Investigation of a Large Diphtheria Outbreak and Cocirculation of Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum Among Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals, 2017-2019.

Background: Diphtheria, a life-threatening respiratory disease, is caused mainly by toxin-producing strains of Corynebacterium diphtheriae, while nontoxigenic corynebacteria (eg, Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum) rarely causes diphtheria-like illness. Recently, global diphtheria outbreaks have resulted from breakdown of health care infrastructures, particularly in countries experiencing political conflict. This report summarizes a laboratory and epidemiological investigation of a diphtheria outbreak among forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in Bangladesh.

Detection and Characterization of Diphtheria Toxin Gene-Bearing Species through a New Real-Time PCR Assay.

Respiratory diphtheria, characterized by a firmly adherent pseudomembrane, is caused by toxin-producing strains of , with similar illness produced occasionally by toxigenic or, rarely, While diphtheria laboratory confirmation requires culture methods to determine toxigenicity, real-time PCR (RT-PCR) provides a faster method to detect the toxin gene (). Nontoxigenic -bearing (NTTB) isolates have been described, but impact of these isolates on the accuracy of molecular diagnostics is not well characterized. Here, we describe a new triplex RT-PCR assay to detect and distinguish from the closely related species and Analytical sensitivity and specificity of the assay were assessed in comparison to culture using 690 previously characterized microbial isolates.

Identification of 4-Amino-Thieno[2,3-]Pyrimidines as QcrB Inhibitors in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Antibiotic resistance is a global crisis that threatens our ability to treat bacterial infections, such as tuberculosis, caused by Of the 10 million cases of tuberculosis in 2017, approximately 19% of new cases and 43% of previously treated cases were caused by strains of resistant to at least one frontline antibiotic. There is a clear need for new therapies that target these genetically resistant strains. Here, we report the discovery of a new series of antimycobacterial compounds, 4-amino-thieno[2,3-]pyrimidines, that potently inhibit the growth of To elucidate the mechanism by which these compounds inhibit , we selected for mutants resistant to a representative 4-amino-thieno[2,3-]pyrimidine and sequenced these strains to identify the mutations that confer resistance.