BACKGROUND Montreal is Canada's second-largest city, where mean annual tuberculosis (TB) incidence from 1996 to 2007 was 8.9/100,000. The objectives of this study were to describe the epidemiology of TB among homeless persons in Montreal and assess patterns of transmission and sharing of key locations. METHODS We reviewed demographic, clinical, and microbiologic data for all active TB cases r...

Insertion sequence (IS) 6110 is found at multiple sites in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome and displays a high degree of polymorphism with respect to copy number and insertion sites. Therefore, IS6110 is considered to be a useful molecular marker for diagnosis and strain typing of M. tuberculosis. Generally IS6110 elements are identified using experimental methods, useful for analysis of ...

BACKGROUND The diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis is still a major challenge. Using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR), one can detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical samples within a few hours. However, single gene targets may result in false negativity due to the absence of target DNA in some M. tuberculosis isolates. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a multiplex ...

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) strains represent a major threat for tuberculosis (TB) control. Treatment of MDR-TB patients is long and less effective, resulting in a significant number of treatment failures. The development of further resistances leads to extensively drug-resistant (XDR) variants. However, data on the individual reasons for treatment failur...

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most important AIDS associated infectious diseases worldwide. It is a leading cause of illness and death among people with HIV/AIDS in resource-poor areas of the world. The annual incidence of TB among indigenous Iranians stands at 14 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. This study aimed to identify Mycobacterium infection among Iranian HIV positive patients. Two sputu...

In developing countries the diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) is a major burning challenge. EPTB encounters many problems like pauci-bacillary nature, inadequate specimen volume. All the limitations reflect in the poor contribution of conventional bacteriological technique in the establishment of diagnosis of EPTB. Nucleic acid amplification methods are rapid and sensitive has mod...

BACKGROUND Bacteriological confirmation of tuberculous (TB) meningitis is difficult. Culture is slow and microscopy has insufficient sensitivity. We evaluated real time PCR targeting insertion sequence IS6110 among 230 consecutive adult patients with subacute meningitis in a referral hospital in Indonesia. METHODS Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were examined using microscopy, solid and liq...

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis insertion sequence IS6110, besides being a very useful tool in molecular epidemiology, seems to have an impact on the biology of bacilli. In the present work, we mapped the 12 points of insertion of IS6110 in the genome of a successful strain named M. tuberculosis Zaragoza (which has been referred to as the MTZ strain). This strain, belonging to principal genetic ...