Publications by authors named "Sonia Arafah"

Article Synopsis
  • Fever is a common symptom in patients in South and Southeast Asia, leading to the need for effective diagnostic methods, particularly for malaria, which often results in unnecessary antibiotic use for malaria-negative cases.
  • The study evaluates a multiplex rapid diagnostic test (DPP Fever Panel II Assay) designed to identify multiple tropical fever agents in one test, aiming to improve cost-effectiveness and diagnostic accuracy compared to conventional methods.
  • Testing involved 300 patients in Laos, comparing whole blood and serum samples using two different DPP readers; results showed no significant difference in diagnostic performance between the two sample types, with whole blood generally yielding better results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Blood and bone marrow cultures are considered the gold standard for the diagnosis of typhoid, but these methods require infrastructure and skilled staff that are not always available in low- and middle-income countries where typhoid is endemic. The objective of the study is to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of nine commercially available Salmonella Typhi rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) using blood culture as a reference standard in a multicenter study. This was a prospective and retrospective multicenter diagnostic accuracy study conducted in two geographically distant areas where typhoid is endemic (Pakistan and Kenya; NCT04801602).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Acute febrile illness (AFI) is characterized by malaise, myalgia and a raised temperature that is a nonspecific manifestation of infectious diseases in the tropics. The lack of appropriate diagnostics for the evaluation of AFI leads to increased morbidity and mortality in resource-limited settings, specifically low-income countries like India. The review aimed to identify the number, type and quality of diagnostics used for AFI evaluation during passive case detection at health care centres in South India.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The development and implementation of rapid molecular diagnostics for tuberculosis (TB) drug-susceptibility testing is critical to inform treatment of patients and to prevent the emergence and spread of resistance. Optimal trial planning for existing tests and those in development will be critical to rapidly gather the evidence necessary to inform World Health Organization review and to support potential policy recommendations. The evidence necessary includes an assessment of the performance for TB and resistance detection as well as an assessment of the operational characteristics of these platforms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Autophagy is a eukaryotic catabolic process also participating in cell-autonomous defence. Infected host cells generate double-membrane autophagosomes that mature in autolysosomes to engulf, kill and digest cytoplasmic pathogens. However, several bacteria subvert autophagy and benefit from its machinery and functions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mycobacterium marinum is the causative agent of fish and amphibian tuberculosis in the wild. It is a genetically close cousin of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and thereby the infection process remarkably shares many of the hallmarks of M. tuberculosis infection in human, at both the cellular and organism levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

During the course of its infection of the mammalian digestive tract, the entero-invasive, Gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis must overcome various hostile living conditions (notably, iron starvation and the presence of antimicrobial compounds produced in situ). We have previously reported that in vitro bacterial growth during iron deprivation raises resistance to the antimicrobial peptide polymyxin B; here, we show that this phenotype is mediated by a chromosomal gene (YPTB0333) encoding a transcriptional regulator from the LysR family. We determined that the product of YPTB0333 is a pleiotropic regulator which controls (in addition to its own expression) genes encoding the Yfe iron-uptake system and polymyxin B resistance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In bacteria, the most rapid and efficient means of adapting gene transcription to extracellular stresses often involves sophisticated systems referred to as two-component systems (2CSs). Although highly conserved throughout the bacterial world, some of these systems may control distinct cell events and have differing contributions to virulence, depending on the species considered. This chapter summarizes the work performed by our group--from the initial PhoP-PhoQ and PmrA-PmrB studies to the most recent genome-scale preliminary analyses--in an attempt to highlight the contribution of 2CS regulon plasticity to the acquisition of some of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis' specific features.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Two-component regulatory systems (2CSs) typically comprise a sensor kinase and a response regulator that, in concert, monitor the concentration of particular extracellular factors and mediate the transcription of specific genes accordingly. As such, 2CSs play an important role in the regulation of bacterial pathogenesis. On the basis of genome-wide in silico analysis, the Gram-negative enteropathogenic bacterium Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is thought to encode 24 complete 2CSs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: fwrite(): Write of 34 bytes failed with errno=28 No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 272

Backtrace:

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_write_close(): Failed to write session data using user defined save handler. (session.save_path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Unknown

Line Number: 0

Backtrace: