No evidence of pathogenicity of Dientamoeba fragilis following detection in stools: A case-control study.

Dientamoeba fragilis is a ubiquitous intestinal parasite with detection in the stools that has become increasingly frequent following the advent of PCR as a routine screening tool. However, the pathogenicity of this parasite is still much debated. In order to assess the potentially pathogenic nature of this protozoan, a retrospective case-control study was carried out between January and December 2020 on patients from Toulouse University Hospital, with the aim of evaluating the potential clinical effects and changes in laboratory parameters linked to the presence and load of D.

Automatic patient-level recognition of four species on thin blood smear by a real-time detection transformer (RT-DETR) object detection algorithm: a proof-of-concept and evaluation.

Malaria remains a global health problem, with 247 million cases and 619,000 deaths in 2021. Diagnosis of species is important for administering the appropriate treatment. The gold-standard diagnosis for accurate species identification remains the thin blood smear.

Evolution and spread of Plasmodium falciparum mutations associated with resistance to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in central Africa: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Efficacy of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, the malaria chemoprophylaxis used in pregnant women, and in children when combined with amodiaquine, is threatened by the accumulation of mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum dihydropteroate synthase (pfdhps) and dihydrofolate reductase (pfdhfr) genes. Data on the prevalence of resistant alleles in central Africa and the new pfdhps I431V mutation, particularly associated with other mutations to form the pfdhps vagKgs allele, are scarce. We explored the frequency and geographical distribution of pfdhps and pfdhfr mutations in central Africa in 2014-18, and assessed the evolutionary origin of the vagKgs allele.

Evaluation of the Performance of the Novodiag Stool Parasites Assay for the Detection of Intestinal Protozoa and Microsporidia.

Objectives: We aimed to assess the performance of the Novodiag Stool Parasites (NSP) assay in the diagnosis of the most common intestinal protozoan and microsporidia infections.

Methods: A panel of 167 selected stool samples was retrospectively analysed with the NSP assay and compared to routine microscopy and qPCR methods for the detection of pathogenic protozoa and microsporidia.

Results: Whereas specificity was high for all protozoa and microsporidia, NSP sensitivity was strongly dependent on the comparative method used as reference.

Effect of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine chemoprophylaxis in pregnant women on selection of the new P. falciparum dhps quintuple mutant carrying the I431V mutation.

Background: A new mutation in the Plasmodium falciparum dihydropteroate synthetase gene (pfdhps), I431V, has been identified in several countries of Central and West Africa. This mutation is mostly found in association with four other SNPs on pfdhps (S436A, A437G, A581G and A613S), forming a quintuple mutant (vagKgs) and almost always associated with the Plasmodium falciparum dihydrofolate reductase gene (pfdhfr) CirnI (C50R, N51I, S108N) triple mutant. To date, nothing is known about the impact of this new pfdhps genotype on sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) resistance.

Fatal mucormycosis and aspergillosis coinfection associated with haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis: A case report and literature review.

Invasive mould infections are life-threatening and mainly occur in immunocompromised patients. Whereas aspergillosis is described during haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), only a few cases of concomitant mucormycosis with HLH have been reported. Here, we present an uncommon coinfection of mucormycosis and aspergillosis associated with HLH probably due to a varicella zoster virus (VZV) viraemia which was unresponsive to triple antifungal therapy (liposomal amphotericin B combined with isavuconazole and caspofungin).

Diagnosis of Congenital Toxoplasmosis: Performance of Four IgG and IgM Automated Assays at Birth in a Tricentric Evaluation.

For postnatal diagnosis of congenital toxoplasmosis (CT), the gold standard for the detection of anti- IgM in newborns relies on the immunosorbent agglutination assay (ISAGA), which is manufactured from whole parasites that become difficult to maintain. For IgG, only the Platelia assay provides a validated assay for cord blood according to the manufacturer, allowing its use in this context. We compared the analytical performance of four commercialized automated assays, Platelia, Abbott, Vidas, and Liaison, for the detection of IgG and IgM in the cord blood or peripheral blood of newborns from women infected during pregnancy.

A Clustered Case Series of Mucorales Detection in Respiratory Samples from COVID-19 Patients in Intensive Care, France, August to September 2021.

While COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis is now well described in developed countries, COVID-19-associated mucormycosis (CAM) has seemed to remain quite rare in Europe. A retrospective study was performed between March 2020 to September 2021 among COVID-19 adult patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Toulouse Hospital (Southern France). PCR screening on respiratory samples, which target or Mucorales DNA, were performed, and the number of fungal detections was evaluated monthly during the study period.