US policy regarding health care worker-to-patient transmission of bloodborne pathogens, issued in 1991, is flawed. We review current evidence of such nosocomial infections and conclude that a standardized national policy is needed, which includes improved surveillance and follow-up of blood exposures to patients and targeted practice restrictions for infected practitioners performing exposure-p...

Brain is the most sophisticated and important organ of our body. Together with spinal cord it control all actions, functions voluntary or involuntary plays a vital role in managing various systems It has its own protective barriers that protects brain from pathogens toxins may cause harm. These are namely Blood-Brain barrier Blood-Cerebrospinal Fluid Barrier. The highly lipophilic nature these ...

Brought to Australia in 1935 to control agricultural pests (from French Guiana, via Martinique, Barbados, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Hawai'i), repeated stepwise translocations of small numbers of founders enabled the cane toad (Rhinella marina) to escape many parasites and pathogens from its native range. However, the infective organisms that survived the journey continue to affect the dynamics o...

Viable Invasive Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans and Porphyromonas gingivalis To the Editor: Because epidemiological evidence supports an association between cardiovascular and periodontal disease, we assessed whether periodontal pathogens were present in atherosclerotic lesions. To detect invasive bacteria, the natural tropism of the bacteria toward human tissues was exploited. Further, ba...

Filamentous growth is a foraging response that occurs in fungal species. It allows fungal pathogens to invade cells and tissues of a host organism. Budding yeast undergoes filamentous growth and can invade semisolid agar plates, penetrating the agar surface. These cells cannot be removed by rinsing with water and form an invasive scar. The plate-washing assay is an easy first test for filamento...

Yeasts and moulds now rank amongst the 10 most frequently isolated pathogens in febrile patients with an impaired immune system. Fungi are mainly opportunistic pathogens that only invade the body if a severely weakened natural defense permits them to do so. Most factors facilitating an invasive fungal infection are unavoidable because they are directly connected to the underlying diseases as we...

Although fungal infections contribute substantially to human morbidity and mortality, the impact of these diseases on human health is not widely appreciated. Moreover, despite the urgent need for efficient diagnostic tests and safe and effective new drugs and vaccines, research into the pathophysiology of human fungal infections lags behind that of diseases caused by other pathogens. In this Re...

The risk of dispersing invasive species, especially human pathogens, through acts of bioterrorism, cannot be neglected. However, that risk appears quite low in comparison with the risk of dispersing animal pathogens that could dramatically burden the agricultural economy of food animal producing countries, such as Australia and countries in Europe and North and South America. Although it is not...

The incidence of invasive fungal disease (IFD) has increased in parallel with the expansion of the population at risk for IFD to include patients with cancer, solid organ transplant (SOT) and haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients, those receiving immunosuppressive therapy, and patients with AIDS, major surgery, premature birth and advanced age. Additionally, the spectrum of path...