Etiology Of Bacteremia Research Articles

Bayer-Symposium III. Bacterial Infections: Changes in Their Causative Agents—Trends and Possible Basis

In October 1970, 22 infectious diseases experts from seven countries gathered at Grosse Ledder, near Cologne, Germany to discuss various aspects of bacterial infections. This short volume represents the edited proceedings of that conference. The primary aims of the symposium were to review changes in the etiology of bacterial infections during the antimicrobial era and to mull over possible reasons for such changes. Nineteen papers are included in the book with discussions following the majority of them. Liberal numbers of charts and tables and a few photographs are utilized to complement the text and selected references are given for most papers. The first part of the book, consisting of five papers, deals with the easier task of summarizing the changes that have occurred in the etiology of bacteremia, urinary tract infections, and pyogenic infections. There is also a section on the incidence of different pneumococcal types in various geographic areas

Prevalence of bacteraemia in febrile, under-five children in the children’s outpatient clinic of University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Background: Bacteraemia is the presence of viable bacteria in the circulating blood. The most common manifestation of bacteraemia is fever. Untreated bacteraemia can progress in 10% of children to focal infection and sepsis which can be fatal. Knowledge of the organisms implicated in causing bacteraemia would help in the right choice of antibiotics while awaiting blood culture results.Objective: This study determined the prevalence and aetiology of bacteraemia among febrile non neonatal, under–five children seen in the Children’s Clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.Method: Febrile Children, aged 29 days to < 60 months, who presented in the outpatient clinic and whose parents gave consent were recruited from September 2010 to January 2011. Information on their weight, bio-data, and blood culture results were collected and analysed.Result: A total of 362 children (M:F 1.1:1) were studied. Bacteraemia was found in 32 (8.8%) children. The prevalence rate of bacteraemia was highest in children aged 1-12months (12.1%) and higher in males 13(10.2%) compared to females 19(7.4%). Staphylococcus aureus was the commonest (56.3%) organism isolated.Conclusion: The prevalence of bacteraemia in febrile postneonatal under-five children in the Children’s Outpatient Clinic of University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital was 8.8% with Staphylococcus aureus being the commonest organism implicated. It is recommended that antibiotics active against Staphylococcus aureus should be among the drugs that need to be commenced in this group of children while blood culture result is being awaited.Key words: Fever, blood culture, bacteremia, under-five children,

Aetiology of bacteraemia among adult AIDS patients attending Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Lagos, Nigeria

Bacteraemia is a relatively common event in HIV-infected patients, especially in late infection. Studies in Africa have shown that more than 23% of AIDS patients have bacteraemia but there is paucity of data from Nigeria. Blood samples from 67 consecutive patients with AIDS attending the Lagos University Teaching Hospital between April and August 2000 were cultured. Temperature, ESR, Full blood count, and where possible CD4 counts were obtained. Socio-demographic details were also recorded. Thirty apparently healthy people were randomly selected from a low-risk population to act as non-AIDS controls. The Oxoid Signal Blood Culture System was used to investigate bacteraemia. Antibiotic sensitivity tests were carried out on all isolates. Twenty-two (33%) of the 67 AIDS patients were culture positive. Non-typhoidal Salmonella spp (45.5%), coagulase-negative staphylococci (22.7%) and Staphylococcus aureus (18.2%) were most commonly isolated. One isolate each of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus spp were identified. All bacteraemic patients had temperatures above 38 degrees C and white blood cell counts ranged between 2,700-13,500/mm(3). There was a high rate of antibiotic resistance particularly to chloramphenicol, tetracyclines, cotrimoxazole and beta-lactam antibiotics. However, most isolates were still susceptible to gentamicin and the fluoroquinolones. There was no significant difference in the socio-demographics of the bacteraemic AIDS and non-bacteraemic AIDS patients. Salmonella spp. were the most common aetiological agent of bacteraemia among AIDS patients seen at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Nigeria. A high temperature was a pointer to the presence of bactaeraemia while total white blood cell counts were not useful. It is recommended that blood culture should be done for AIDS patients with elevated temperature irrespective of the total white blood cell count.