International Journal of Infection
Volume:7 Issue: 3, Jul 2020

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected the whole world. However, it is not clear whether the disease affects all countries equally. This paper analyzes the severity of COVID-19 in tropical and temperate countries by comparing the data of infections and deaths registered four months after the onset of the disease. Data were segregated, summarized, visualized, and interpreted. The severity of the disease was quantified in each country and recommendations were made for both categories of countries. The research found that the severity of the disease in terms of infection or death was six times more in countries located in the temperate region.

Escherichia coli (E. coli) is one of the most common causative agents of bacterial infections. The emergence of multidrug-resistant E. coli is a major public health threat worldwide.

This study aimed to determine the antibiotic susceptibility profile of clinical isolates of E. coli from different samples.

A total number of 454 clinical samples, including urine, wound, cervical swab, blood, semen, ascetic, and cerebral spinal fluid samples were collected from patients between January 2017 and February 2020. Then, E. coli was confirmed and susceptibility to different antibiotics was determined using the Vitek-2 compact system.

Escherichia coli isolates were more frequent in females (70.7%) than in males (29.3%). In the case of urine samples, E. coli was found to be highly susceptible to ertapenem (97.6%) and imipenem (96.4%) but resistant to ampicillin (87.8%). For wound and cervical swabs, E. coli was 100% resistant to ampicillin and cefepime but 100% sensitive to ertapenem and imipenem. It was found that E. coli isolates from blood samples were 100% resistant to ampicillin, ceftriaxone, and cefoxitin, and around 75% of them were sensitive to ertapenem, ciprofloxacin, and levofloxacin. Finally, E. coli isolated from other clinical samples were highly sensitive to ertapenem, imipenem, levofloxacin, nitrofurantoin, and cefazolin.

Escherichia coli isolated from various clinical specimens showed differences in antibiotic sensitivity patterns, with high resistance to commonly used antibiotics. The most effective antibiotics against E. coli isolates were ertapenem, imipenem, and nitrofurantoin. However, the clinical isolates of E. coli displayed high resistance rates to ampicillin, ceftriaxone, and cefepime. Therefore, it is proposed to perform antibiotic sensitivity testing by physicians to select the most effective antibiotics.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a serious infection in an intensive care unit (ICU). Ventilator-associated MRSA pneumonia (VAMP) in critically ill patients causes a high rate of mortality.

This study mainly aimed to compare the clinical outcomes and associated drug safety perspective of linezolid and teicoplanin in VAMP treatment.

This retrospective study included 98 adult ICU patients with VAMP, where 42 patients (LZD group) and 56 patients (TPN group) received a standard dose of linezolid and teicoplanin, respectively, for their VAMP treatment. Adverse reactions associated with linezolid and teicoplanin were considered. Clinical outcomes and 30-day mortality rates were compared in both groups.

The LZD group showed a higher MRSA eradication rate (97%, n = 34) than the TPN group (94.3%, n = 53) (P = 0.034). The linezolid and teicoplanin therapy was suddenly discontinued in 19% and 5.3% of the patients in the LZD and TPN groups, respectively, before completing the full duration of antibiotic therapy due to developed adverse drug reactions (ADRs), including thrombocytopenia (LZD/TPN groups: 7/1 event), tachycardia (LZD group: 1 event), and nephrotoxicity (TPN group: 2 events). This discontinuation increased the total duration of antibiotic therapy in 19% (n = 42) and 5.3% (n = 56) of the patients (P = 0.034) in the LZD and TPN groups, respectively.

VAMP is a life-threatening event in critically ill ICU patients worldwide. In this study, teicoplanin showed better clinical outcomes with a certain higher level of drug safety compared to linezolid in the treatment of ventilator-associated MRSA pneumonia.

Human bocavirus (HBoV) belongs to the Parvoviridae family, which has been revealed to be associated with respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in children. There are many reports worldwide on respiratory infection or gastroenteritis caused by this virus.

In a twin case (a girl and a boy), we demonstrated that HBoV infection in combination with Streptococcus pneumonia as co-infection caused the death of a 14-month-old girl with a history of high fever and wheezing. A week later, her brother presented with almost the same symptoms, but only HBoV was found in a nasopharyngeal aspirate sample.

This case suggests that lower respiratory tract infections due to HBoV may cause severe and life-threatening diseases, resulting in death in combination with a bacterial infection, such as S. pneumonia. The study suggests replacing multiplex PCR as a fast and meticulous method instead of conventional and time-consuming microbiological methods for determining the causative organism for respiratory infections.

Context:

 COVID-19 is a serious threat to the world as a whole, and pregnant women are at increased risk of the infection.

 In the present study, we have reviewed the outcomes of neonates of pregnant women with COVID-19.

Data Sources:

 We searched Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus databases from December 2019 to April 2020. The search was conducted using the following keywords: COVID-19, newborn, neonatal mortality, neonatal morbidity, pregnant women, pregnancy outcome, or combinations of these keywords. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were all English language articles about COVID-19 in pregnant women and outcomes of pregnancy. Review articles were excluded because of reporting repetitive articles.

Study Selection: 

Two researchers independently screened the titles of all recorded citations, removed duplicate records, and distinguished potentially relevant studies for inclusion. Then, abstracts of selected citations were independently reviewed by two researchers for further relevance, with full-text manuscripts retrieved as appropriate. In disagreement cases, a third consultant was asked to act as an intervener.

 In total, 6 articles had inclusion criteria. Newborns were examined by laboratory methods, including; the pharyngeal swab specimens, throat swab specimen, amniotic fluid, cord blood, breast milk. The neonatal complications such as a slight increase in the myocardial enzyme, fever, tachycardia, thrombocytopenia, vomiting and pneumothorax, shortness of breath, mild pulmonary infection, transient tachypnea and the skin rashes higher concentrations of IgG and IgM are reported. The shortness of breath was the most frequent clinical first symptom among neonates.

 There are strong ambiguities concerning the vertical transmission from mother to fetus. Extensive research is needed to resolve ambiguities about the virus and its impact on pregnancy outcomes.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne infection, is caused by protozoan parasites invading the red blood cells of both humans and animals. Iran is an endemic site for malaria with 1 - 10 cases per one million dwellers, in which 90% of cases occur in southern parts of Iran.

to detect space-time clusters of Malaria in Fars province-Iran during 1/1/2011 and 31/12/2015.

357 malaria cases were recorded from 19 cities of Fars province. Permutation scan modeling was applied retrospectively to detect the outbreaks of malaria during 1/1/2011 and 31/12/2015. SPSS V. 22, ITSM V. 2002, ArcGIS10, and SaTScan9.4.4 software tools were used. The significance level was considered 0.05.

Based on the results of the current study, 5 space-time clusters were discovered for malaria, indicating that malaria followed a time-space trend in the area (P value < 0.05). The Most Likely Cluster (MLC) contained almost 50% (6/12) of all cases during 1/7/2015 and 31/7/2015 in Firoozabad (P < 0.05); however, non-statistically significant clusters were detected which had clinically important information on the canons of the outbreaks.

Malaria did not occur uniformly in Fars province during 1/1/2011 and 31/12/2015. Detected space-time clusters could help Public health managers and policymakers dedicating clinical staff and facilities to more needy areas and consequently reduce the rate of disease in the area.