Genital Infection Caused by Salmonella enterica Serovar Hvittingfoss: A Case Report.

BACKGROUND: Nontyphoidal Salmonella serovars predominantly cause gastrointestinal infections. However, other clinical presentations, including urogenital infections, have been reported, although they are rather rare. CASE PRESENTATION: This case is about a 33-year-old woman diagnosed with Salmonella enterica serovar Hvittingfoss (S. Hvittingfoss) bacteremia and endometritis six days post uterine aspiration in the context of a missed abortion. She had traveled to Indonesia two weeks prior to the positive blood and cervical culture. She never developed gastrointestinal symptoms but was found to carry S. Hvittingfoss in her stool sample. The patient was successfully treated with a seven-day course of iv ciprofloxacin. CONCLUSIONS: S. Hvittingfoss is a rare serovar that has caused a few outbreaks of foodborne infections in Asia, the United States, and Australia. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of Salmonella urogenital infection caused by this serovar. Salmonella as a cause of urogenital infections is rare but not uncommon. Therefore, it should be considered in identifying members of the Enterobacterales among urogenital flora in cases of severe urogenital infections, especially when other cultures remain negative.

Salmonella Durban meningitis: case report and genomics study.

BACKGROUND: Bacterial meningitis caused by non-typhoid Salmonella can be a fatal condition which is more common in low and middle-income countries. CASE PRESENTATION: We report the case of a Salmonella meningitis in a Belgian six-month old male infant. The first clinical examination was reassuring, but after a few hours, his general state deteriorated. A blood test and a lumbar puncture were therefore performed. The cerebrospinal fluid analysis was compatible with a bacterial meningitis which was later identified by the NRC (National Reference Center) as Salmonella enterica serovar Durban. CONCLUSIONS: In this paper, we present the clinical presentation, genomic typing, and probable sources of infection for an unusually rare serovar of Salmonella. Through an extended genomic analysis, we established its relationship to historical cases with links to Guinea.

Retrospective evaluation of routine whole genome sequencing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis at the Belgian National Reference Center, 2019.

OBJECTIVES: Since January 2019, the Belgian National Reference Center for Mycobacteria (NRC) has switched from conventional typing to prospective whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of all submitted Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTB) isolates. The ISO17025 validated procedure starts with semi-automated extraction and purification of gDNA directly from the submitted MGIT tubes, without preceding subculturing. All samples are then sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq sequencer and analyzed using an in-house developed and validated bioinformatics workflow to determine the species and antimicrobial resistance. In this study, we retrospectively compare results obtained via WGS to conventional phenotypic and genotypic testing, for all Belgian MTB strains analyzed in 2019 (n = 306). RESULTS: In all cases, the WGS-based procedure was able to identify correctly the MTB species. Compared to MGIT drug susceptibility testing (DST), the sensitivity and specificity of genetic prediction of resistance to first-line antibiotics were respectively 100 and 99% (rifampicin, RIF), 90.5 and 100% (isoniazid, INH), 100 and 98% (ethambutol, EMB) and 61.1 and 100% (pyrazinamide, PZA). The negative predictive value was above 95% for these four first-line drugs. A positive predictive value of 100% was calculated for INH and PZA, 80% for RIF and 45% for EMB. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms the effectiveness of WGS for the rapid detection of M. tuberculosis complex and its drug resistance profiles for first-line drugs even when working directly on MGIT tubes, and supports the introduction of this test into the routine workflow of laboratories performing tuberculosis diagnosis.

Evaluation of a chromogenic biplate medium (ChromID MRSA/ChromID S. aureus) for the simultaneous detection of methicillin-resistant and methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus in preoperative screening samples from the anterior nares.

We evaluated the performance of the ChromID MRSA/ChromID S. aureus biplate for the simultaneous detection of Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in preoperative screening samples. The sensitivity and specificity were 94.2% and 93.6%, respectively, for the S. aureus compartment and 92.9% and 99.7% for the MRSA compartment after 48 h incubation.