Clinical Microbiology and Infection
Clinical Microbiology and Infection
5 years ago

A Simple Laboratory Algorithm for Diagnosis of Melioidosis in Resource-Constrained Areas: A Study from North Central Vietnam

Melioidosis may be endemic in many tropical developing countries but diagnosis of the disease is currently unreliable in resource-limited areas. Here we aimed to validate a simple and cheap laboratory algorithm for the identification of Burkholderia pseudomallei from clinical specimens in parts of Vietnam where the disease has not been reported before. Methods In June 2015, we conducted training courses at five general hospitals in north central provinces in order to raise awareness of the disease and to introduce a simple and cheap laboratory identification algorithm for B. pseudomallei including the Three Antibiotic Disk Test. Results Until the end of the year (7 months later), 94 suspected B. pseudomallei strains resistant to gentamicin and colistin but sensitive to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid were detected from clinical specimens of 70 patients. All strains were further confirmed as B. pseudomallei by using a specific TTSS1 real-time PCR assay and recA sequencing analysis. Among positive blood cultures, positive rates with B. pseudomallei ranged from 3.4% (5/147) to 10.2% (32/312) in the various clinics. 82.8% (58/70) of patients were bacteraemic, with a mortality of 50% (18/36) among patients with known outcome. No death occurred in non-bacteraemic patients. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that the introduction of a simple and easy-to-perform laboratory algorithm for the identification of B. pseudomallei from clinical samples together with clinical awareness raising can lead to the diagnosis of a significant number of melioidosis cases in resource-limited clinical laboratories which previously did not identify the pathogen.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S1198743X17304135

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.