61 research outputs found
Praharaj I. Glycopeptide resistance in gram-positive cocci: a review. Interdis cip Perspect Infect Dis
No full textVancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have emerged as important nosocomial pathogens in the past two decades all over the world and have seriously limited the choices available to clinicians for treating infections caused by these agents. Methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus, perhaps the most notorious among the nosocomial pathogens, was till recently susceptible to vancomycin and the other glycopeptides. Emergence of vancomycin nonsusceptible strains of S. aureus has led to a worrisome scenario where the options available for treating serious infections due to these organisms are very limited and not well evaluated. Vancomycin resistance in clinically significant isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci is also on the rise in many setups. This paper aims to highlight the genetic basis of vancomycin resistance in Enterococcus species and S. aureus. It also focuses on important considerations in detection of vancomycin resistance in these gram-positive bacteria. The problem of glycopeptide resistance in clinical isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci and the phenomenon of vancomycin tolerance seen in some strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae has also been discussed. Finally, therapeutic options available and being developed against these pathogens have also found a mention
Virulence factors in clinical and commensal isolates of Enterococcus species
No full textBackground: Enterococci have emerged as important nosocomial pathogens and have been found to possess many virulence factors, some of which are considered very important in the pathogenesis of diseases caused by them. The following study was carried out to evaluate some of the virulence determinants elaborated by strains of enterococci in our setup and to ascertain if these strains differ considerably from commensal strains of enterococci in the expression of these virulence determinants. Materials and Methods: One hundred and fifty-seven isolates of Enterococcus species from clinical specimens were evaluated for the presence of virulence determinants like hemolysin production, gelatinase production and biofilm formation by phenotypic tests. The presence of enterococcal surface protein (esp) gene in the isolates was detected using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Thirty strains of Enterococcus isolated from fecal samples of patients admitted to the hospital were also tested for the presence of these virulence factors. Strains of Enterococcus from clinical specimens and those present as commensals were compared with respect to the elaboration of virulence factors using Fisher′s exact test. Results: The association between biofilm formation and presence of the "esp" gene was not found to be statistically significant. Among the virulence determinants studied, gelatinase production and the "esp" gene were found to be significantly more common in clinical isolates than commensal strains of Enterococcus species. Conclusion: Among the virulence factors, gelatinase and the "esp" gene were more common in clinical isolates than commensal strains. The association between biofilm formation and the presence of "esp" gene was not found to be statistically significant
Glycopeptide Resistance in Gram-Positive Cocci: A Review
No full textVancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have emerged as important nosocomial pathogens in the past two decades all over the world and have seriously limited the choices available to clinicians for treating infections caused by these agents. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, perhaps the most notorious among the nosocomial pathogens, was till recently susceptible to vancomycin and the other glycopeptides. Emergence of vancomycin nonsusceptible strains of S. aureus has led to a worrisome scenario where the options available for treating serious infections due to these organisms are very limited and not well evaluated. Vancomycin resistance in clinically significant isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci is also on the rise in many setups.
This paper aims to highlight the genetic basis of vancomycin resistance in Enterococcus species and S. aureus. It also focuses on important considerations in detection of vancomycin resistance in these gram-positive bacteria. The problem of glycopeptide resistance in clinical isolates of coagulase-negative staphylococci and the phenomenon of vancomycin tolerance seen in some strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae has also been discussed. Finally, therapeutic options available and being developed against these pathogens have also found a mention
SupplementaryFiles_ISTAC_GutMicrobes.zip
No full textSupplementary data (Figues and Tables) for manuscript "
Infectious etiology of intussusception in Indian children less than 2 years old: A matched case-control analysis
Neurocysticercosis: An Emerging Waterborne Parasitic Disease of Public Health Importance
No full textData Analytics in Web-based Education in the Higher-education Classroom
No full textAttention span of students in a classroom is very short. To overcome this, different active learning methodologies have been used in the past. Active learning keeps the students busy and engaged throughout the lecture. It breaks the lecture into certain time intervals by intermixing breaks, demonstrations and questions after each interval. For using active learning, clickers and laptops are commonly used in higher education classroom. Most experiments in higher education classroom studying different characteristics of students like learning performance and attention, use clickers and laptop. But, most of these experiments are in a controlled setting, not scalable and compromise the privacy of students. We overcome these problems in an active learning setup in the higher education classroom where we use a web-mediated teaching tool called ASQ. ASQ is a web application that helps to give presentation in a classroom where the presenter has control over the flow of the presentation. ASQ also allows the presenter to interleave the presentation with questions, videos and other interactive JavaScript components. Anyone can anonymously join a presentation in ASQ using a web browser. ASQ tracks the activity of every student interaction by generating event logs each second. In the previous work using ASQ, it has been shown that these logs could be used to infer the attention level of students in the classroom. The goal of this thesis is to gather insights about the fine-grained study behaviour of students in a higher education classroom by analyzing these event logs.We investigate (i) the effect of lecture elements (like the difficulty, relative positioning and spacing of questions; and duration of discussion in the slides) on study behaviour (like attention level, performance and reaction time while answering questions) of students; (ii) the relationship that might exist between attention percentage of students and their participation in the in-class questions; (iii) if students are taking external help when answering questions during the lecture and the relationship that might exist between their tendency to take external help with the difficulty of questions. We conduct our study in a classroom of around 300 students, for 15 lectures in the Web and Database Technology course at TU Delft taught by 2 instructors. We find significant effect of (i) spacing of questions on reaction time and instructor on performance; (ii) length of discussion time associated with a slide on the attention level of students which agrees with past studies; (iii) relative positioning of questions on the performance of students. However, we do not find significant effect of difficulty of questions on performance and reaction time of students while answering these questions. We also find significant effect that students with more attention percentage participate more in the in-class questions. Finally, we find that students take external help while answering questions but the tendency to take external help does not depend on the difficulty of questions
Barriers to Antimicrobial Stewardship in LMICs: A Scoping Review on Community Pharmacist's KAP and their Role in AMR Control
No full textAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health challenge, especially in resource-restrained low and middle-income countries (LMICs) where infectious diseases are common and healthcare systems are often lacking or overburdened. In these settings, community pharmacists play a crucial role in antibiotic dispensing and can support antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programs/policies, but their knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) around AMR and AMS are not well understood.
In many of these settings, antimicrobial drugs are sold without prescriptions, and weak regulations contribute to misuse. To improve AMS at the community level, it is important to understand the barriers pharmacists face and the support they need. This scoping review aims to assess existing evidence on community pharmacists' KAP, explore AMS-related interventions, and identify policy gaps to inform better strategies for AMR control in LMICs
Microstructure and frequency dependent electrical properties of lead-free Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 perovskite
No full textOne Health Interventions for Zoonotic Diseases: A Scoping Review
No full textThe scoping review will be conducted to systematically review specific interventions or intervention strategies with “one-health” components (at the human, animal and environment interface) being used to control/prevent zoonotic diseases in the past 2 decades (year 2000 till date)
The following research question has been formulated for the scoping review: What are the different one health approaches/interventions/strategies used in the past 2 decades to prevent or control the spread of zoonotic diseases
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