Blood Infections
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18 results
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Tunable Laser Monitors Microbes in Packaged Foods, Medical Supplies
- Author: Barry E. DiGregorio
- Publication Date : July 2016
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Author: Barry E. DiGregorioAbstract:
Combining a tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer (TDLAS) with wavelength modulation (WM) yields an instrument that can rapidly detect carbon dioxide to monitor microbial growth, including in packaged food products and medical instruments and supplies, according to Jie Shao at Zhejiang Normal University in Jinhua, China, and his collaborators there and at Umeå University in Umeå, Sweden. Details appeared 20 March 2016 in Applied Optics (doi:10.1364/AO.55.002339).
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Plasmodium and Babesia
- Author: William O. Rogers
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Source: Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 10th Edition , pp 2091-2112
Publication Date :
January 2011
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Abstract:
The genus Plasmodium includes at least 172 named species of intraerythrocytic parasites infecting a wide range of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Malaria imposes an enormous burden of illness and substantial mortality on the tropical world and in many subtropical regions. There are an estimated 515 (95% confidence interval, 330 to 660) million clinical episodes of malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum, the most common cause of malaria, and 1.5 million to 2.7 million deaths due to malaria each year. Gastrointestinal complaints, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which may be bloody, are also not uncommon and should not distract the clinician from the diagnosis of malaria. In the face of rapidly developing drug resistance, development of new antimalarial drugs and, ultimately, an effective malaria vaccine are high priorities. The genus Babesia includes approximately 100 species that are transmitted by ticks of the genus Ixodes and infect a variety of wild and domestic animals. The diagnosis of babesiosis should be considered for a patient with the appropriate clinical symptoms and a history of travel to areas where the disease is endemic, exposure to ticks, or recent blood transfusion. Examination of Giemsastained thin blood smears is the most direct approach to diagnosis.
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From Breathing Bad Air to Biting Beasts
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Source: Magic Bullets to Conquer Malaria , pp 1-22
Publication Date :
January 2011
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Abstract:
Malaria is also called ague, intermittent fever, marsh fever, Roman fever, or simply The Fever. It was believed that the fever recurred during the sickly summer season due to vapors emanating from the marshes, hence the name “malaria” (literally “bad air”). Ronald Ross’s discovery of infectious stages in the mosquito salivary glands in bird malaria appeared to be the critical element in understanding transmission of the disease in humans. After discovering the mosquito as a vector for Plasmodium, Ross presumed that once the inoculated parasites (called sporozoites) had entered the bloodstream they burrowed straightaway into red blood cells. Giovanni Battista Grassi recognized that insofar as malaria was concerned there remained two main tasks: to demonstrate the developmental cycle of the human parasite in the mosquito and to identify the kind of mosquito that transmitted human malaria. There are four kinds of human malaria parasites, P. falciparum, P. malariae, P. vivax, and P. ovale, with three developmental stages (in the blood, in the mosquito, and in the liver). Each of these could be a potential target for drug therapy. Medicines developed against the various stages could serve to break the cycle of transmission, prevent relapses, and, minimize or eliminate entirely the pathologic effects of the rapidly multiplying stages in the blood.
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To Destroy Liver Stages: Primaquine and Tafenoquine
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Source: Magic Bullets to Conquer Malaria , pp 120-136
Publication Date :
January 2011
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Abstract:
From 1947 to 1951, monkeys were used in the search for a safe and effective radical-cure drug, one superior to pamaquine, pentaquine, and isopentaquine. Thirty-four derivatives with diverse origins were screened, and one in particular, SN-13272, prepared by Robert C. Elderfield was especially interesting. Elderfield’s compound was named primaquine. Gram for gram, primaquine was about four times as effective as pamaquine. In the early stages of the American involvement in the war in Vietnam, the U.S. military was faced with increasing numbers of casualties from chloroquine-resistant P. falciparum. Tafenoquine was shown to eliminate the dormant or “sleeping” hypnozoite stages in the livers of P. cynomolgi-infected rhesus monkeys. The pathway from methylene blue to tafenoquine is shown. Tafenoquine is under development jointly by WRAIR and Glaxo-SmithKline Pharmaceuticals as a replacement for primaquine. The mechanism of therapeutic action and toxicity of this 8-aminoquinoline, like those of primaquine, remain incompletely understood despite more than five decades of study. In vitro tests showed that tafenoquine was 5- to 10-fold better at killing asexual stages of P. falciparum than was primaquine. Orally administered tafenoquine was slowly absorbed and, in marked contrast to primaquine, slowly metabolized, with an elimination half-life of 14 days. Hopefully, with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, tafenoquine will be marketed possibly for use by travelers as a single weekly dose.
