Preferences for and acceptability of long-acting HIV prevention products among pregnant and lactating women accessing health services in Kenya: a mixed method cross-sectional analysis.

Background: Increased risk of HIV acquisition during pregnancy and lactation among women is evident, necessitating their inclusion in the evaluation of new HIV prevention interventions. Pregnant and postpartum women specifically face challenges with oral PrEP associated with stigma, and the burden of using other tablets. Long-acting products may address challenges related to oral PrEP, however, there is limited data on product-specific preferences and acceptability among pregnant and lactating women.

Bacteriophage Therapy as a Promising Alternative for Antibiotic-Resistant : Advances and Challenges.

is a Gram-positive bacterium increasingly identified as a critical nosocomial pathogen that poses significant treatment challenges due to its resistance to multiple antibiotics, particularly vancomycin-resistant (VRE) strains. The urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies has renewed interest in bacteriophage (phage) therapy, given phages specificity and bactericidal potential. This review explores the advancements in phage therapy against antibiotic-resistant , including phage morphological diversity, genomic characteristics, and infection mechanisms.

The conserved protein DopA is required for growth, drug tolerance and virulence in Aspergillus fumigatus.

The majority of Aspergillus fumigatus reproduction occurs asexually, with large numbers of conidiophores producing small hydrophobic conidia dispersed aerially. When healthy hosts inhale conidia, the mucosal cilia and phagocytosis by the innate immune system can remove them. However, in immunocompromised hosts, the conidia are not removed, which allows them to germinate, forming mycelium that invades host tissues and causes disease.

Safety and adherence to self-administered intravaginal 5-fluorouracil cream following cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 2/3 treatment among HIV-positive women in Kenya: A phase 1 clinical trial.

Objective: To determine the safety, tolerance, and adherence to self-administered intravaginal 5% fluorouracil (5FU) cream as adjuvant therapy following cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or 3 (CIN2/3) treatment among women living with HIV (WLWH) in Kenya.

Methods: A phase I pilot trial was performed among 12 WLWH in Kenya, aged 18-49 years between March 2023 and February 2024 (ClinicalTrial.gov NCT05362955).

Broth microdilution protocol for determining antimicrobial susceptibility of Legionella pneumophila to clinically relevant antimicrobials.

Currently there is no detailed, internationally agreed protocol defined to evaluate antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) for Legionella pneumophila (required to establish epidemiological cut-off value or "ECOFF" boundaries); therefore, antimicrobial resistance in these isolates cannot be defined. AST methods utilising media containing activated charcoal as an ingredient, to enable Legionella growth, are unreliable as noted in an internationally authored opinion paper and a new gold standard is required. Here we define a detailed protocol for broth microdilution (BMD) using defined cell culture collection-deposited control reference strains (Philadelphia-1 and Knoxville-1) as well as two accessible reference strains with moderately (lpeAB-carrying) and markedly (23S rRNA mutation-carrying) elevated azithromycin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).

Expanding the reach of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among Kenyan adolescent girls and young women: the acceptability of HIV PrEP integration into post-abortal care services.

Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) seeking post-abortal care (PAC) remain at risk of unintended pregnancies and HIV due to infrequent condom use. Integrating HIV prevention services, such as PrEP, into PAC services offers an opportunity to enhance reach, uptake, and efficiency, particularly in high-burden settings like Kenya. However, data on acceptability, feasibility, and sustainability of PAC clinics as entry points for PrEP is limited.

Enhancing intestinal absorption of a macromolecule through engineered probiotic yeast in the murine gastrointestinal tract.

Oral administration of therapeutic peptides is limited by poor intestinal absorption. Use of engineered microorganisms as drug delivery vehicles can overcome the challenges faced by conventional delivery methods. The potential of engineered microorganisms to act synergistically with the therapeutics they deliver opens new horizons for noninvasive treatment modalities.

MIBiG 4.0: advancing biosynthetic gene cluster curation through global collaboration.

Specialized or secondary metabolites are small molecules of biological origin, often showing potent biological activities with applications in agriculture, engineering and medicine. Usually, the biosynthesis of these natural products is governed by sets of co-regulated and physically clustered genes known as biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). To share information about BGCs in a standardized and machine-readable way, the Minimum Information about a Biosynthetic Gene cluster (MIBiG) data standard and repository was initiated in 2015.

International consensus statement on microbiome testing in clinical practice.

