Antibiotic resistance profiles of Campylobacter species in the South Africa private health care sector.

Introduction: There is a dearth of surveillance data on clinical Campylobacter in South Africa, particularly in the private healthcare environment. We investigated the prevalence of resistance to first-line antibiotics used to treat campylobacterioses in clinical Campylobacter isolates from a private pathology laboratory.

Methodology: Identification of the Campylobacter specific genes were confirmed by PCR.

First detection of human dirofilariasis in South Africa.

Humans are occasionally inadvertently infected with dirofilariae, the zoonotic nematodes. We report two cases of human dirofilariasis in South Africa, an area apparently non-endemic for this infection. Dirofilariasis is frequently misdiagnosed, so increased awareness of this entity in areas that are non-endemic is essential for prevention of inappropriate investigations and invasive therapy.

NDM-1-producing Enterobacteriaceae from South Africa: moving towards endemicity?

We describe 4 patients infected with NDM-1 Enterobacter cloacae, Citrobacter freundii, and Serratia marcescens from South Africa that co-produced SHV-12, CTX-M-3, and CTX-M-15 and were positive for qnrS, qnrA, aac(6')-Ib-cr, rmtF, rmtC, and armA. Plasmids belonged to IncN, IncA/C replicon types with ccdAB and vagC/D addiction factors. Local and imported cases of NDM-producing bacteria co-exist within South Africa.

Cerebrospinal T-cell responses aid in the diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis in a human immunodeficiency virus- and tuberculosis-endemic population.

Rationale: Current tools for the rapid diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM) are suboptimal. We evaluated the clinical utility of a quantitative RD-1 IFN-gamma T-cell enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay (T-SPOT.TB), using cerebrospinal fluid cells for the rapid immunodiagnosis of TBM.