We undertook enhanced surveillance of those presenting with respiratory symptoms at five healthcare centers by testing all symptomatic outpatients between November 2013 and January 2014 (winter time). Nasal swabs were collected from 182 patients and screened for MERS-CoV as well as other respiratory viruses using RT-PCR and multiplex microarray. A total of 75 (41.2%) of these patients had positive viral infection. MERS-CoV was not detected in any of the samples. Human rhinovirus (hRV) was the most detected pathogen (40.9%) followed by non-MERS-CoV human coronaviruses (19.3%), influenza (Flu) viruses (15.9%), and human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) (13.6%). Viruses differed markedly depending on age in which hRV, Flu A, and hCoV-OC43 were more prevalent in adults and RSV, hCoV-HKU1, and hCoV-NL63 were mostly restricted to children under the age of 15. Moreover, coinfection was not uncommon in this study, in which 17.3% of the infected patients had dual infections due to several combinations of viruses. Dual infections decreased with age and completely disappeared in people older than 45 years. Our study confirms that MERS-CoV is not common in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia and shows high diversity and prevalence of other common respiratory viruses. This study also highlights the importance and contribution of enhanced surveillance systems for better infection control.

BackgroundReports on the composition of oral bacteriome in Arabs are lacking. In addition, the majority of previous studies on other ethnic groups have been limited by low-resolution taxonomic assignment of next-generation sequencing reads. Furthermore, there has been a conflict about the existence of a ‘core’ bacteriome.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to characterize the healthy core oral bacteriome in a young Arab population at the species level.MethodsOral rinse DNA samples obtained from 12 stringently selected healthy young subjects of Arab origin were pyrosequenced (454's FLX chemistry) for the bacterial 16S V1–V3 hypervariable region at an average depth of 11,500 reads. High-quality, non-chimeric reads ≥380 bp were classified to the species level using the recently described, prioritized, multistage assignment algorithm. A core bacteriome was defined as taxa present in at least 11 samples. The Chao2, abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE), and Shannon indices were computed to assess species richness and diversity.ResultsOverall, 557 species-level taxa (211±42 per subject) were identified, representing 122 genera and 13 phyla. The core bacteriome comprised 55 species-level taxa belonging to 30 genera and 7 phyla, namely Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Fusobacteria, Saccharibacteria, and SR1. The core species constituted between 67 and 87% of the individual bacteriomes. However, the abundances differed by up to three orders of magnitude among the study subjects. On average, Streptococcus mitis, Rothia mucilaginosa, Haemophilus parainfluenzae, Neisseria flavescence/subflava group, Prevotella melaninogenica, and Veillonella parvula group were the most abundant. Streptococcus sp. C300, a taxon never reported in the oral cavity, was identified as a core species. Species richness was estimated at 586 (Chao2) and 614 (ACE) species, whereas diversity (Shannon index) averaged at 3.99.ConclusionsA species-level core oral bacteriome representing the majority of reads was identified, which can serve as a reference for comparison with oral bacteriomes of other populations as well as those associated with disease.

ObjectiveAccording to the World Health Organization, the increasing antibiotic resistance of pathogens is one of the most important threats to human health. Prevalence of a carbapenem-resistance gene (KPC), vancomycin-resistance genes (van A/B) and a methicillin-resistance gene (mecA) in hospital and municipal sewages will be potential threat to public health.ResultsVancomycin-resistance genes were detected in the sewage of community tank-II, sewage tank of the tertiary and general hospital. Carbapenem-resistance gene was detected in sewage of community tank-II and sewage from tertiary hospital. Methicillin-resistance gene was detected in sewage of community tank-II, sewage from a fish market sewage tank and sewage from an animal slaughter house sewage tank. The detection of a KPC, van A/B and a mecA in sewages will help further the process to take the appropriate measures to prevent the spread of such bacteria in the environment.

Background:A few recent studies have characterized the salivary microbiome in association with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Here, we sought to assess if there is an association between the tongue microbiome and ASD. Methods: Tongue scrapping samples were obtained from 25 children with ASD and 38 neurotypical controls. The samples were sequenced for the 16S rRNA gene (V1-V3) and the resultant high-quality reads were assigned to the species-level using our previously described BLASTn-based algorithm. Downstream analyses of microbial profiles were conducted using QIIME, LEfSe, and R. Results: Independent of grouping, Prevotella, Streptococcus, Leptotrichia, Veillonella, Haemophilus and Rothia accounted for > 60% of the average microbiome. Haemophilus parainfluenzae, Rothia mucilaginosa, Prevotella melaninogenica and Neisseria flavescens/subflava were the most abundant species. Species richness and diversity did not significantly differ between the study groups. Thirteen species and three genera were differentially abundant between the two groups, e.g. enrichment of Actinomyces odontolyticus and Actinomyces lingnae and depletion of Campylobacter concisus and Streptococcus vestibularis in the ASD group. However, none of them withstood adjustment for multiple comparisons. Conclusion:The tongue microbiome of children with ASD was not significantly different from that of healthy control children, which is largely consistent with results from the literature.

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