Molecular testing for viral and bacterial enteric pathogens: gold standard for viruses, but don't let culture go just yet?

Contemporary diagnostic microbiology is increasingly adopting molecular methods as front line tests for a variety of samples. This trend holds true for detection of enteric pathogens (EP), where nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) for viruses are well established as the gold standard, and an increasing number of commercial multi-target assays are now available for bacteria and parasites. NAAT have significant sensitivity and turnaround time advantages over traditional methods, potentially returning same-day results.

Progression from new methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonisation to infection: an observational study in a hospital cohort.

Background: Patients newly colonised with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are at higher risk of clinical MRSA infection. At present, there are limited data on the duration or magnitude of this risk in a hospital population with a known time of MRSA acquisition.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of 909 adult patients known to have newly identified MRSA colonisation during admission to National University Hospital, Singapore between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2011 was undertaken.

OXA-181-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae establishing in Singapore.

Background: Carbapenemase producing Enterobacteriaceae are becoming a major public health concern globally, however, relatively little is known about the molecular and clinical epidemiology of these organisms in many parts of the world.

Methods: As part of a laboratory surveillance programme, 96 carbapenem non-susceptible Enterobacteriaceae isolates from clinical samples from patients in seven hospitals were referred for investigation for carbapenemases. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to screen for a collection of genes encoding carbapenemases, 33 of 96 (34.

A diagnostic polymerase chain reaction assay for Zika virus.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus. Infection results in a dengue-like illness with fever, headache, malaise, and a maculopapular rash. Nearly all cases are mild and self-limiting but in 2007, a large outbreak of ZIKV was reported from the island of Yap (in Micronesia, northwest of Indonesia).

Molecular characterization of newly emerged blaKPC-2-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae in Singapore.

In Asia, bla(KPC) detection has been limited to East Asia and not yet seen in Southeast Asia. We report four bla(KPC-2)-containing Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from two different hospitals in Singapore. All isolates belonged to strain type 11 (ST11) and were indistinguishable by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE).