Comparative activity of telavancin and other antimicrobial agents against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates collected from 1991 to 2006.

Background: Increasingly frequent reports of vancomycin treatment failures for serious methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections provide impetus for comparative in vitro studies to assess the activity of newer antimicrobial agents against a range of MRSA isolates.

Methods: A sample of 168 MRSA derived from a long-term MRSA collection was subjected to susceptibility testing to telavancin, daptomycin, linezolid, tigecycline and vancomycin by broth micro-dilution. Data were reviewed for sporadic occurrence of isolates with reduced susceptibility.

Colonization of healthy children by Moraxella catarrhalis is characterized by genotype heterogeneity, virulence gene diversity and co-colonization with Haemophilus influenzae.

The colonization dynamics of Moraxella catarrhalis were studied in a population comprising 1079 healthy children living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (the Generation R Focus cohort). A total of 2751 nasal swabs were obtained during four clinic visits timed to take place at 1.5, 6, 14 and 24 months of age, yielding a total of 709 M.

bro {beta}-lactamase and antibiotic resistances in a global cross-sectional study of Moraxella catarrhalis from children and adults.

Objectives: To compare and contrast the geographic and demographic distribution of bro beta-lactamase and antibiotic MIC(50/90) for 1440 global Moraxella catarrhalis isolates obtained from children and adults between 2001 and 2002.

Methods: One thousand four hundred and forty M. catarrhalis isolates originating from seven world regions were investigated.

Modeling the spread of infectious disease using genetic information within a marked branching process.

Accurate assessment of disease dynamics requires a quantification of many unknown parameters governing disease transmission processes. While infection control strategies within hospital settings are stringent, some disease will be propagated due to human interactions (patient-to-patient or patient-to-caregiver-to-patient). In order to understand infectious transmission rates within the hospital, it is necessary to isolate the amount of disease that is endemic to the outside environment.

Blastomycosis in the mountainous region of northeast Tennessee.

Background: In the United States, cases of human blastomycosis are largely described in defined geographic areas, with Mississippi reporting the highest prevalence of disease in the southeast region. The infection is uncommonly recognized in mountainous areas, and our previous report of blastomycosis in the southern Appalachian mountains of northeast Tennessee appeared to be an exception to the usual disease distribution.

Methods: Our current retrospective study was undertaken to determine whether blastomycosis has persisted as an endemic fungal infection in our northeast Tennessee geographic area and whether epidemiologic features have changed over a 25-year time period.

A decline in mupirocin resistance in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus accompanied administrative control of prescriptions.

Susceptibility to mupirocin was assessed in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates selected from eras corresponding to differences in usage rate and prescription policies at a Veterans Affairs medical center. The eras studied encompassed from the time of introduction of the drug to its widespread use, through recommended judicious use, and finally to subsequent stringent administrative control. Prescriptions declined from 3.

Responses to soils and a test for preadaptation to serpentine in Phacelia dubia (Hydrophyllaceae).

•  Tests for adaptation to three different soils inhabited by subspecific taxa within Phacelia dubia and for preadaptation to a serpentine soil were conducted to examine the plausibility of an endemic-to-endemic evolutionary pathway. Each taxon performed optimally on its home soil, demonstrating edaphic specialization. None survived on the serpentine.