An Emerging Nosocomial Uropathogen in an Indwelling Urinary Catheterised Patient.

is an ubiquitous organism but is seldom associated with human disease. We report the isolation of from the urine sample of a 39-year-old male patient on prolonged Foley's catheterisation following a severe head injury. Identification of this organism was done by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF) based systems.

Discovery of Novel Leptospirosis Vaccine Candidates Using Reverse and Structural Vaccinology.

spp. are diderm (two membranes) bacteria that infect mammals causing leptospirosis, a public health problem with global implications. Thousands of people die every year due to leptospirosis, especially in developing countries with tropical climates.

A Universal Vaccine against Leptospirosis: Are We Going in the Right Direction?

Leptospirosis is the most widespread zoonosis in the world and a neglected tropical disease estimated to cause severe infection in more than one million people worldwide every year that can be combated by effective immunization. However, no significant progress has been made on the leptospirosis vaccine since the advent of bacterins over 100 years. Although protective against lethal infection, particularly in animals, bacterin-induced immunity is considered short term, serovar restricted, and the vaccine can cause serious side effects.

LigB subunit vaccine confers sterile immunity against challenge in the hamster model of leptospirosis.

Neglected tropical diseases, including zoonoses such as leptospirosis, have a major impact on rural and poor urban communities, particularly in developing countries. This has led to major investment in antipoverty vaccines that focus on diseases that influence public health and thereby productivity. While the true, global, impact of leptospirosis is unknown due to the lack of adequate laboratory diagnosis, the WHO estimates that incidence has doubled over the last 15 years to over 1 million cases that require hospitalization every year.