Bartonella henselae endocarditis in Laos - 'the unsought will go undetected'.

Background: Both endocarditis and Bartonella infections are neglected public health problems, especially in rural Asia. Bartonella endocarditis has been described from wealthier countries in Asia, Japan, Korea, Thailand and India but there are no reports from poorer countries, such as the Lao PDR (Laos), probably because people have neglected to look.

Methodology/principal Findings: We conducted a retrospective (2006-2012), and subsequent prospective study (2012-2013), at Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane, Laos, through liaison between the microbiology laboratory and the wards.

Infective endocarditis in the Lao PDR: clinical characteristics and outcomes in a developing country.

Introduction: Data on infective endocarditis (IE) in Southeast Asia are scarce.

Objectives: To describe the clinical epidemiology of IE in Lao PDR, a lower middle-income country.

Methods: A single centre retrospective study at Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane.

Causes of community-acquired bacteremia and patterns of antimicrobial resistance in Vientiane, Laos.

There is no published information on the causes of bacteremia in the Lao PDR (Laos). Between 2000 and 2004, 4512 blood culture pairs were taken from patients admitted to Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane, Laos, with suspected community-acquired bacteremia; 483 (10.7%) cultures grew a clinically significant community-acquired organism, most commonly Salmonella enterica serovar typhi (50.

Rickettsial infections and fever, Vientiane, Laos.

Rickettsial diseases have not been described previously from Laos, but in a prospective study, acute rickettsial infection was identified as the cause of fever in 115 (27%) of 427 adults with negative blood cultures admitted to Mahosot Hospital in Vientiane, Laos. The organisms identified by serologic analysis were Orientia tsutsugamushi (14.8%), Rickettsia typhi (9.

Improving the performance of Drug and Therapeutics Committees in hospitals--a quasi-experimental study in Laos.

Background And Objectives: Drug and Therapeutics Committees (DTCs), which are essential for ensuring the rational use of drugs (RUD) in hospitals, have recently been established in Laos. Sub-optimal performance had been reported. The aims of this study were to determine those factors in the working environment that relate to DTC performance in Lao hospitals and evaluate whether DTC performance could be improved through an educational intervention utilizing auditing and feedback targeted towards DTC members.