[Cryptococosis and HIV/AIDS: a review of 21 cases reported in the Tropical Diseases Centre, Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)].

Cryptococcus neoformans affections during HIV-infection are frequent and serious. The aim of this study was to analyse the epidemiological, clinical, biological and therapeutic characteristics of cryptococcal meningitis in HIV-positive patients, admitted into the Center for Tropical Diseases Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), during a 5-month period (May-September 2001). Twenty-one patients (20 men and one woman) were included (identification of C.

[Penicillium marneffei infection and AIDS. A review of 12 cases reported in the Tropical Diseases Centre, Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)].

Penicillium marneffei is a thermal dimorphic fungus which is endemic in an ecologic niche restricted to the Far East and which may cause deep-seated infection in humans and rodents. Discovered in the late 1950s from the bamboo rat Rhizomys sinensis, in Vietnam, P. marneffei was initially identified in HIV-infected individuals.