Background: The study was performed to identify the important bacterial pathogens responsible for wound infections secondary to snakebite and to determine their antimicrobial susceptibility. Methodology: All cases of wound infection secondary to snakebite were included in this retrospective study. Infected tissues were surgically debrided and inoculated on blood agar and MacConkey agar for aerobic bacterial culture, followed by antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the isolates by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Results: Staphylococcus aureus (32%) was the most common isolate followed by Escherichia coli (15%); monomicrobial infections were more frequent than polymicrobial infections. The majority of the isolates were antibiotic sensitive. Ciprofloxacin, an oral drug covering both Gram-positive and Gram-negative isolates, was the most frequently prescribed antibiotic. The patients responded well to the treatment. Conclusion: The results of this study will be helpful in deciding the empirical antibiotic therapy in cases of wound infection secondary to snakebite in regions of Southeast Asia.

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The laboratory diagnosis of leptospirosis is fraught with several problems. Isolation of Leptospira by culture has a low sensitivity and the microscopic agglutination test (MAT) is time consuming To overcome these problems, a rapid latex agglutination test (LAT) has been standardized for the detection of antileptospiral antibodies in serum samples from suspected cases of leptospirosis. We compared the efficiency of the LAT to a commercially available IgM ELISA and MAT. A total of 150 serum samples were tested by LAT, IgM ELISA, and MAT. The positivity was 26.7%, 26% and 24% respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of LAT as compared to MAT was 90.62 and 91.96% respectively. Even though LAT and ELISA showed similar results, its rapidity and simplicity made latex agglutination test more suitable as a rapid screening test.

The authors report case of a two and half years old female child presented with fever for one month with hepatosplenomegaly. Though the child had been symptomatic for a prolonged period, she did not appear very unwell at presentation. However, after admission there was sudden rapid deterioration of her clinical status. Investigations revealed hemophagocytosis with brucella infection.

Ventriculoperitoneal shunt-associated ventriculitis is a serious though under-reported nosocomial complication of neurocritical settings. The treatment of CNS Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections is usually successful with vancomycin or linezolid. Here, we report a case of ventriculitis due to MRSA following a shunt infection, which did not show clinical response to linezolid therapy. With the increasing use of invasive procedures, nosocomial infections have increased exponentially. Exercising extreme care in such CNS procedures becomes very important.