Ankylosing Spondylitis and related spondyloarthropathies form a family of rheumatic diseases that are characterized by inflammatory peripheral and axial arthritis, with predilection for sacroiliitis, and a remarkably strong association with a genetic marker, HLA-B27. The association with B27 has provided a great impetus to the epidemio-logic studies of spondyloarthropathies and also helped broa...

An inevitable side effect of the use of antibiotics is the emergence and dissemination of resistant bacteria. Most retrospective and prospective studies show that after the introduction of an antibiotic not only the level of resistance of pathogenic bacteria, but also of commensal bacteria increases. Commensal bacteria constitute a reservior of resistance genes for (potentially) pathogenic bact...

Sir, Shigellosis is a major problem in developing countries and is associated with high incidences of morbidity and mortality. In Pakistan, Shigella spp., particularly Shigella flexneri, are frequently isolated from patients with diarrhoeal illnesses. Effective antibiotic therapy of infections caused by these pathogens is often compromised by resistance to commonly used agents. However, there a...

The relationships observed among several serotypes of Enterobacteriaceae make it desirable to discuss the following in one paper: 1. ShigeUa dysentriae 2 (ShigeUa ambigua). 2. Escherichia coli 0 group 112 a,c of Ewing and Kauffmann (1950) (Shigella guanabara of de Assis, 1948). 3. Escherichia coli, strain 6182-50 (representative of a new E. coli 0 group, 113). 4. Escherichia coli 0 group 112 a,...

OBJECTIVES Shigellosis is an important cause of bloody diarrhoea in all age groups, especially in children. A retrospective study was done to analyse the pattern of shigella isolates and the antimicrobial susceptibility trend of these shigella isolated at different hospitals of Nepal from Jan, 2003- Dec, 2005. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 118 Shigella species isolated at nine different ho...

S ince the 1950s, rotavirus has been recognized in veterinary circles as an important cause of diarrhoea in young livestock and poultry. In the 1970s, the virus was found to be a cause of infantile diarrhoea in humans [1], and after this discovery rotavirus rapidly became established as the most prevalent cause of paediatric diarrhoea [2]. Rotavirus preferentially infects the mature villous ent...

In 1942 a report was made on the studies of a group of citrate-positive organisms, isolated from fecal specimens in the course of examinations for enteric pathogens, that could not be classified biochemically or serologically in any of the established groups (Cope and Kilander, 1942). They were gram-negative anaerogenic bacilli, resembling shigellae in most of their biochemical reactions. Lacto...

McCONNEL, E. E., BASSON, P. A., DE VOS, V., MYERS, BETTY J. & KUNTZ, R. E., 1974. A survey of diseases among 100 free-ranging chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) from the Kruger National Park. Onderstepoort J. Vet. Res., 41 (3), 97-168 (1974). The pathological and parasitological findings from 100 free-ranging chacma baboons are described. One of the most striking discoveries was a heretofore unknow...

Infection with Shigella sonnei is the most common identifiable cause of diarrhoea in this country at present, and the absence of a satisfactory method of typing the organism has greatly hampered the study of its mode of spread. Bojlen (1934), studying the biochemical reactions of 1,786 Sonne cultures, isolated from 741 patients in Denmark, described four biochemical types based upon the ferment...

A recent article by Lindsay and others reported that stool quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), with a 14,000 copy number cutoff, identified more cases of Shigella infection than conventional and widely used culture methods. The authors suggested that there may be a significant underestimation of the contribution of Shigella to diarrheal disease because of the limits of culture and ha...