RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a serious public health problem worldwide. The emergence of drug resistance and multidrug resistance (MDR) has become the main threat to TB treatment and control programs. Rapid detection is critical for the effective treatment of patients. In recent times, a new method using the colorimetric indicator resazurin has been proposed for drug susceptibility of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, the resazurin reduction assay was adapted to screw cap tubes. Using the Resazurin Tube Method (RTM), a total of 100 clinical isolates were tested against Rifampicin (RIF) and Isoniazide (INH). By visual reading, the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were obtained after eight days. The results obtained were compared with the gold standard proportion method. RESULTS: Excellent results were obtained for RTM with a sensitivity of 100% for both RIF and INH, with a specificity of 98.7 and 95.3%, respectively. Kappa is the measure of agreement between the RTM and proportion method (PM) for RIF and INH, which was found to be 0.972 and 0.935 for RIF and INH, respectively. CONCLUSION: The RTM appears to be a reliable method for the rapid and simultaneous detection of MDR-TB and drug susceptibility testing (DST) of M. tuberculosis. It is simple, inexpensive, and with no biohazard risk involved.
RESUMEN
Enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) are one of the predominant aetiological agents of diarrhoea in children. A study was undertaken to determine the incidence of EPEC diarrhoea in children and to assess the clinical spectrum. Faecal samples from 300 children below 12 years of age, hospitalised with acute diarrhoea were processed for isolation of bacterial pathogens. EPEC were isolated from 36(12%) of the diarrhoeal cases. O86 was the predominant serogroup isolated. EPEC diarrhoea was common in children below two years of age (86.1%). Vomiting, fever and dehydration were the common presenting features. Faecalleucocytes were observed in 17(47.2%)stool samples. EPEC were found to be resistant to several antibiotics. Since EPEC are known to belong to restricted number of 'O' sergroups, serogrouping with 'O' antisera to predominant EPEC serogroups in a particular area remains the most convenient method for early detection of EPEC diarrhoea in children.
