We analyzed data from the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) System from 1986-2003 to determine the epidemiology of gram-negative bacilli in intensive care units (ICUs) for the most frequent types of hospital-acquired infection: pneumonia, surgical site infection (SSI), urinary tract infection (UTI), and bloodstream infection (BSI). We analyzed >410,000 bacterial isolates associ...

The histological findings and their correlation with biochemical functions of the liver in 240 leprosy patients are presented. In 21% with tuberculoid leprosy and in 62% with lepromatous leprosy leprous granulomata were found in the liver. A significant prevalence of granulomatous lesions in the liver among patients with tuberculoid and borderlinetuberculoid leprosy of less than one year's dura...

BACKGROUND Treatment initiation rapidly kills most drug-susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but a bacterial subpopulation tolerates prolonged drug exposure. We evaluated drug-tolerant bacilli in human sputum by comparing messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of drug-tolerant bacilli that survive the early bactericidal phase with treatment-naive bacilli. METHODS M. tuberculosis gene expression w...

For some time after intravenous inoculation into rabbits the BCG multiplies in various organs of the body. As with more virulent tubercle bacilli, the greater the primary deposition of bacilli the more rapid is their initial growth and the earlier is the beginning of their destruction. Destruction sets in synchronously with the development of definite hypersensitivity to tuberculin. With the sm...

Mycobacterium leprae, the pathogen that causes human leprosy, has a unique affinity for infecting and persisting inside Schwann cells, principal glia of peripheral nervous system. Several studies have focused on this intricate host-pathogen interaction as an attempt to advance current knowledge mechanisms governing nerve destruction disease progression. However, during chronic course leprosy ne...

Bacilli were purified from the 23 cases of multi bacillary type of leprosy. The ATP content of these bacilli was assayed by a firefly bioluminescent technique which is capable of detecting a very small number of cultivable mycobacteria as assessed by colony counts. The A TP content was compared with morphological index (MI) and FDA-EB staining of bacilli from the same specimens. It was observed...

Female Aedes aegypti which took partial blood meals from the skin lesions of untreated lepromatous leprosy (LL) patients were then allowed to continue feeding on 72-96-hr-old Swiss albino suckling mice (Rockefeller strain). The bitten portion of skin was removed, divided into two parts and processed for the extraction of bacilli by two different methods using chloroform and petroleum ether. The...