There is growing interest in the potential exploitation of the gut microbiome as a diagnostic tool in medicine, but evidence supporting its clinical usefulness is scarce. An increasing number of commercial providers offer direct-to-consumer microbiome diagnostic tests without any consensus on their regulation or any proven value in clinical practice, which could result in considerable waste of individual and health-care resources and potential drawbacks in the clinical management of patients. We convened an international multidisciplinary expert panel to standardise best practices of microbiome testing for clinical implementation, including recommendations on general principles and minimum requirements for their provision, indications, pre-testing protocols, method of analyses, reporting of results, and potential clinical value.

Beyond traditional screening: Unveiling antibiotic potentials of actinomycetes in extreme environments.

Extreme ecosystems are a rich source of specialized metabolites that can overcome multidrug resistance. However, the low efficiency of traditional exploratory research in discovering new antibiotics remains a major limitation. We hypothesized that actinomycetes may have the ability to produce antibiotics in the extremes of a changing natural environment.

Gut physiology and environment explain variations in human gut microbiome composition and metabolism.

The human gut microbiome is highly personal. However, the contribution of gut physiology and environment to variations in the gut microbiome remains understudied. Here we performed an observational trial using multi-omics to profile microbiome composition and metabolism in 61 healthy adults for 9 consecutive days.

Influenza A Viruses in the Swine Population: Ecology and Geographical Distribution.

Despite the efforts of practical medicine and virology, influenza viruses remain the most important pathogens affecting human and animal health. Swine are exposed to infection with all types of influenza A, B, C, and D viruses. Influenza viruses have low pathogenicity for swine, but in the case of co-infection with other pathogens, the outcome can be much more serious, even fatal.

Mass Mortality in Terns and Gulls Associated with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses in Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan.

Mass mortality in Caspian terns (), Pallas's gulls (), and Caspian gulls () was recorded on the northeastern shores of the Caspian Sea in June 2022. More than 5000 gulls and terns died due to the outbreak. The outbreak was investigated in the field, and representative numbers of samples were collected and analyzed using pathological, virological, and molecular methods.

Why an Integrated Approach to Tick-Borne Pathogens (Bacterial, Viral, and Parasitic) Is Important in the Diagnosis of Clinical Cases.

Tick-borne diseases have emerged as a major global public health problem in recent decades. The increasing incidence and geographical dissemination of these diseases requires the implementation of robust surveillance systems to monitor their prevalence, distribution, and public health impact. It is therefore not unexpected that tick-borne pathogens coexist in the same vectors, but the interactions of these agents between vectors and vertebrate hosts, including humans, remain poorly understood.

Molecular characterization of gliotoxin synthesis in a biofilm model of .

Mycelial growth as biofilm structures and the activation of secondary metabolism leading to the release of low-molecular-weight molecules (known as secondary metabolites), are among the previously described strategies used by the filamentous fungi to adapt and survive. Our study unveils that strains can activate mechanisms linked to the production of gliotoxin, a crucial metabolite for , in the established biofilm model. Gliotoxin production exhibits strain- and time-dependent patterns and is associated -in a coordinated manner-with the expression levels of several genes involved in its regulation and synthesis.

PCV13 vaccine prevents pneumococcal biofilms without affecting population within the polymicrobial biofilm.

In respiratory pathogens such as , biofilm formation is associated with the colonization of the nasopharynx and chronic respiratory infection. Previous data have shown that pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) had an impact on colonization and a potential replacement by other respiratory pathogens such as . The objective of this work was to evaluate the evasion of the immune system by monospecific biofilms and by mixed biofilms.

16S rRNA gene sequencing for bacterial identification and infectious disease diagnosis.

16S rRNA gene sequence is the most common housekeeping genetic marker to study bacterial phylogeny and taxonomy. Therefore, 16S rRNA gene sequencing has the potential to identify novel bacteria and diagnose bacteria. This study compared 16S rRNA gene sequencing with conventional PCR for bacterial identification and disease diagnosis.

A single upstream mutation of whiB7 underlies amikacin and clarithromycin resistance in Mycobacterium abscessus.

Aims: We aimed to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the survival of Mycobacterium abscessus when faced with antibiotic combination therapy. By conducting evolution experiments and whole-genome sequencing (WGS), we sought to identify genetic variants associated with stress response mechanisms, with a particular focus on drug survival and resistance.

Methods And Results: We conducted evolution experiments on M.