Resistance of Common Circulating Enteric Bacterial Pathogens to Prescribed Antibiotics Among Under Five Years in Selected Public Hospitals in Kenya

No Abstract

Prevalence, virulence genes and Antimicrobial Resistance of Shiga-toxigenic E.coli in diarrhoea patients from Kitale, Kenya

Introduction: Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are among the most important causes of food-borne diseases. They cause illnesses ranging from mild diarrhea to more severe conditions that may progress to hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). The burden of STEC in patients with diarrheal illness in Kitale county referral hospital, Trans-Nzoia County had not been established.Objectives: To determine the prevalence of STEC, its associated virulence genes and antimicrobial resistance among patients seeking treatment for diarrhoeal illness at Kitale County Referral Hospital.Methods: Stool samples from patients seeking treatment for diarrheal illness and had consented to participate in the study were collected and cultured for enteric bacteria. Suspect E.coli isolates were further identified using conventional biochemical methods. Conventional multiplex PCR targeting Shiga toxins (stx1, stx2, hlyA and attaching and effacing mechanisms (eaeA) were used to detect STEC virulence markers responsible for the Pathogenicity of STEC infection among other E.coli pathotypes.Results: A total of 295 participants were enrolled; median age 120 months (IQR: 36-312). 39 %( 115) were children aged <5yearsof whom 54% (160) were females. The prevalence of pathogenic E.coli was 19%56/295 and STEC was the most prevalent among E.coli pathotypes at5.4%16/295. The Stx2 gene and the Stx1/Stx2/hlyAcombination were the most prevalent in the STEC strains. The virulence genes (Stx1, Stx2, eaeA* and HlyA*)were observed in 13, 19, 9 and 14 in STEC isolates respectively.The most common gene was Stx2 and combinations of (Stx1+Stx2+hlyA)genes. Antimicrobial resistance to commonly prescribed antibiotics: chloramphenicol, ampicillin 10μg, erythromycin15μg, gentamicin10μg, ciprofloxacin 5μg, tetracycline 30μg, Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole 25 μg, Cefotaxime 30 μg, furazolidine (8μg) and nalidixic acid 30 μg. were observed for all E.coli isolates except one (1.8%; 95% CI=0.1-9.6%). No isolates among STEC showed resistance to Furazolidine drug. However, Trimethoprim / Sulphurmethoxazole) was the drug which exhibited the highest resistance at (94%, 95% CI 70 to 99%).Conclusion and recommendation: Prevalence of STEC was 5.4%, (Stx1/Stx2/hlyA) virulence genes combination was the most common. High resistance to commonly prescribed antibiotics were observed in E.coli isolates and may be an existing problem that needs to be further research investigation.Keywords: Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC), antimicrobial resistance, Kitale County referral hospitalAfr J Health Sci. 2017; 30(2):105-11

The Eliashberg Function of Amorphous Metals

A connection is proposed between the anomalous thermal transport properties of amorphous solids and the low-frequency behavior of the Eliashberg function. By means of a model calculation we show that the size and frequency dependence of the phonon mean-free-path that has been extracted from measurements of the thermal conductivity in amorphous solids leads to a sizeable linear region in the Eliashberg function at small frequencies. Quantitative comparison with recent experiments gives very good agreement.Comment: 4pp., REVTeX, 1 uuencoded ps fig. Original posting had a corrupted raw ps fig appended. Published as PRB 51, 689 (1995

SINEUPs: A novel toolbox for RNA therapeutics

RNA molecules have emerged as a new class of promising therapeutics to expand the range of druggable targets in the genome. In addition to 'canonical' protein-coding mRNAs, the emerging richness of sense and antisense long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) provides a new reservoir of molecular tools for RNA-based drugs. LncRNAs are composed of modular structural domains with specific activities involving the recruitment of protein cofactors or directly interacting with nucleic acids. A single therapeutic RNA transcript can then be assembled combining domains with defined secondary structures and functions, and antisense sequences specific for the RNA/DNA target of interest. As the first representative molecules of this new pharmacology, we have identified SINEUPs, a new functional class of natural antisense lncRNAs that increase the translation of partially overlapping mRNAs. Their activity is based on the combination of two domains: An embedded mouse inverted SINEB2 element that enhances mRNA translation (effector domain) and an overlapping antisense region that provides specificity for the target sense transcript (binding domain). By genetic engineering, synthetic SINEUPs can potentially target any mRNA of interest increasing translation and therefore the endogenous level of the encoded protein. In this review, we describe the state-of-the-art knowledge of SINEUPs and discuss recent publications showing their potential application in diseases where a physiological increase of endogenous protein expression can be therapeutic

