Challenging Approaches in Combating Streptococcus Pneumonia Infection

Context: Streptococcus pneumoniae [pneumococcus] induces a large variety of the diseases burden such as bacteremia, meningitis, otitis media and pneumonia in human. Among these, the meningitis can be disclosed with long-lost diseases sequelae. Over the last decades, various recommendations and consensus were released to better manage this major respiratory disease.  Evidence Acquisition: However, there is a controversy among the clinicians about the best strategy in dealing with this chronic infection. In brief, using proper antibiotics or conjugate vaccine to battle this bacterium is a critical question for the clinical setting. Results: Taken together, it seems that the best possible adopted strategy is to apply the pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in management due to the following two reasons: 1) reducing the bacterial antibiotic resistance rates and 2) decreasing the prevalence of pneumoniae mortality and morbidity at global scale Conclusion: Conclusively, continuous surveillance surveys determining antibiotic resistance seem inevitable to track pneumococcal genetical variable populations for both successful antibiotic therapy and proper vaccination. &nbsp

Letter to Editor: Requirement of National Organization of Ethics in Research

Recently, Abbasiyan et al. published an interesting paper entitled “Do the Editors-in-Chief of Iranian Medical Journals have a Good Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Plagiarism?”, addressing the ethical disputes occurred in last years in the Iranian research atmosphere [1]. In this study, authors nicely discussed the recent reports and flagged a critical suggestion for research decision-makers in Iran. Enjoo published a letter indicating on urgent need to have a new organization for having better situation [2]. Meantime, I think that newer policy help this idea before it can be widely referred. At first glance, there is an agreement that the current ethical administrative structure conducted by health ministry is basically well-structured. However, we expect this committee would possibly reduce the chance of the act of scientific misconducts. Though, I do not believe that current designed structure can be resulted in preventing the act of ethical misbehavior. From scientific point of view, it is long that everyone acknowledged that the scientific journals retract papers due to the various types of flaws include falsification, duplication, data manipulation and fabrication. The journal publishes a notice indicating a report of retraction, but it clearly sends a message that editors/reviewers (as a main scientific judge) are not efficiently involved in the review process [3, 4]. This is a neglected part of scientific publishing which always is far from the intense attention. Given new structure of ethical organization as termed ‘’ National Organization of Ethics in Research ‘’, training the editors and reviewers should be in the first priority. To now, researchers never got the credit or scores for their reviewing activities. Being ranked in the top list of the best accredited reviewers is a suggestion for science stakeholders to choose the best reviewers for national journals at least being a permanent member of editorial board. With this regard, Publons suggests the potential candidates to the senior editors in order to primary check the reviewers to be a member of editorial boards or blind reviewer process [5, 6]. The dark side of ethical issue is that we may not face with a real scientific researcher who commit such submissions or actually fraud! Indeed, it can raise another message that no specific education had been obliged for young researchers before they achieve the further promotions. Altogether, it can be concluded that asking independent advisors in design and develop this structure ‘’ National Organization of Ethics in Research ‘’ (NOER)is the most crucial step to have a new organization with scientific structure arranging and directing the such educations and ethical surveys for even senior professors in the national scale. Given the independency of NOER and independent advisors with proper background can help both ii) Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology to effectively prevent such bad news published in Nature and Science [7, 8]

Implementation of Epidemic Restrictions to Disrupt the COVID-19 Pandemic in Iran: A Mini-Review

The number of cases infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes COVID-19, has been steadily rising globally. Iran, one of the countries with a relatively high number of positive cases, has an inevitable role to play in controlling the pandemic by implementing effective policies and countermeasures to interrupt the viral transmission chain. Epidemic restrictions implemented following an Iranian presidential mandate were especially effective following the Nowruz holidays—the solar New Year celebration in the Persian-speaking culture. These restrictions started flattening the incidence curve of the epidemic in Iran two weeks after implementation, from 10 April 2020. Supplying sufficient face masks, disinfectants, sanitizers, and medical equipment to all government-run and non-for-profit hospitals were included in the presidential mandate. We believe that continuing this policy strictly will be required for further controlling the pandemic throughout the country. *Corresponding Author: Amin Talebi Bezmin Abadi; Email: [email protected] Please cite this article as: Talebi Bezmin Abadi A, Rahimi F. Implementation of Epidemic Restrictions to Disrupt the COVID-19 Pandemic in Iran: A Mini-Review. Arch Med Lab Sci. 2020;6:e11. https://doi.org/10.22037/amls.v6.3296

Colonization by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus of Antral Biopsy Specimens from Gastritis Patients Uninfected with Helicobacter Pylori

Purpose: Roles and incidence of some microorganisms that transiently or permanently colonize the human stomach are still unknown despite advances in gastroenterology. We aimed to examine the incidence of four microorganisms, Helicobacter pylori, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus epidermidis, in the antral biopsy specimens of patients with gastroduodenal conditions. Patients and Methods: Patients (67 females, 33 males; mean age = 49.5 years) were initially examined and diagnosed by a gastroenterologist at the Mehrad Hospital, Tehran, Iran. We enrolled those who underwent the upper gastrointestinal endoscopy because of gastroduodenal conditions. Two antral biopsy samples were taken by endoscopy; the first sample was used for the “rapid urease test” to confirm H. pylori. The second was used for DNA extraction and PCR analyses with specific, corresponding primer sets to establish the presence of the four microorganisms. Our study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran. Results: Based on pathology and endoscopy findings, we divided the patients into three groups: 62 presented with gastritis, 18 with duodenal ulcer, and 20 gastric ulcer. The number of patients with P. aeruginosa but without H. pylorisignificantly differed from the number of those co-infected with both microorganisms (P = 0.03). Additionally, a similar significance was found between the incidence of S. aureus in patients without H. pylori and those with both infections (P = 0.04). Our results indicated that a significant number of patients with gastritis were colonized with P. aeruginosa or S. aureus without being co-infected with H. pylori (P < 0.001). Interestingly, the incidence of colonization by P. aeruginosa of patients without H. pylori (45/49, 91.8%) was higher than that by S. aureus (28/49, 57%). Conclusion: The number of patients without H. pylori but with P. aeruginosa or with S. aureus infection significantly differed from that with both infections, respectively. Our study thus shows that patients without H. pylori infection are prone to be colonized by P. aeruginosa or S. aureus, indicating that targeted antibiotic regimens are necessary for clinically treating themThe authors would thank the research deputy of Tarbiat Modares University, Iran for financially supporting this project