bioMérieux.

The aims of the present study were to implement a microbead-based 'spoligotyping' technique and to evaluate improvements by the addition of a panel of 25 extra spacers that we expected to provide an increased resolution on principal genetic group 1 (PGG 1) strains. We confirmed the high sensitivity and reproducibility of the classical technique using the 43 spacer panel and we obtained perfect agreement between the membrane-based and the microbead-based techniques. We further demonstrated an increase in the discriminative power of an extended 68 spacer format for differentiation of PGG 1 clinical isolates, in particular for the East AfricanIndian clade. Finally, we define a limited yet highly informative reduced 10 spacer panel set which could offer a more cost-effective option for implementation in resource-limited countries and that could decrease the need for additional VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats) genotyping work in molecular epidemiological studies. We also present an economic analysis comparing membrane-based and microbead-based techniques. INTRODUCTIONThe current global plan for tuberculosis (TB) control suggests that it will be difficult to eradicate the disease by 2050 (Dye & Williams, 2008). This issue is particularly relevant to large nations with high TB infection rates, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico, but it is also relevant to resource-poor countries in Asia and Africa, which are facing the combined threat of human immunodeficiency virus and TB (Uplekar & Lonnroth, 2007). TB transmission chains may be interrupted in resource-poor countries by improvements in public health programmes, medical diagnostics facilities and provision of adequate drug treatment (Dye & Williams, 2008). The Millenium Development Goals of the United Nations Organization has called for the detection of 70 % of active cases through the development of rapid diagnostics methods, and the attainment of 80 % cure rates, through means such as expansion of the Directly Observed Treatment of Short Course (DOTS+) programme. However, the expanding threat of multidrug resistant (MDR) TB (resistance to Abbreviations: CAS, Central Asian; CRISPR, clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats; DR, direct repeat; EAI, East African-Indian; EDC, N-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-N '-ethylcarbodiimide; LAM, LatinAmerican and Mediterranean; DVR, direct variable repeat; HGDI, Hunter and Gaston index; IGEPE, infection, genetics, emerging pathogens, evolution; MDR, multidrug resistant; MTC, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex; PGG, principal genetic group; S : N, signal to noise ratio; SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism; TMAC, tetra-methyl ammonium chloride; VNTR, variable number of tandem repeats.A table and figure of spoligotyping data are available as supplementary material with the online version of this paper. Multiplexing is an efficient way to increase the throughput and efficiency of genotyping results and many recent techniques, such as multiple ligation-mediated assays, are showing promise in this area (Bergval e...

The aim of this study is to provide a more accurate representation of COVID-19's case fatality rate (CFR) by performing meta-analyses by continents and income, and by comparing the result with pooled estimates. We used multiple | ABOU GHAYDA ET AL.

Candida auris is a novel and major fungal pathogen that has triggered several outbreaks in the last decade. The few drugs available to treat fungal diseases, the fact that this yeast has a high rate of multidrug resistance and the occurrence of misleading identifications, and the ability of forming biofilms (naturally more resistant to drugs) has made treatments of C. auris infections highly difficult. This review intends to quickly illustrate the main issues in C. auris identification, available treatments and the associated mechanisms of resistance, and the novel and alternative treatment and drugs (natural and synthetic) that have been recently reported.

We characterized a set of 100 Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex clinical isolates from tuberculosis (TB) patients in Albania, typing them with a 24-locus variable-number tandem-repeat-spoligotyping scheme. Depending on the cluster definition, 43 to 49 patients were distributed into 15 to 16 clusters which were likely to be epidemiologically linked, indicative of a recent transmission rate of 28 to 34%. This result suggests that TB is under control in Albania. However, two multidrug-resistant (MDR) Beijing genotypes harboring the same S531A mutation on the rpoB gene were also found, suggesting a potential recent transmission of MDR TB. Three brand new genotypes, Albania-1 to Albania-3, are also described.