Gut microbial diversity is associated with lower arterial stiffness in women

© The Author(s)2018 All rights reserved. Aims The gut microbiome influences metabolic syndrome (MetS) and inflammation and is therapeutically modifiable. Arterial stiffness is poorly correlated with most traditional risk factors. Our aim was to examine whether gut microbial composition is associated with arterial stiffness.Methods We assessed the correlation between carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), a measure of arterial stiffness, and and results gut microbiome composition in 617 middle-aged women from the TwinsUK cohort with concurrent serum metabolomics data. Pulse wave velocity was negatively correlated with gut microbiome alpha diversity (Shannon index, Beta(SE)= -0.25(0.07), P = 1 10 -4 ) after adjustment for covariates. We identified seven operational taxonomic units associated with PWV after adjusting for covariates and multiple testing—two belonging to the Ruminococcaceae family. Associations between microbe abundances, microbe diversity, and PWV remained significant after adjustment for levels of gut-derived metabolites (indolepropionate, trimethylamine oxide, and phenylacetylglutamine). We linearly combined the PWV-associated gut microbiome-derived variables and found that microbiome factors explained 8.3% (95% confidence interval 4.3–12.4%) of the variance in PWV. A formal mediation analysis revealed that only a small proportion (5.51%) of the total effect of the gut microbiome on PWV was mediated by insulin resistance and visceral fat, c-reactive protein, and cardiovascular risk factors after adjusting for age, body mass index, and mean arterial pressure. Conclusions Gut microbiome diversity is inversely associated with arterial stiffness in women. The effect of gut microbiome composition on PWV is only minimally mediated by MetS. This first human observation linking the gut microbiome to arterial stiffness suggests that targeting the microbiome may be a way to treat arterial ageing

System size and centrality dependence of the balance function in A+A collisions at sqrt[sNN]=17.2 GeV

Electric charge correlations were studied for p+p, C+C, Si+Si, and centrality selected Pb+Pb collisions at sqrt[sNN]=17.2 GeV with the NA49 large acceptance detector at the CERN SPS. In particular, long-range pseudorapidity correlations of oppositely charged particles were measured using the balance function method. The width of the balance function decreases with increasing system size and centrality of the reactions. This decrease could be related to an increasing delay of hadronization in central Pb+Pb collisions

Observation of the Bs0→J/ψϕϕB_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \phi \phi decay

The $B_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \phi \phi$ decay is observed in $pp$ collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb$^{-1}$ recorded by the LHCb detector at centre-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV. This is the first observation of this decay channel, with a statistical significance of 15 standard deviations. The mass of the $B_s^0$ meson is measured to be $5367.08\,\pm \,0.38\,\pm\, 0.15$ MeV/c$^2$. The branching fraction ratio $\mathcal{B}(B_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \phi \phi)/\mathcal{B}(B_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \phi)$ is measured to be 0.0115\,\pm\, 0.0012\, ^{+0.0005}_{-0.0009}. In both cases, the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. No evidence for non-resonant $B_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \phi K^+ K^-$ or $B_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi K^+ K^- K^+ K^-$ decays is found.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-033.htm

Continuous and transparent multimodal authentication: reviewing the state of the art

Individuals, businesses and governments undertake an ever-growing range of activities online and via various Internet-enabled digital devices. Unfortunately, these activities, services, information and devices are the targets of cybercrimes. Verifying the user legitimacy to use/access a digital device or service has become of the utmost importance. Authentication is the frontline countermeasure of ensuring only the authorized user is granted access; however, it has historically suffered from a range of issues related to the security and usability of the approaches. They are also still mostly functioning at the point of entry and those performing sort of re-authentication executing it in an intrusive manner. Thus, it is apparent that a more innovative, convenient and secure user authentication solution is vital. This paper reviews the authentication methods along with the current use of authentication technologies, aiming at developing a current state-of-the-art and identifying the open problems to be tackled and available solutions to be adopted. It also investigates whether these authentication technologies have the capability to fill the gap between high security and user satisfaction. This is followed by a literature review of the existing research on continuous and transparent multimodal authentication. It concludes that providing users with adequate protection and convenience requires innovative robust authentication mechanisms to be utilized in a universal level. Ultimately, a potential federated biometric authentication solution is presented; however it needs to be developed and extensively evaluated, thus operating in a transparent, continuous and user-friendly manner