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Antibiotics and the Apicoplast
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Source: Magic Bullets to Conquer Malaria , pp 182-203
Publication Date :
January 2011
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Abstract:
The discovery of the apicoplast heightened and broadened the therapeutic role of antibiotics, some of which were already useful in malaria chemotherapy and prophylaxis. Although the apicoplast was definitively identified in 1997, it had actually been seen in the early 1960s by those studying malaria parasites under electron microscopes. Researchers hypothesized that the plastid-like DNA had arisen when the ancestor of the malaria parasites took up an algal cell and then incorporated it into its own body. The discovery of streptomycin was the catalyst for the pharmaceutical industry to engage in a race to find new antibiotics. Tetracyclines were produced by the golden-colored Streptomyces aureofaciens and were called aureomycin. Doxycycline had an advantage over some other teracyclines in that it is rapidly removed by the liver and hence does not produce kidney toxicity. Researchers concluded that the antibiotics with distinct mechanisms of action in prokaryotes inhibited the survival of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro by virtue of their action on the mitochondrion. This chapter also discusses the effects of some antibiotics on the apicoplast ribosome. Treatment of malaria patients with antimalarial drug combinations that include azithromycin has shown promise in clinical trials because of the effect of these drugs on the apicoplast.
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A Possible Dream: Control by Blocking Transmission
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Source: Magic Bullets to Conquer Malaria , pp 204-239
Publication Date :
January 2011
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Abstract:
The oldest and most effective public health measures have been interventions that prevented or reduced the transmission of malaria. This chapter presents a discussion on the control of malaria by blocking its transmission. In August 1899, Ronald Ross identified the Anopheles mosquitoes that were the main transmitters and set about to eliminate their breeding sites. In 1947, an eradication campaign was sold to the nations of the world based on the near-miraculous blow that dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) had dealt to malaria. By 1950 many nations had antimalaria programs dependent on routine annual spraying with DDT. Another approach to blocking transmission involved reducing the infectivity of the human population itself to mosquitoes by widespread distribution and use of antimalarial drugs. An alternative to the use of antimalarial drugs to suppress human infectivity for mosquitoes is to develop and deploy vaccines designed to limit the transmission of human malaria infections to mosquitoes – transmission-blocking vaccine (TBV). One of the great potential strengths of proteins (Pfs48/45 and Pfs230) used for the malaria TBV is that these proteins are expressed in the human host so that there can be a boosting effect. Another vaccine, RTS,S, showed a 34% reduction in the first appearance of parasites in the blood over a 16-week period. Bed nets (mosquito nets) and sporozoite vaccines can also be effective transmission-blocking agents for malaria.
