Polyclonal Plasmodium falciparum malaria in travelers and selection of antifolate mutations after proguanil prophylaxis.

The polymorphism of malaria parasites will greatly influence the efficiency of antimalarial drugs and vaccines. This study determined the genetic diversity of Plasmodium falciparum infections in 107 travelers and estimated the importance of mutations in the parasite dihydrofolate reductase (dhfr) gene for clinical breakthrough during proguanil prophylaxis. Genotyping with regards to the three highly polymorphic antigen-coding regions (merozoite surface protein-1 [msp-1], msp-2, and the glutamate-rich protein [glurp]) revealed multiple genotypes (up to five) in 64% of the patients.

Evaluation of outpatients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis in a high HIV prevalence setting in Ethiopia: clinical, diagnostic and epidemiological characteristics.

In a setting with a high prevalence of HIV we studied (i) the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and HIV; (ii) clinical and epidemiological characteristics of PTB; and (iii) the usefulness of standard procedures for diagnosing PTB. Of 509 consecutive outpatients evaluated on clinical suspicion of PTB in Addis Ababa, 33.0% were culture-verified as having PTB.

Molecular epidemiology and drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Ethiopian pulmonary tuberculosis patients with and without human immunodeficiency virus infection.

We have analyzed the molecular epidemiology and drug resistance of 121 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from consecutive patients with culture-positive pulmonary tuberculosis attending a university hospital outpatient department in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis and spoligotyping were used to analyze the DNA fingerprinting patterns. Fifty-one (41.