Chlamydia trachomatis from Australian Aboriginal people with trachoma are polyphyletic composed of multiple distinctive lineages.

Chlamydia trachomatis causes sexually transmitted infections and the blinding disease trachoma. Current data on C. trachomatis phylogeny show that there is only a single trachoma-causing clade, which is distinct from the lineages causing urogenital tract (UGT) and lymphogranuloma venerum diseases. Here we report the whole-genome sequences of ocular C. trachomatis isolates obtained from young children with clinical signs of trachoma in a trachoma endemic region of northern Australia. The isolates form two lineages that fall outside the classical trachoma lineage, instead being placed within UGT clades of the C. trachomatis phylogenetic tree. The Australian trachoma isolates appear to be recombinants with UGT C. trachomatis genome backbones, in which loci that encode immunodominant surface proteins (ompA and pmpEFGH) have been replaced by those characteristic of classical ocular isolates. This suggests that ocular tropism and association with trachoma are functionally associated with some sequence variants of ompA and pmpEFGH

Urinary tract infection in patients with spinal cord injury

Deposited with permission of the author. © 1975 Dr. L. Valerie AscheThis study was made to ascertain the aetiology, origin and pathways of infection as well as the reason for recurrence of urinary tract infection in male patients with permanent indwelling catheter, at the Spinal Injuries Unit, Austin Hospital, Australia. There has been no detailed bacteriological report published since the Unit opened in 1956. Since urinary infections are frequent during the life of spinal paralytics, it is important in the management of such patients to determine whether it is relapse or re—infection which plays the major role of infection. The main body of this thesis presents the findings of a detailed search for wall—defective bacteria (L—forms) in an attempt to confirm or deny the hypothesis that persistent L—forms play a part in the repeated isolation of the same organism from a patient over a number of years. The aetiology of urinary infection occurring in new admissions was a reflection of the ward flora present at different times of survey, which in turn depended on the disinfection measures taken. Gram—negative, urea splitting organisms such as Klebsiella, Proteus, and Providence as well as the nosocomial bacteria Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas and Serratia were found to be more common in causing urinary infection than the traditional Escherichia coli and Streptococcus faecalis. The chlorhexidine solution used for bladder irrigation was shown to be the source of Acinetobacter infections acquired during 1971-2 in new admissions. From weekly examinations during 1971-2 of new admissions there was little evidence that the urinary infections came from the patients' own faecal or nasal flora even when Klebsiella, Proteus or Pseudomonas were regularly isolated from such material. (Open document to view complete abstract