Paving the way for quality assured, decentralised point-of-care testing for infectious disease in primary care - Real world lessons from remote Australia.

Introduction: Decentralized molecular testing for infectious disease diagnosis at the point-of-care (POC) is critical to address inequities in access to timely, informed health care. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the demand, development and adoption of POC tests for infectious diseases globally. This has provided opportunities to maximize the individual benefits and public health impact of POC testing, particularly in remote and resource-limited primary care settings.

Pre-market health systems barriers and enablers to infectious diseases point-of-care diagnostics in Australia: qualitative interviews with key informants.

Background: There exist multiple regulatory layers for point-of-care (POC) testing to be implemented within Australia. This qualitative analysis sought to understand the pre-market barriers and facilitators to scale-up infectious diseases POC testing in primary care settings at the national level.

Methods: Key informant interviews were undertaken with people (n = 30) working in high- level positions relevant to infectious diseases POC testing in Australia.

: an underestimated pathogen in brain infection?

is an oral commensal organism belonging to the group (SAG). causes periodontitis as well as invasive, pyogenic infection of the central nervous system, pleural space or liver. Compared with other SAG organisms, has a higher mortality as well as a predilection for intracranial infection, suggesting it is likely to possess virulence factors that mediate specific interactions with the host resulting in bacteria reaching the brain.

A case of penicillin-resistant group B Streptococcus isolated from a patient in the UK.

Objectives: In England, group B streptococci (GBS; Streptococcus agalactiae) are considered universally susceptible to penicillin. Reports from Africa, Asia, North America and a few European countries have described GBS isolates with penicillin MICs above the epidemiological cut-off (0.125 mg/L).

Mapping of drought-induced changes in tissue characteristics across the leaf profile of Populus balsamifera.

Leaf architecture impacts gas diffusion, biochemical processes, and photosynthesis. For balsam poplar, a widespread North American species, the influence of water availability on leaf anatomy and subsequent photosynthetic performance remains unknown. To address this shortcoming, we characterized the anatomical changes across the leaf profile in three-dimensional space for saplings subjected to soil drying and rewatering using X-ray microcomputed tomography.