Tuberculosis is currently the world's leading cause of adult death from a single infectious disease. Sputum examination remains the cornerstone of diagnosis in epidemic situations. To improve the diagnostic process we are developing an automated method for the detection of tubercle bacilli in clinical specimens, principally sputum smears. A preliminary investigation is presented here, which mak...

While u nder treatment with'dapso ne for lepromatous leprosy , a 5 0-year-old male Greek Cypriot presented with multiple widespread lesions of a bizarre type, many of them freely ulceTating. Iinically and histologically, peripheral nerves were little affected, but biopsy s mples of skin and ulcers contained enormous numbers of leprosy bacilli. M ouse footpad inoculation of the bacilli from skin...

Older observations on the nutritive requirements and metabolism of virulent tubercle bacilli do not have quantitative significance because of the lack of accurate methods for the estimation of the rate of growth. The recognition in recent years that these organism grow just as well when submerged in liquid media as on the surface of liquid or solid media has eliminated some of the difficulties ...

Microscopy of direct smears for acid-fast bacilli (AFB) is the most commonly used method for diagnosis of tuberculosis. However, direct microscopy of sputum, though rapid, has low sensitivity and there is a need for improved methods. Sputum samples were collected from patients attending the Union Tuberculosis Institute, Yangon. The microscopy of smears made directly from sputum were compared wi...

The intracellular parasite Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium causes a typhoid-like systemic disease in mice. Whereas the survival of Salmonella in phagocytes is well understood, little has been documented about the exit of intracellular Salmonella from host cells. Here we report that in a population of infected macrophages Salmonella induces "oncosis," an irreversible progression to eukar...

Aztreonam is a new monobactam antibiotic which is highly active against aerobic Gram negative bacilli. The purpose of this study is to establish the in-vitro activity of aztreonam against recent clinical isolates of aerobic Gram negative bacilli obtained from patients at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. Minimum inhibitory concentrations of the antibiotic against the isolates were determined u...