputum samples examined, taken from patients with pulmonary diseases at the Chest Unit of Khartoum Teaching Hospital in the Sudan, were provisionally assigned to the genus Nocardia according to morphological criteria. These isolates were studied further in order to establish their taxonomic status. They were found to have morphological and chemical properties typical of nocardiae and formed a monophyletic clade in the 16S ribosomal DNA tree together with Nocardia vaccinii. The strains showed a unique pattern of phenotypic properties that distinguished them from representatives of recognized Nocardia species, including Nocardia vaccinii. The strains were considered to merit species status and were designated Nocardia africana sp. nov. The findings of the present study are consistent with the view that pulmonary nocardiosis may occur in a substantial proportion of patients who exhibit chronic lung diseases in African countries. It is important, therefore, that clinicians in such countries consider this condition, especially when patients with respiratory infections fail to respond to antitubercular therapy.

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The global malaria situation, especially in Africa, and the problems frequently encountered in chemical control of vectors such as insecticide resistance, emphasize the urgency of research, development and implementation of new vector control technologies that are applicable at regional and local levels. The successful application of the sterile insect technique (SIT) for the control of the New World screwworm Cochliomyia hominivorax and several species of fruit flies has given impetus to the use of this method for suppression or elimination of malaria vectors in some areas of Africa including Northern State of Sudan. The research and development phase of the Northern State feasibility study has been started. Sudanese stakeholders are working side-by-side with the International Atomic Energy Agency in the activities of this important phase. Several ethical, legal and social issues associated with this approach arose during this phase of the project. They need to be seriously considered and handled with care. In this paper, these issues are described, and the current and proposed activities to overcome potential hurdles to ensure success of the project are listed.

This study was carried out in Khartoum State during the period from January 2011 to December 2013 to improve the rate of detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) in children with symptoms of tuberculosis (TB) infection using different conventional and advanced diagnostic techniques. One hundred and ninety-seven specimens of gastric lavage and sputum were collected from different hospitals in Khartoum State, including Elbolok Hospital, Jafar Ibn Owf Hospital, Elasha'ab Teaching Hospital, Soba University Hospital and Academy Charity Hospital. All children participating in the study were subjected to the Mantoux test after obtaining appropriate consent injected by 5 tuberculin units of tuberculin purified protein derivative, and the results were recorded after three days. Specimens were decontaminated and inoculated on Lowenstein-Jensen media according to the modified Petroff's method. Two smears were prepared and stained by Ziehl-Neelsen stain and Auramine fluorescent dye; bacterial DNA was extracted from each specimen by using phenol chloroform method, and then the Polymerase Chain Reaction technique was adopted to detect Insertion Sequence IS6110 gene of MTB in these specimens. This study showed that the positive results for TST, ZN, Auramine, Culture and PCR were 86 (43.7%), 16 (8.1%), 22 (11.2%), 32 (16.2%) and 35(17.8%), respectively. The study concluded that the PCR technique is the most sensitive and specific technique for a quick identification of MTB in gastric lavage and sputum from children who are unable to expectorate a good quality sputum sample or who are diagnosed as negative using conventional diagnostic methods.

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The two genetic variants were found to have potential risk in association with active disease development among Sudanese patients. Further intensive research work involving use of large collection of samples should be conducted to verify these findings.

The aims of the present study were to decide the occurrence of nocardia spp. among Sudanese patients suspected with tuberculosis and to investigate all proteins expressed by the genome of Nocardia africana (formerly isolated from patients with pulmonary infection misdiagnosed as MDR and their structures and functions compared to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Materials and Methods: Three hundred and twenty-nine patients, presented with pulmonary infection were included in this study. Those patients were examined for the presence of acid-fast bacilli. Two tubes of Lownstein-Jensen (L.J) medium were inoculated with 20 l of the neutralized sputum sample. All cultures were incubated at 37C for 8 weeks before being discarded. Phenotypic characterizations were performed. For nocardia proteom poly acrylamide gele lectrophoresis (PAGE)-based analyses of the four nocardia strains N. farcinica SD1828, N. africana SD 925, and N. asteroides N317 are discussed. In-gel tryptic digestion of these isolates was also performed, then the resulting peptides were introduced to MALDI-TOF peptide mass fingerprints were searched using MASCOT software. Results: Ten isolates showed rapid growth pattern within 2-3 days after inoculation, further conventional methods suggested that all these isolates were belonging to the family nocardiacea. Two Dimentional Poly Acrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) using pH strips 3-10 revealed that the soluble proteins were visible in a much smaller pI range. All strains exhibited similar protein distributions. A similarity analysis revealed that mycobacterium sequences are of high relevance for the investigated strains. Conclusions: Nocardia revealed considerable occurrence among patients with pulmonary infections (3.3%) giving clinical symptoms similar to those occur by M. tuberculosis infection, this may be due to similarities in functional proteins expressed by their genomes. This finding suggested that pulmonary nocardiosis might occur in patients who suffer from chronic lung disease in Sudan. It is important, therefore, that clinicians in Chest Units should consider this condition, especially when patients with respiratory infections fail to respond to antitubercular therapy. Nocardiae are Gram-positive aerobic actinomycetes, which are predominantly saprophytic (Orchard, 1981) but also include species forming parasitic association with animals and plants (Goodfellow, 1992). They are in the same family as clinically and industrially important genera such as Mycobacterium, Streptomyces,