Thirty acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients with mycobacterial bacteremia documented by Du Pont Isolator (Du Pont Co., Wilmington, Del.) blood cultures underwent microscopic examination of buffy coat blood smears. Of 30 patients, 14 were culture positive for Mycobacterium avium-Mycobacterium intracellulare complex and 1 was positive for M. tuberculosis. Of 15 culture-positive patients, 1...

Andisol has a large surface area, is mesoporous, and contains the active groups' silanol (Si-OH) aluminol (Al-OH). Besides andisol, cellulose good adsorbent, because microcrystalline an hydroxyl group (OH). The number of adsorbent groups can be enhanced by chemically modifying area (increment), or adding other materials. These modifications included alkaline modified-andisol with addition NaOH ...

A Cyto-Tek staining machine designed for Papanicolau staining of cervical smears has been adapted for auramine staining of smears of sputum and other clinical specimens for acid-fast bacilli. The results compared favourably with those obtained by a manual method of staining. Contamination of negative smears by acid-fast bacilli from positive smears was not found. Since this study the machine ha...

The principles and techniques involved in fluorescence microscopy as related to the demonstration of acid-fast bacilli are discussed. The auramine-rhodamine staining method, for both tissue and bacteriological preparations, is described as well as the necessary equipment for both microscopy and photomicroscopy. Fluorescence staining is no more difficult nor time consuming than a Ziehl-Neelsen s...

A locally isolated Acinetobacter sp. Strain AQ5NOL 1 was encapsulated in gellan gum and its ability to degrade phenol was compared with the free cells. Optimal phenol degradation was achieved at gellan gum concentration of 0.75% (w/v), bead size of 3 mm diameter (estimated surface area of 28.26 mm(2)) and bead number of 300 per 100 ml medium. At phenol concentration of 100 mg l(-1), both free a...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global health problem. According to the 2013 Global Report on Tuberculosis, 8.6 million people developed TB in 2012 and 1.3 million died from the disease. An estimated 13% of people who developed TB in 2012 were HIV-positive, and 75% of these lived in Africa. While pulmonary TB is the commonest form of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, extrapulmonary T...

Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is a common entity n children and also in adults with prediosposing factors such as AIDS, alcoholism, diabetes mellitus, malignancy and use of steroids. TBM often leads to considerable morbidity and mortality. We present here CSF culture positive cases of TBM reported between 2000 and 2004 from our institution. CSF specimens from patients suspected of TBM were proce...