Rubella seroprevalence among pregnant women in the region of Rabat, Morocco: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present research is to update data on the seroprevalence of rubella and to identify the associated risk factors among pregnant women in the Rabat region of Morocco in order to take immediate action to monitor the virus. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. SETTING: The study was conducted at Ibn Sina University Hospital and at referral healthcare centres in the region of Rabat. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 502 pregnant women (mean age 29.7±6.3 years, range 17-44 years) attending the maternity department during 8 months were selected for serological testing. OUTCOME MEASURES: A structured questionnaire was used to obtain sociodemographic, reproductive and clinical characteristics after obtaining written informed consent. Venous blood samples were collected to determine rubella-specific IgG antibodies using an automated chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (ARCHITECT i1000SR and i2000SR, Abbott Diagnostics). RESULTS: Antirubella IgG antibodies (≥10 IU/mL) were found in 408 (85.9%) pregnant women examined. The rate of susceptibility to rubella virus infection among pregnant women was found to be 14.1%. These protective rates were found to differ significantly between uneducated pregnant women (80.9%) and those with university-level education (95.5%) (p=0.02). Pregnant women in the 17-24, 25-34 and 35-44 years age groups accounted for 92.5%, 85.2% and 82.8%, respectively (p=0.015). Also, IgG seropositivity status was found to differ significantly between multiparous (83.3%) and primiparous (92.5%) pregnant women (p=0.01). None of the other characteristics was significantly associated with rubella infections. CONCLUSION: Vaccination programmes need to be updated to ensure that campaigns reach their specified goals. Thus, implementing an effective, large-scale screening programme for congenital rubella infection in different regions of Morocco is highly recommended. On the other hand, seronegative pregnant women should be given special preventive care and health education about rubella transmission and congenital rubella syndrome sequelae.

Clonal diversity and detection of carbapenem resistance encoding genes among multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolates recovered from patients and environment in two intensive care units in a Moroccan hospital.

BACKGROUND: Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii has recently been defined by the World Health Organization as a critical pathogen. The aim of this study was to compare clonal diversity and carbapenemase-encoding genes of A. baumannii isolates collected from colonized or infected patients and hospital environment in two intensive care units (ICUs) in Morocco. METHODS: The patient and environmental sampling was carried out in the medical and surgical ICUs of Mohammed V Military teaching hospital from March to August 2015. All A. baumannii isolates recovered from clinical and environmental samples, were identified using routine microbiological techniques and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using disc diffusion method. The carbapenemase-encoding genes were screened for by PCR. Clonal relatedness was analyzed by digestion of the DNA with low frequency restriction enzymes and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and the multi locus sequence typing (MLST) was performed on two selected isolates from two major pulsotypes. RESULTS: A total of 83 multidrug-resistant A. baumannii isolates were collected: 47 clinical isolates and 36 environmental isolates. All isolates were positive for the blaOXA51-like and blaOXA23-like genes. The coexistence of blaNDM-1/blaOXA-23-like and blaOXA 24-like/blaOXA-23-like were detected in 27 (32.5%) and 2 (2.4%) of A. baumannii isolates, respectively. The environmental samples and the fecally-colonized patients were significantly identified (p < 0.05) as the most common sites of isolation of NDM-1-harboring isolates. PFGE grouped all isolates into 9 distinct clusters with two major groups (0007 and 0008) containing up to 59% of the isolates. The pulsotype 0008 corresponds to sequence type (ST) 195 while pulsotype 0007 corresponds to ST 1089.The genetic similarity between the clinical and environmental isolates was observed in 80/83 = 96.4% of all isolates, belonging to 7 pulsotypes. CONCLUSION: This study shows that the clonal spread of environmental A. baumannii isolates is related to that of clinical isolates recovered from colonized or infected patients, being both associated with a high prevalence of the blaOXA23-like and blaNDM-1 genes. These findings emphasize the need for prioritizing the bio-cleaning of the hospital environment to control and prevent the dissemination of A. baumannii clonal lineages.

Vitamin D status in Moroccan pregnant women and newborns: reports of 102 cases.

INTRODUCTION: Vitamin D insufficiency to pregnant women has been associated with a number of adverse consequences, and has been recognized as a public health concern. The aim of this study was to evaluate vitamin D status of Morrocan pregnant women and their newborns. Our study is being the first of its kind in Morocco, as it supports the program of systematic supplementation of pregnant women in the third quarter. Its results have established a new program for the fight against the deficit of various nutrients, thereby intake of vitamin D has become routine. So this work is a true example of action research. METHODS: It's an observational and a cross sectional study. The data was collected prospectively from the 1st January to 31 December 2012 in the labor room of the Souissi maternity hospital, at the Ibn Sina university center of Rabat in Morocco. Women included were consented to participate in the study. Data on epidemiological, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics was recolted by interview, physical exam and biochemistry parameters. Hypovitaminosis D is defined as serum level of vitamin D ≤ 50 nmol/l (20 ng/ml). RESULTS: Our study included 102 cases of mother-newborn pairs. The average age of mothers was 28.3 +/- 6.7 years (range 17-43 years), 90.1% of women enrolled had a hypovitaminosis D, the average weight of newborns was 3377.9 +/- 509g (2270 - 4880g). Hypovitaminosis D is not correlated with the origin, season, body mass index, birth interval and birth weight. It was positively correlated with maternal serum calcium (p=0.000). CONCLUSION: The maternal hypovitaminosis D is real public health problem. The prevention is necessary, by the systematic vitamin D supplementation for pregnant women.