Haemophilus influenzae, a major cause of meningitis in young children leading to death and other neurological sequelae. The disease leaves 15 to 35% of the survivors with permanent disabilities, such as, mental retardation or deafness. Despite the availability of new and more powerful antibiotics children with Hib meningitis still suffer from high mortality or morbidity. The emergence of multir...

Biotyping of Haemophilus influenzae into five type and H. parainfluenzae into three types based on indole production, ornithine decarboxylase, and urease has been reported (M. Kilian, Acta Pathol. Microbiol. Scand. Sect. B 82:835--842, 1976). A commercially available test system designed for the 4-h identification of Enterobacteriaceae. Micro-ID, proved efficacious for the rapid biotyping of th...

The antibody response to Haemophilus influenzae type b antigens as capsular polysaccharide, lipopolysaccharide, and outer membrane components was studied by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 10 adults infected with this bacterium. Almost all patients had detectable amounts of immunoglobulins G and M antibodies specific to capsular polysaccharide, lipopolysaccharide, or outer membrane in thei...

Twenty clinical isolates of Haemophilus influenzae type b were used to determine the in vitro interactions of rifampin with ampicillin or chloramphenicol. Potential interactions of the drugs were evaluated by calculating the fractional inhibitory concentration index and fractional bactericidal concentration index for each strain after treatments with the drugs alone and in combination. There wa...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Haemophilus influenzae is an important cause of mortality and morbidity among young children in developing countries. Increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance especially production of extended spectrum beta lactamase (ESBL) has made treatment and management of H. influenzae infection more difficult. Nasopharyngeal H. influenzae isolates are excellent surrogate for d...

The age-related acquisition of serum anticapsular and bactericidal antibodies to Haemophilus influenzae type b observed in rats was similar to that of humans. The antigenic source for this "natural" immunity was not identified, since neither pharyngeal infection with H. influenzae b nor enteric colonization by cross-reacting bacteria was detected. Infant rats surviving H. influenzae b bacteremi...

Before the introduction of effective vaccines, H. influenzae, type b (Hib) was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis and other invasive bacterial disease among children less than 5 years of age. In 1997, ten confirmed cases of invasive disease caused by the serotype b strain of H. influenzae were reported. This is the first year that the number of cases increased since the conjugate vaccine...