Maternal colonization with group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a risk factor for neonatal GBS disease. Whereas serotypes Ia, Ib, II, III, and V are prevalent in the United States, types VI and VIII predominate in Japan. Recently, a serotype VIII strain was detected among 114 clinical GBS isolates from a Boston, Mass., hospital.

pancreatic stent proximal migration is a well known complication of pancreatic duct stenting, which occurs in about 5-6% of cases. serious complications should be avoided by retrieval of the stent via different endoscopic techniques. we report a new technique previously reported only once (in a pancreatic duct with underlying pathology), to remove the proximally migrated pancreatic stent in a n...

a survey was carried out in five provinces of iran (kerman, sistan and baluchestan, hormozgan, khorasan and yazd) for the presence of alfalfa mosaic virus (amv) sero-types in alfalfa during 2002 to 2003. the number of samples collected was 250, represent-ing the diversity and geographical distribution of amv in these areas. diagnosis was car-ried out using polyclonal (pabs) and monoclonal (mabs...

conclusions the b3, b5, b7, b8 and b9 subgenotypes can be clustered into quasi-sub-genotype b3 and the open reading frame of hbv has a start codon preference; however, whether a mutation in the start codon in the pre-s2 region has an impact on survival and replication of hbv remains to be determined. background the number of cases of hbv infection reported by the who for each district and count...

background leptospirosis is a widespread zoonosis in the world with more prevalence in tropical and subtropical regions. the disease is very common in flat area of gilan, northern iran, where the climate is humid and temperate and rice farming is main agricultural activity in rural areas. patients and methods we performed this study in 2004 by taking blood samples from 465 hospitalized patients...

Avian infectious bronchitis (IB), caused by a gammacoronavirus, is an OIE-listed (List B) disease and characterized by respiratory and renal involvements, causing high mortality, and economic loss in both layers and broilers. In comparison with other diagnostic methods, real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and conventional RT-PCR are potent, more sensitive and faster techniques for infe...

Infectious bronchitis (IB) is an acute, highly contagious and economically important disease of chickens. In India, IB vaccinations are carried out using vaccines belonging only to the Massachusetts 41 (Ma41) serotype. However, the vaccine strain used may not always be protective and it becomes necessary to continuously monitor the viruses causing disease. There has been anecdotal evidence of I...

BACKGROUND In response to the selective pressure of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, increased asymptomatic carriage of antibiotic-nonsusceptible nonvaccine serotypes (NVTs) has been observed. Possible mechanisms include de novo acquisition of resistance, serotype switching, introduction of new clones, and expansion of existing clones. METHODS To investigate the process of increased antibiotic...