A prospective social and molecular investigation of gonococcal transmission

Detection of mixed infection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae

“…5 6 However, the true prevalence of mixed infections, in vivo, is less clear and the evidence is largely anecdotal. 7 The difficulty arises in providing direct evidence that mixed infections occur in vivo. After isolation of the bacteria from the patient, in vitro, it is possible to use typing methods.…”

“…2 Individual primary isolation plates were obtained from 10 separate male patients attending the GUM clinic at St Mary's Hospital, London, with a urethral infection. Seven individual colonies were picked off the primary isolation plate, containing vancomycin, colistin, amphotericin, and trimethoprim, 7 with a small metal loop and subcultured onto a fresh agar plate without any antibiotics. 7 A subculture of a sweep of at least 10 colonies was also made.…”

“…Seven individual colonies were picked off the primary isolation plate, containing vancomycin, colistin, amphotericin, and trimethoprim, 7 with a small metal loop and subcultured onto a fresh agar plate without any antibiotics. 7 A subculture of a sweep of at least 10 colonies was also made. All plates were incubated overnight at 36°C in 6% carbon dioxide and the resulting growth resuspended in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) to an optical density of 1.0 at 540 nm and used as the DNA source for opa typing.…”

Sexually transmitted diseases: microbiology and management Proceedings of the Seventh Liverpool Tropical School Bayer Symposium on Microbial Disease held on 6 February 2000

“…Opa-typing is an example of a technique that detects diversity in a hypervariable gene and can give fine discrimination [58] allowing the study of sexual networks and transmission chains. This approach has been used in a social, epidemiological and microbiological study of isolates from patients attending two Genitourinary Medicine Clinics in London and Sheffield [59]. Gonococcal isolates were collected from consecutive patients over a 1-year period and detailed demographic data were collected at extended interviews and blinded from the microbiological study.…”

Dynamic intimate contact social networks and epidemic interventions

“…Gonorrheal and Chlamydial infections have been predicted using these types of models, which have been validated through available statistics. Due to the nature of these illnesses, statistical data is often very difficult to collect (Aral, Hughes, Stoner, Whittington, Handsfield, Anderson & Holmes 1999, Ward, Ison, Day, Martin, Ghani, Garnett, Bell, Kinghorn & Weber 2000, Wylie & Jolly 2001. Epidemiological models for sexually transmitted conditions have also been created based on the accumulation of contact tracing data.…”