HIV-Associated Mycobacterium tuberculosis Bloodstream Infection Is Underdiagnosed by Single Blood Culture.

We assessed the additional diagnostic yield for bloodstream infection (BSI) by doing more than one tuberculosis (TB) blood culture from HIV-infected inpatients. In a retrospective analysis of two cohorts based in Cape Town, South Africa, 72/99 (73%) patients with BSI were identified by the first of two blood cultures during the same admission, with 27/99 (27%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 18 to 36%) testing negative on the first culture but positive on the second. In a prospective evaluation of up to 6 blood cultures over 24 h, 9 of 14 (65%) patients with BSI had grow on their first blood culture; 3 more patients (21%) were identified by a second independent blood culture at the same time point, and the remaining 2 were diagnosed only on the 4th and 6th blood cultures.

Assessment of treatment response by colony forming units, time to culture positivity and the molecular bacterial load assay compared in a mouse tuberculosis model.

The aim of the study is to compare counting of colony forming units (CFU), the time to positivity (TTP) assay and the molecular bacterial load (MBL) assay, and explore whether the last assays can detect a subpopulation which is unable to grown on solid media. CFU counting, TTP and the MBL assay were used to determine the mycobacterial load in matched lung samples of a murine tuberculosis model. Mice were treated for 24 weeks with 4 treatment arms: isoniazid (H) - rifampicin (R) - pyrazinamide (Z), HRZ-Streptomycin (S), HRZ - ethambutol (E) or ZES.

An integrated model of care for neurological infections: the first six years of referrals to a specialist service at a university teaching hospital in Northwest England.

Background: A specialist neurological infectious disease service has been run jointly by the departments of infectious disease and neurology at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital since 2005. We sought to describe the referral case mix and outcomes of the first six years of referrals to the service.

Methods: Retrospective service review.

HspX knock-out in Mycobacterium tuberculosis leads to shorter antibiotic treatment and lower relapse rate in a mouse model--a potential novel therapeutic target.

Effective global tuberculosis control is hindered by the need for prolonged chemotherapy which leads to poor patient compliance. Therefore novel drug targets that shorten the duration of chemotherapy and reduce disease relapse rates are highly desirable. We have previously shown that HspX, an alpha-crystallin-like protein, is associated with growth suppression of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in mouse models.