A woman contracted chickenpox in the 12th week of gestation. Her general practitioner and later the consultant obstetrician warned her about the small risk of giving birth to a disabled child. She decided to continue the pregnancy without undergoing invasive tests to diagnose fetal intrauterine infection. Symptoms of congenital varicella syndrome (CVS) were detected by ultrasound in the 29th and 34th weeks of gestation. On admission to hospital, the baby was not considered infectious and was not isolated because polymerase chain reaction analysis to detect varicella zoster virus (VZV) DNA in the blood, cerebrospinal fluid, saliva, skin scrapings and feces gave negative results. He was also not separated from his mother. The mother was without clinical complications. Varicella during pregnancy may result in VZV transmission to the fetus or newborn. Intrauterine VZV infection in the first 28 weeks of gestation may result in CVS with limb deformities, brain abnormalities and mental retardation. Usually the newborn is not infectious, and therapy and isolation are unnecessary. When the mother catches the infection in the second trimester, the newborn may manifest shingles in the first 2 years of life. A maternal rash erupting 5 days before to 2 days after delivery is frequently associated with clinically severe varicella in the newborn, leading to high mortality if untreated. Then the newborn is infectious and must be isolated. This case report underlines the need for expert medical counseling for women who contract chickenpox at any time during pregnancy. It also underlines the importance of immunizing susceptible women of childbearing age before they become pregnant.

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Specific viral laboratory diagnosis of primary Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) infection is usually based on antibody-detection assays. However, molecular detection is also considered the reference standard assay for diagnosis of central nervous system infections and of most cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). One-step or nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has rapidly replaced immunological assays based on virus-specific Ig antibodies for the laboratory diagnosis of Herpesvirus infections, even if serological methods are considered an additional tool for defining clinical diagnosis. In this article, we will present a rapid, sensitive and robust molecular tool for the viral detection of EBV (EBNA-1) within tissue specimens by making use of in situ PCR (IS-PCR)

A total of 81 HIV-1 protease (PR) and reverse transcriptase (RT) sequences were obtained from 46 drug-naive and 35 pretreated individual HIV-1-infected orphaned children followed at a donor-funded rural pediatric clinic in Dodoma, Tanzania. PR and RT sequencing was performed by home-brew technology on 70 plasma samples and 11 dried blood spot specimens. Nucleoside RT inhibitor (NRTI) resistance mutations were detected in 2.2% of drug-naive and 82.9% of pretreated children. Nonnucleoside RT inhibitor (NNRTI) resistance mutations were detected in 69.6% of drug-naive and 91.4% of pretreated children. Resistance to protease inhibitors was rare (8.6% in pretreated children). Based on few complete treatment records, only around 20% of the treated children had undetectable plasma HIV-1 RNA. The rate of NRTI and NNRTI resistance in this donor-funded rural pediatric clinic was high and appeared to limit virological response to treatment.

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