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At the Shore
- Authors: Mark A. Clemence, Richard L. Guerrant
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Source: Infections of Leisure, Fourth Edition , pp 1-68
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
Contaminated seafood was the leading cause of food-borne illness outbreaks, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, with seafood causing 340 outbreaks with 5,133 cases of food-borne illness in the United States between 1990 and 2001. Food-borne diseases associated with fish and shellfish can be categorized into allergic, infectious, and toxin-mediated etiologies. Ingestion of shellfish containing toxins produced by dinoflagellates may induce dramatic and sometimes fatal illness. Dinoflagellates, or plankton, are unicellular plant-like organisms with a worldwide distribution which serve as an important element of the food chain in marine animals. Mollusks become toxic when they ingest toxic dinoflagellates. Several species of toxic dinoflagellates have been implicated in outbreaks of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). The neurotoxins produced by the dinoflagellate probably do not accumulate in fish but do concentrate in filter-feeding shellfish in the vicinity of a bloom. Ciguatera is a distinct clinical syndrome that may follow the ingestion of certain tropical reef fishes which have acquired toxicity through the food chain. Scombroid-fish poisoning is an acute clinical syndrome characterized by symptoms of histamine toxicity resulting from the ingestion of spoiled fish. The spectrum of human disease due to the pathogenic vibrios is dependent mainly on the causative species and ranges from mild self-limiting gastroenteritis and soft tissue infections to severe necrotizing wound infections and fulminant bacteremia, primarily in patients with underlying diseases. Rotavirus is a common viral pathogen responsible for a large percentage of childhood diarrheal illnesses.
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Commonly Asked Questions about Diagnostic Parasitology
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Source: Practical Guide to Diagnostic Parasitology, Second Edition , pp 219-254
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
This section focuses on diagnostic parasitology. Specimen collection and processing procedures constitute the ova and parasite examination (O&P exam). The direct wet smear, concentration, and permanent stained smear constitute the routine O&P exam on fresh stool specimens. The section provides some of the immunoassay options available for stool protozoa. Currently, immunoassays are available for Giardia lamblia, Cryptosporidium spp., the Entamoeba histolytica/E. dispar group, and E. histolytica. Most effective techniques for the identification of the intestinal protozoa, the wet preparation smear and the permanent stained smear are recommended as the most relevant and accurate procedures for identification. Some helminth eggs are quite heavy and will not float, even when zinc sulfate with a specific gravity of 1.20 is used. The scientific (genus and species) names should be used on the final report that goes to the physician and on the patient’s chart. It is also recommended that the stage of the organism be included (trophozoite, cyst, oocyst, spore, egg, larvae, adult worm); various stages of the malaria parasites affect the outcome of therapy.
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Hunting Microbes
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 1-41
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
Pasteur devised a method called pasteurization to control the offending microbes. Charles-Louis Alphonse Laveran spent much of his time looking at autopsy material but also examined fresh specimens. Ronald Ross worked mostly with the gray and striped-wing kind of mosquitoes. When these mosquitoes were dissected, the whiplike flagella were found in the mosquito stomach; however, no further development occurred. This result was no more informative than what Laveran had seen in a drop of blood on a microscope slide nearly 20 years earlier. Ross’ discovery of infectious stages in the mosquito salivary glands in a bird malaria appeared to be the critical element in understanding transmission of the disease in humans. Ross claimed that it was only after Giovanni Battista Grassi, had read his work on the transmission of malaria in birds that he recognized that human malaria occurred only in areas where Anopheles existed and that Culex was not involved, since Grassi did not publish this or the development of the parasite in these mosquitoes until late 1898. Ross, shortly after discovering that the mosquito was a vector for Plasmodium, presumed that after entry into the bloodstream, the inoculated sporozoites burrowed into red blood cells immediately. Grassi, however, suggested that the nucleus of the sporozoite was so different from that found in the blood stages that a considerable degree of transformation would be necessary to convert one directly into the other.
