BACKGROUND AFRIMS longitudinal dengue surveillance in Thailand depends on the nested RT-PCR and the dengue IgM/IgG ELISA. OBJECTIVE To examine and improve the sensitivity of the nested RT-PCR using a panel of archived samples collected during dengue surveillance. STUDY DESIGN A retrospective analysis of 16,454 dengue IgM/IgG ELISA positive cases collected between 2000 and 2013 was done to i...

BACKGROUND It is clinically important to detect and type human papillomavirus (HPV) in a sensitive and specific manner. OBJECTIVES Development of a nested-polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (nested-PCR-RFLP) assay to detect and type HPV based on the analysis of L1 gene. METHODS Analysis of published DNA sequence of mucosal HPV types to select sequences of new...

Covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) is a unique episomal replicative intermediate molecule of hepatitis B virus (HBV) which plays a key role in viral persistence. The aim of this study was to prove cccDNA persistence in the liver tissue of patients negative for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and positive for antibody to hepatitis core antigen (anti-HBc). Intrahepatic HBV DNA and cccDNA...

The agents of cryptococcosis C. neoformans and C. gattii are important agents of meningoencephalitis in immunocompromised and immunocompetent hosts, respectively. They are grouped into eight major molecular types, VNI-VNIV for C. neoformans and VGI-VGIV for C. gattii. These major molecular types differ in their host range, epidemiology, antifungal susceptibility and geographic distribution. To ...

Leptospirosis is a worldwide sanitary problem. Its clinical signs resemble that of other diseases like Dengue and Flu, and it is difficult to distinguish between them. Currently available diagnostic methods shown low sensitivity and specificity. Efforts have been made to develop simpler, faster and more efficient diagnostic methods. The aim of this work was to evaluate and optimize a Nested-PCR...