New Tools for Dengue Diagnostics

Dengue caused by four antigenically distinct serotype remains a serious health concern around the world, particularly in the tropical areas. Clinical signs and symptoms of this disease are indistinguishable from other infectious disease; therefore, laboratory diagnosis is very crucial for confirming the disease that will be useful for the patient’s management. In laboratory, dengue can be confirmed using cell culture, RNA detection, and serological detection based on ELISA and immunochromatographic test. However, each of these methods has certain practical limitations. Therefore, researchers from all over the world have been working to address these limitations. In this chapter, we will highlight the current research toward the development of novel point-of-care test for the diagnosis of dengue in acute and convalescent phase

Drinking water quality in Rohri City, Sindh, Pakistan

Groundwater and surface water samples from Rohri city were analyzed for the presence of total coliform (TC), E. coli (Ec) and heterotrophic plate count (HPC). The samples were collected before and after storage. The bacteriological analysis was carried out by membrane filtration and spread plate count (SPC) technique. The pre-storage ground water samples were found to be contaminated with TC (25%), Ec (12.5%) and HPC (45%). All post-storage groundwater samples were found to be contaminated with TC (100%), Ec (41.6%) and with HPC (100%); the number of TC, Ec and HPC in post-storage groundwater samples was very high. The difference in number of colony forming units (cfu/100ml) between pre and post-storage groundwater samples was significant (p= 0.0001). The pre-storage surface water samples from main storage reservoirs and post-storage surface water samples from households were also found to be contaminated with TC (100%), Ec (100%) and HPC (100%). A significant (p= 0.002) difference in the number of cfu/ 100ml of ground water and in surface water samples was recorded. The quality of surface water was very poor as compared to groundwater in terms of microbial content and further declined after storage indicating lack of hygiene in the study  populationKey words: Groundwater, households, gastroenteritis and waterborne

Temperate hyper-saline ecosystems induce spatial distribution and halo-thermotolerance potential in indigenous cultivable bacterial community

Extreme environmental conditions like high salinity and temperature are continuously affecting fertile lands and trigger an ecological imbalance, thereby inducing indigenous microbial communities for adaptation to such extreme environments. Present study relates with the isolation and characterization of halo-thermotolerant bacteria (HTTB) from hyper-saline areas of districts Kashmore and Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan. The isolated bacteria were initially screened for their tolerance to elevated salt concentrations and extreme temperature ranges. Out of twenty-six bacterial isolates, six bacteria from district Kashmore (60%) and thirteen bacterial isolates from district Khairpur (81.25%) tolerated NaCl concentration up to 15–17% (w/v), and grown efficiently when incubated in the temperature ranges 55–65 °C. The principle component and multivari- ate cluster analyses revealed three different clusters of HTTB bacteria based on their tolerance and spatial distribution. In general, the hyper-saline environments of district Kashmore harbored more HTTB than Khairpur, but individually there was extreme halotolerance and thermotolerance among Khairpur isolates. Finally, the PCR-based molecular typing of 16S rRNA genes revealed, majority of the isolates were identified to be various strains of genus Bacillus, i.e., Bacillus subtilis, B. licheniformis, B. aerius, B. vallismortis, B. aquimaris and B. flexus. Only one bacterial strain, i.e., KJ1WB, was identified as Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes. These HTTB bacterial strains may extend significant potential for future applications like environmental, biotechnological and enormous industrial due to their valuable enzymatic profiles and metabolite repositories