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Malaria, the Sickness
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 42-48
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
The human malarias, Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae, are transmitted through the bite of an infected female anopheline mosquito when she injects sporozoites from her salivary glands during blood feeding. The long-term consequences of malaria infections are an enlarged spleen and liver and organ dysfunction. In pregnant females, falciparum malaria may result in stillbirth, lower than normal birth weight, or abortion. On the basis of clinical patterns supplemented by the stained blood film, the human malaria parasites can clearly be distinguished from one another. By using a light microscope, as few as 5 to 10 parasites in a small drop of blood can be seen. Qinghaosu (artemisinin), a Chinese herbal medicine, is both the newest and the oldest in the arsenal of antimalarials. It has been used in China for 2,000 years to reduce fever. It is derived from the leaves of the wormwood Artemisia annua. Today, malaria still ravages many countries, targeting the indigenous people and slowly and inexorably killing them. Malnourishment increases the susceptibility to malaria and a variety of other diseases, leads to lower productivity, and puts a further strain on the already fragile health care system. Sadly, in Africa the Horsemen of the Apocalypse have as their principal target the children; one-third of infected (and untreated) children will die from malaria. Thus, it is a certainty that malaria will continue to devastate nations unless something is done to control it.
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The Immunity Alphabet
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 49-75
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
The goal of developing a vaccine targeted at the blood stage of the malaria parasite is to mimic that same condition in infants and young children so that they too may enjoy lifelong immunity with natural boosting by exposure to the blood-sucking, parasite-carrying Anopheles. To “read” the immune system, it would be essential to know its “alphabet”—the building blocks of comprehension. Over the past century, much has been learned about the alphabet of immunity; through investigation, reading, and comprehension, it has provided grist for the mills of vaccine producers (vaccinologists) who are searching for protection against a wide variety of potential assassins, including malaria parasites. This chapter discusses the immunity alphabet such as A for antibody, G for globulin, I for the immune system, N for natural immunity, B for B lymphocytes, and C for cell-mediated immunity. It is hoped that the more we know about the immune responses to a natural malaria infection, as well as the more we understand about the character of the immune systems themselves, the better able we will be to develop a protective malaria vaccine.
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Fundamental Findings
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 90-110
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
The various life cycle stages of Plasmodium provide potential targets for immune (and drug) interventions. Apart from the use of malaria to treat the symptoms of late-stage syphilis, the early research on protective vaccines and immune mechanisms was carried out using birds, monkeys, and rodents as surrogates for the disease as it occurs in humans. This chapter discusses fundamental findings of malaria parasite. Only 4 years separated Laveran’s discovery of the human malaria parasite P. falciparum and the discovery of avian malaria parasites by Basil Danilewsky in 1884. Danilewsky (1852 to 1939), a physician from Kharkov, Russia, examined 300 birds from the Ukraine and found malaria-like parasites in their blood. Longenecker et al. provided additional support for the findings of antibody-mediated immunity as had been described by the Taliaferros. Weidanz’s contributions to the understanding of malaria immunology have involved the immunosuppressive effect of experimental infection, the function of antibody-independent T-cell-mediated immunity in resistance to malaria, and the use of genetic dissection to study the roles of cells and molecules in the immune response to experimental malaria. In 1999, Biswas confirmed the 60-year-old findings of Coggeshall and Eaton by repeatedly infecting rhesus monkeys with P. knowlesi-infected blood and measuring the immunoglobulin levels by a sensitive and specific assay. The conclusions to be drawn from using bird and monkey malarias are inescapable: protection could be achieved after vaccination with the various stages of the parasite, although in most instances this required the use of an adjuvant.
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Dreams about Vaccines
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 111-130
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
A malaria vaccine, discounted for decades during the “eradication era,” became the possible dream when in 1961 researchers found that IgG from immune Gambian adults had an antiparasitic effect when administered to children infected with P. falciparum. Despite all the experimental efforts with birds and monkeys, the fact remained that, after half a century, a protective malaria vaccine was not on the horizon. At a minimum, a vaccine for human use would require an immunogen that could be prepared in large amounts in a reproducible manner and would be free of microbial and host cell contaminants, pyrogens, toxins, and other potentially dangerous antigens. The desirable vaccine would have to remain stable over a reasonably long period; its potency would have to be measured in terms of efficacy in vivo and/or in vitro; and it would have to be efficacious in an appropriate animal model before being used in humans. As a researcher said, manipulation of what is essentially an autoimmune reaction would require special care.
