This study was carried out to isolate and identify the etiological agents causing suppurative corneal ulcers and to perform the antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the bacterial isolates. Samples (corneal swabs and scrapings) were collected aseptically from 56 suppurative corneal ulcer patients attending Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH). Isolation and identification of the microbial agents and antimicrobial susceptibility testing were done in the Microbiology laboratory of Rajshahi Medical College. Culture yielded growth in a total of 47(83.93%) cases out of 56 patients with pure fungal growth, pure bacterial growth and mixed microbial growth (both bacteria and fungi) in 24(42.86%), 14(25.0%), and 09(16.07%) cases respectively. Among the fungal isolates, Aspergillus fumigatus was the leading agent detected in 10(30.30%) cases followed by Fusarium spp, Mucor spp, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus niger, Rhizopus spp, Unidentified branching fungus and Alternaria spp. found in 08(24.24%), 04(12.12%), 03(9.09%), 02(6.06%), 02(6.06%), 03(9.09%) and 01(3.03%) cases respectively. Staphylococcus aureus was the leading bacterial pathogen found in 10(43.47%) cases followed by Pseudomonas spp., H. influenzae, Staph. epidermidis, Strept. pneumoniae and E. coli detected in 05(21.73%), 03(13.04%), 02(8.69%), 02(8.69%) and 01(4.35%) cases respectively. Lomefloxacin, Tobramycin and Gentamicin were found to be better efficacious drugs against most of the bacterial pathogens noted in in-vitro susceptibility testing. This limited study has revealed and reinforced that suppurative corneal ulcers are caused by both bacterial and fungal agents with fungal preponderance in this geographical area and Lomefloxacin, Tobramycin and Gentamicin are better choice of antibiotics to treat bacterial suppurative corneal ulcers patients.Bangladesh J Med Microbiol 2010; 03 (02): 33-36

The present study has been carried out in an attempt to evaluate antimicrobial susceptibility patterns with special reference to susceptibility of Salmonella Typhi to ciprofloxacin isolated from blood culture. The study is also designed to find out the MIC of Ciprofloxacin by E-test. Blood samples were taken for culture sensitivity, Widal test and ICT from 100 clinically suspected cases of typhoid fever in 1 st week of illness who attended at out patient department of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH).The study was done in Microbiology Department of Rajshahi Medical College and Shishu Hospital, Dhaka. Diagnosis of patients was based on history of fever, blood culture, Widal test and ICT. The antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of isolates from blood culture was recorded. Further more, the minimum inhibitory concentration of Ciprofloxacin was determined by E-test for the isolates resistance to Ciprofloxacin. Out of 100 suspected cases of typhoid fever, blood culture positive for S. Typhi were 16 (16%). Antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of 16 isolates of S. Typhi showed that no isolate was resistant to Ceftriaxone and Ceftazidime, only 03(18.75%) were resistant to Ciprofloxacin and Azithromycin whereas 10(62.5%) were MDR showing resistance to Ampicillin, Co-trimoxazole and Chloramphenicol which are first-line antityphoidal drugs. On the other hand, all (100%) the isolates were resistant to Nalidixic acid.The study revealed that Ceftriaxone and Ceftazidime are the most effective drugs in the treatment of typhoid fever. Moreover, E-test has been found to be helpful to determine appropriate therapeutic dose of Ciprofloxacin specially in case of drug resistance and pediatric population.

