Retrospective study of 668 cultures for mycobacteria in a reference hospital for AIDS in southern Brazil.

Although AIDS patients in other countries are frequently diagnosed as having atypical mycobacterial infection, in Southern Brazil there is a clinical impression that Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the rule rather than the exception. We made a retrospective review of cultures for mycobacteria at our hospital in order to determine the frequency of atypical mycobacteria and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in hospitalised patients in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was the most frequent isolate (79.

Assessing the antimicrobial prescription request process in a teaching hospital in Brazil: regulations and training.

It is known that antimicrobials are often prescribed inappropriately. One method used to deal with this problem is to regulate antimicrobial use by monitoring prescriptions. We report a study of physician compliance with the request for antibiotic process which was prepared and reviewed by a special infection control committee in our hospital the Nosocomial Infection Prevention Service (SCIH).