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Battling Blood Stages
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 216-233
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
Identification of the surface antigens of Plasmodium falciparum can be traced to studies carried out by Monroe Eaton in the 1930s. Eaton showed that serum from monkeys infected with P. knowlesi could agglutinate schizontinfected red cells. This schizont-infected cell agglutination (SICA) reaction was a clear indication that the surface of the malaria infected red cell had been altered. Sequestration and immune evasion are linked to the finding that P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) has three different adhesive domains: DBL (Duffy ligand binding), a CIDR (cysteine-rich interdomain region), and an acidic region, called the ATS (acidic terminal sequence), that is presumed to anchor the molecule to the red cell surface. Each year over 50 million women are exposed to the risk of malaria during pregnancy. Pregnancy malaria (PM) results in substantial maternal and especially fetal and infant morbidity and mortality, causing 75,000 to 200,000 infant deaths annually. Rosetting has also been observed in P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, P. coatneyi in the rhesus monkey, and P. fragile in the toque monkey. Rosetting in some of these hosts may be benign, but in others, i.e., humans infected with P. falciparum, it may contribute to pathogenesis leading to severe malaria. The substances to which the rosetting red blood cells bind are heparan sulfate, blood group antigens, and complement receptor 1.
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Of Mice and Men
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Source: The Elusive Malaria Vaccine , pp 234-283
Publication Date :
January 2009
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Abstract:
Human malaria does not lend itself easily to basic research in immunology, so a convenient laboratory model for in vivo studies of mammalian malaria was desirable. The need was satisfied with the description of a rodent malaria parasite, P. berghei, by a Belgian physician (Ignace Vincke) and entomologist. One of Jerome Vanderberg's most valuable findings was his observation that upon in vitro exposure to serum from immunized mice, an antibody-mediated precipitation occurred around sporozoites and the precipitate projected from one end. The injection of irradiated sporozoites by mosquitoes should thus be viewed as an attempt to test the feasibility of vaccination in humans, which if successful could lead to trials using more practical techniques. The results showed that mice so immunized were completely protected from sporozoite challenges that caused blood infections and death in 100% of nonimmunized control mice. Using the mouse malaria model, P. yoelii, it was shown that after mosquito inoculation the irradiated sporozoites are deposited in the skin and then move into the regional lymph nodes, where, after dendritic cell presentation, T cells were primed to recognize the parasite.
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Animal Models of Invasive Pneumococcal Disease
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Source: Pneumococcal Vaccines , pp 47-58
Publication Date :
January 2008
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Abstract:
Pneumococcal disease results when colonizing pneumococci in the nasopharynx successfully invade sterile sites. The first half of this chapter focuses on individual disease models and provides general descriptions of the commonly used models. It also discusses considerations important to the application of these models to studies of vaccine antigens and some of the pros and cons of each model. The latter half of the chapter presents experimental considerations that relate to animal models in general: the need for multiple models, inclusion criteria for experiments, and statistics. Bacteremia is a potential outcome in virtually all models of pneumococcal infection and is easily evaluated. The classic mouse model for assessing protective immunity has been the use of otherwise fatal infections following intraperitoneally (i.p.) challenge to detect the effects of active immunization or passive antibodies. As neonates and infants are a major target for pneumococcal vaccination, the murine model of intranasal challenge with aspiration has been adapted to 1-week-old mice, whose immune system corresponds to that of the human neonate, and 3-week-old mice, whose immune system corresponds to that of the human infant. Otitis media models in several animal species have been developed to evaluate vaccine effects. The classic model of otitis media was developed using the chinchilla and has been well reviewed by Giebink. Advantages and limitations of the various animal models of invasive pneumococcal diseases emphasize the importance of a careful selection of animal models to address different scientific questions.
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Contents
- Publication Date : January 2007
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No descriptions available.
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Contents
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Source: Clinical Bacteriology
Publication Date :
January 2003
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No descriptions available.
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