Original Research ArticleIntroduction: Urinary tract infections (UTI) account for significant health burden among all age groups. Isolation and identification of the uropathogens by bacterial culture and selection of appropriate antimicrobial drugs through susceptibility testing is the mainstay in management of UTI cases. Material & Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which was carried out in the Department of Microbiology, Rajshahi Medical College (RMC) to evaluate the performance of a Chromogenic agar medium (commercially named as HiCrome UTI agar) and conventional culture system like Blood agar (BA) and MacConkey (MAC) agar for isolation and presumptive identification of the uropathogens. Results: Slightly higher bacterial growth was noted among female (29.33%) than male (17.00%) patients as a whole and 15-45 years was the leading age group with higher number of culture positive cases. Out of 300 urine samples cultured, a total of 139 (46.33%) yielded bacterial growth and 161 (53.67%) were negative for bacterial growth. Bacterial isolates included E. coli 91(62.75%), Klebsiella spp. 18(12.41%), Enterococcus spp. 16(11.03%), Pseudomonas spp. 09(06.28%), Staph. saprophyticus 05(3.44%), Enterobactor spp. 04(2.75%) and Proteus spp. 02(1.37%). It is evident from the present study that both HiCrome UTI agar and BA media supported growth of all 145 bacteria, while MAC agar yielded 133(91.72%) bacterial growths. The rate of presumptive identification of the isolates was found significantly higher (97.24%) on HiCrome UTI agar when compared with the MacConkey agar (80.68%) and Blood agar (27.58%) media. In antimicrobial susceptibility testing, majority of the isolates showed very high (78% -100%) sensitivity to Imipenem. Ceftazidime and Cefuroxime were also found efficacious against E. coli and Staph. saprophyticus, while Klebsella spp., Enterococcus spp., Pseudomonas spp., Enterobacter spp. and Proteus spp. showed variable sensitivity to these drugs. Further, most of the isolates showed moderate to poor sensitivity to Ciprofloxacin, Nalidixic acid, Cephalexin, Amoxicillin and Cotrimoxazole. (Minimize that red mark) Conclusion: HiCrome UTI agar can be recommended as primary urine culture medium to be used by the clinical microbiology laboratories.

Dermatophytoses (a fungal infection of the skin, hair and nail, usually caused by dermatophytes) constitutes an important public health problem because of its high prevalence and associated morbidity but not life-threatening. Three genera of dermatophytes are recognized based on the site and pattern of fungal invasion. Dermatophytes are the predominant pathogenic mould, but yeasts (especially Candida albicans) and non-dermatophytic moulds may also be implicated. For accurate diagnosis of dermatophytoses requires microscopic demonstration and isolation and identification by culture. This study evaluates the usefulness of microscopic technique and culture for the isolation and identification of dermatophytes from clinical samples. Thirty samples were included in this study for detection of fungal elements by both methods but sensitivity of microscopic demonstration and culture were 60.0% and 66.7% respectively. As the sensitivity of microscopic demonstration (60.0%) is almost equal to the isolation and identification rate (66.7%), requires further evaluation in large scale as its ready to use format makes the application and microscopy much easier and faster.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/kyamcj.v3i1.13658 KYAMC Journal Vol. 3, No.-1, June 2012 pp.235-238

The public health burden of typhoid fever can be substantially reduced by early diagnosis and appropriate antibiotic therapy. This study was conducted in an attempt to assess the reliability of immunochromatographic test (ICT) for the early diagnosis of typhoid fever. Immunochromatographic test to detect IgM, IgG or combined IgM/IgG in serum in 1st week of fever was done for the diagnosis of typhoid fever. Blood samples were taken for culture and Widal test of 100 clinically suspected cases of typhoid fever in 1st week of illness of patients at Outpatient Department of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH), Bangladesh. Forty (40) controls of comparable age and sex were also taken including 20 febrile (non-typhoidal) and 20 healthy persons. Blood culture positive cases (16) and Widal test positive cases (15) were considered as typhoid fever patients and the total number was 31. ICT was performed for 31 typhoid fever patients and 40 controls. In this study, out of 31 cases, ICT was found positive in 28 (90.32%) typhoid fever patient, while 03 (15.00%) of the controls also showed ICT positivity indicating its specificity of 92.50%. It is evident from this study that ICT as a reliable diagnostic tool for early diagnosis of typhoid fever was found highly sensitive, rapid and easy to perform. It can be a versatile test for the screening of clinically suspected case of typhoid fever. therefore, ICT have been found to be encouraging in this study.