Congenital rubella syndrome, a case series.

Rubella, or German measles, is a vaccine-preventable disease. Rubella infection is usually mild; however, infection in pregnancy is associated with severe outcomes for the baby, including pregnancy loss or a combination of developmental defects called congenital rubella syndrome. Within the last ten-year period, two cases of congenital rubella syndrome in Saskatchewan were reported to the provincial ministry and the Public Health Agency of Canada of the newborns of mothers who had recently arrived from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Corticosteroids as adjunctive therapy in severe blastomycosis-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome in an immunosuppressed patient.

We describe the case of an immunosuppressed transplant recipient with disseminated blastomycosis (cutaneous, central nervous system, and pulmonary infection) complicated by septic shock and severe, refractory acute respiratory distress syndrome that improved markedly and rapidly after the addition of corticosteroids to the antifungal regimen.

Emergence of and risk factors for ciprofloxacin-gentamicin-resistant Escherichia coli urinary tract infections in a region of Quebec.

Background: An increased incidence of urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by ciprofloxacin-gentamicin-resistant Escherichia coli (CiGREC) has been observed in a tertiary care centre in Sherbrooke, Quebec. The risk factors for such infections remained unclear.

Methods: To determine risk factors for, and outcomes of, CiGREC UTIs, a case control study was conducted.

Hepatitis C virus infection in Guinea-Bissau: a sexually transmitted genotype 2 with parenteral amplification?

Background: Sub-Saharan Africa is the continent with the highest prevalence of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Genotype 2 HCV is thought to have originated from West Africa several hundred years ago. Mechanisms of transmission remain poorly understood.

Parenteral transmission during excision and treatment of tuberculosis and trypanosomiasis may be responsible for the HIV-2 epidemic in Guinea-Bissau.

Background And Objective: The factors that led to the simultaneous emergence, decades ago, of HIV-1 in central Africa and HIV-2 in West Africa remain unclear. The low HIV-2-associated mortality enables epidemiological assessment of risk factors potentially relevant in the early stages of the epidemic. In Guinea-Bissau, its epicentre, HIV-2 became highly prevalent (approximately 15%) in cohorts of individuals born before 1962, but is now disappearing whereas HIV-1 prevalence is increasing.