In the present study, we analysed: 1) prevalence of TB infection and incidence of disease among family contacts of a cohort of patients with TB; 2) differential characteristics of families with microepidemics and families with < or = 1 new case of TB; and 3) efficacy of chemoprophylaxis in this group of contacts. Three thousand and seventy one family contacts of 635 patients with TB were studie...

The literature on the prophylactic use in surgery of disinfectants, antibiotics and the chemotherapeutic agents is reviewed. It is concluded that there is little place for the routine use of antibiotics or chemotherapeutic agents except in a very few conditions. Disinfectants do have a part to play in skin sterilization and in the reduction of postoperative wound infection. However, none of the...

A clinical investigation was undertaken to determine if chemoprophylaxis in the form of a contraceptive pessary would reduce the rate of reinfection with gonorrhoea in 1245 female patients attending a venereal disease clinic. After the introduction of the pessary the reinfection rate over a 16-week period was 19% compared with 40% in the control clinic patients. It was also found that women cou...

DEAR EDITOR, I read the recent publication on children contacting with smear positive tuberculosis patients with great interest. Aminzadeh et al. concluded that the ‘Strategy of six months of supervised isonicotinylhydrazine (INH) chemoprophylaxis is successful, particularly in children who are at high risk to progress to the disease, following exposure. I agree with the usefulness and effectiv...

The lack of serum haptoglobin in Africans has been investigated in the Congo, Central Africa, where HpO prevalence is about 30%. This study shows that it is possible to suppress ahaptoglobinaemia within a few weeks by antimalarial chemoprophylaxis, that it does not occur in protected individuals, that ahaptoglobinaemia reappears at its original incidence levels after interruption of chemoprophy...

We evaluated the frequency of seroconversion for toxoplasmosis in seronegative recipients of thoracic solid organ transplants with seronegative or seropositive donors and the efficacy of chemoprophylaxis with pyrimethamine+sulfametopirazine. One hundred and sixty one patients seronegative for toxoplasmosis were followed-up at different intervals. Six patients out of 79 R-/D- and twelve out of 8...

The introduction of chemoprophylaxis with rifampicin and isoniazid in 1981 significantly reduced the incidence of tuberculosis. Between 1978 and 1981 children accounted for 136 of 642 notified cases, and this was reduced to 55 of 418 between 1982 and 1986. This effect was most obvious among children from the Indian subcontinent who comprised 80.2% of the children treated. The incidence among wh...