Following a rise in cases of infectious syphilis in New Zealand, national enhanced surveillance at sexual health clinics was initiated. All public sexual health clinics reported monthly on the number of cases seen, and completed a coded questionnaire on each case. Monthly reports to routine surveillance were compared and discrepancies reconciled. During 2011, 72 cases of infectious syphilis wer...

A kit based on an enzyme immunoassay, EIE-Recombinant-Chagas-Biomanguinhos, developed by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, was evaluated for the serodiagnosis of chronic Chagas disease. Evaluation was performed with 368 serum samples collected from individuals living in an endemic area for Chagas disease: 131 patients in the chronic phase with confirmed clinical, epidemiological, and serological dia...

I n recent decades, cases of newly diagnosed syphilis were rare in the United Kingdom. Since 1996, however, the number of cases of primary and secondary syphilis in women has increased threefold. 2 This resurgence has been associated with a number of localised outbreaks, which have affected women of childbearing age and has been linked to the birth of at least one infant with documented congeni...

BACKGROUND Transmission of infectious diseases is a recognized complication of blood transfusion and blood products. Nucleic acid testing (NAT) may contribute to improved efficiency of blood screening and thereby increase the safety margin for transfused blood. METHODS Unscreened blood samples from 1388 randomized donors were selected for this study at the Transfusion Medicine Unit of Hospita...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Diagnosis for Mycoplasma pneumoniae usually relies on serological tests. PCR technology has some advantages but also limitations. The optimal selection for these tests still needs discussion. This paper reviews the overall diagnostic accuracy of PCR versus serological assays for diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infections and to identify factors associated with heterogeneity o...

RATIONALE Fever of unknown origin (FUO) can be determined by different conditions among which infectious diseases represent the main cause. PATIENT CONCERNS A young woman, with a history of aortic stenosis, was admitted to our unit for a month of intermittent fever associated with a new diastolic heart murmur and splenomegaly. Laboratory tests were negative for infectious screening. The total...

Helicobacter pylori is the cause of type B gastritis and associated with peptic ulcer disease. Various methods are available for detecting H pylori, but all have limitations. H pylori infection can be diagnosed by tests requiring endoscopy (rapid urease test, histology, culture) and by non-invasive tests (carbon-13 urea breath test, serology, stool tests). The urea breath test is currently the ...

BACKGROUND Strongyloides stercoralis infection is a neglected tropical disease which can lead to severe symptoms and even death in immunosuppressed people. Unfortunately, its diagnosis is hampered by the lack of a gold standard, as the sensitivity of traditional parasitological tests (including microscopic examination of stool samples and coproculture) is low. Hence, alternative diagnostic meth...

Toxoplasma gondii causes severe fetal disease during acute infection in pregnant women, thus demanding early diagnosis for effective treatment and fetus preservation. Fetal tests are inefficient and risky, and diagnosis is based on maternal IgM serology, which had weak screening ability due to increased sensitivity, with alternative IgG avidity tests. Here, we performed ELISA and avidity assays...

OBJECTIVES To assess the performance of routine syphilis screening during 5 year follow up of Ethiopian factory workers, participating in a cohort study on HIV/AIDS. METHODS Syphilis serology test results of factory workers, who each donated at least six blood samples were evaluated. Screening in 1997-8 had been performed by the Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA) assay and in 19...