The number of cases of meningococcal disease reported to the Meningitis Reference Laboratory in Athens rose dramatically in 1996-1997. The aims were (1) to determine if the increase was due to introduction of new strains, (2) to assess the geographic and age distribution of the cases, (3) to compare antibiotic sensitivity patterns of the current isolates with strains from the early 1990s. In 19...

The incidence of serogroup Y meningococcal disease has increased recently in the United States. Here, we describe the development of a 5' exonuclease assay for the detection of serogroup Y Neisseria meningitidis and demonstrate the usefulness of this assay for resolving serogroup identification of strains that are resistant to conventional serogrouping and for the nonculture identification of s...

Non-culture diagnosis and serogroup determination of meningococcal infection is important in contact management where vaccination may be possible. A serogroup B and C PCR ELISA assay for the non-culture diagnosis and serogroup determination has proved invaluable for enhanced epidemiological surveillance and contact management. A polymerase chain reaction assay, based on a restriction fragment l...

of carriage may refl ect a nationwide change (8). Furthermore, testing within the fi rst week of term meant that recovered strains were predominately brought into the university. Serogroup Y carriage rates for incoming students (2.9%) were signifi cantly higher than rates detected by identical genotyping methods during 1999–2001 (1.7%– 1.8% [4]; χ2 = 4.6%–6.4%, 1 df; p<0.05), suggesting that me...

Over a period of 3 years, Legionella pneumophila serogroup 6 strains were isolated from warm water outlets and dental units in the Dental Faculty and from the Surgery and Internal Medicine Clinics at the University of Dresden, Dresden, Germany. In the bacteriological unit of the above-mentioned facility, L. pneumophila serogroups 3 and 12 were grown from warm water specimens. The medical facili...

BACKGROUND Pneumococcal disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in young children in Nepal, and currently available pneumococcal conjugate vaccines offer moderate coverage of invasive disease isolates. METHODS A prevalence study of children aged 1.5 to 24 months in urban and rural Nepal was conducted. In the urban group, nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) were transported using sili...

CONTEXT In 1994, surveillance by the Chicago Department of Public Health detected a growing trend in the proportion of invasive meningococcal infections caused by serogroup Y. OBJECTIVE To examine the emergence of serogroup Y meningococcal disease and compare its clinical characteristics with those of other meningococcal serogroups. DESIGN Population-based retrospective review of surveillan...

BACKGROUND Because of a limited number of reports, we aimed to investigate the clinical characteristics of patients with Legionella pneumonia due to non-Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 and the diagnostic usefulness of the six-point scoring system for such patients compared with patients with pneumonia caused by L. pneumophila serogroup 1. METHODS We retrospectively analysed patients diagno...

Immunofluorescence was used as an aid in the antigenic grouping of 14 cultivable treponemes. Antisera were prepared versus each treponemal strain, and the antiglobulins were conjugated with fluorescein isothiocyanate. A common antigen-antibody system, detected in the strains studied, was removed by absorption of each conjugate with Reiter or Borrelia vincentii treponemes. Thus, five categories ...