Background: In 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a regional microbiology external quality assessment (EQA) programme for national public health laboratories in the African region, ...initially targeting priority epidemic-prone bacterial diseases, and later including other common bacterial pathogens. Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyse the efficacy of an EQA programme as a laboratory quality system evaluation tool. Methods: We analysed the proficiency of laboratories' performance of bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) for the period 2011-2016. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases of South Africa provided technical coordination following an agreement with WHO, and supplied EQA samples of selected bacterial organisms for microscopy (Gram stain), identification, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). National public health laboratories, as well as laboratories involved in the Invasive Bacterial Diseases Surveillance Network, were enrolled by the WHO Regional Office for Africa to participate in the EQA programme. We analysed participants' results of 41 surveys, which included the following organisms sent as challenges: Streptococcus pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, Salmonella Typhi, Salmonella Enteritidis, Shigella flexneri, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus anginosus, Enterococcus faecium, Serratia marcescens, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Enterobacter cloacae. Results: Eighty-one laboratories from 45 countries participated. Overall, 76% of participants obtained acceptable scores for identification, but a substantial proportion of AST scores were not in the acceptable range. Of 663 assessed AST responses, only 42% had acceptable scores. Conclusion: In the African Region, implementation of diagnostic stewardship in clinical bacteriology is generally suboptimal. This report illustrates that AST is poorly done compared to microscopy and identification. It is critically important to make the case for implementation of quality assurance in AST, as it is the cornerstone of antimicrobial resistance surveillance reporting and implementation of the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System.
Electronic surveillance for antimicrobial resistance was established in 2013 for public sector laboratories and released annually. This article reports susceptibility data on ESKAPE pathogens for ...2016.
The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is a common tool for screening anxiety symptoms. In Malaysia, the Malay-version 21-item BAI has been previously validated in the Malaysian adult population. However, ...information regarding its reliability and validity among adolescents below 18 years old is still lacking. The objective of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Malay-version BAI in this population.
The Malay versions of the BAI and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS) were administered among a sample of lower secondary school students (
= 329, age range: 13-14 years) in Selangor, Malaysia. Cronbach's alpha value for the internal consistency of the Malay-version BAI was determined. The correlation coefficient between the BAI score and DASS anxiety subscale score was calculated to examine convergent validity. The factor structure of the Malay-version BAI was identified by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal axis factoring.
The study included 329 respondents, who were predominantly female (58.7%) and Malay (79.9%). The mean Malay-version BAI score was 14.46 (SD = 12.39). The Malay-version BAI showed a high level of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.948) and convergent validity with the DASS anxiety subscale score (r = 0.80,
< 0.001). The EFA suggested a one-factor solution, with the factor loading of all items on the single factor ranging between 0.48 and 0.81.
The Malay-version BAI demonstrated good psychometric properties. It can be a valid and reliable screening instrument for anxiety among Malaysian adolescents.
We used standardized methodologies to characterize Vibrio cholerae O1 isolates from Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Togo, Côte d'Ivoire and Mozambique. We investigated 257 human ...isolates collected in 2010 to 2013. DRC isolates serotyped O1 Inaba, while isolates from other countries serotyped O1 Ogawa. All isolates were biotype El Tor and positive for cholera toxin. All isolates showed multidrug resistance but lacked ciprofloxacin resistance. Antimicrobial susceptibility profiles of isolates varied between countries. In particular, the susceptibility profile of isolates from Mozambique (East-Africa) included resistance to ceftriaxone and was distinctly different to the susceptibility profiles of isolates from countries located in West- and Central-Africa. Molecular subtyping of isolates using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis showed a complex relationship among isolates. Some PFGE patterns were unique to particular countries and clustered by country; while other PFGE patterns were shared by isolates from multiple countries, indicating that the same genetic lineage is present in multiple countries. Our data add to a better understanding of cholera epidemiology in Africa.
Aim: The relevance of surveillance for antimicrobial resistance is increasingly recognised in the light of a global action plan to combat resistance. This report presents antimicrobial susceptibility ...testing on ESKAPE pathogens from private sector laboratories in South Africa for 2016.Methods: Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) performed on ESKAPE organisms (Enterococcus faecium, Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter cloacae and Escherichia coli) isolated from blood cultures at four private pathology laboratories in 2016 were analysed. Analysis and reporting of data were done via a uniform platform created by the NICD for national AST data.Results: AST were reported on 9 029 ESKAPE organisms including 58% Enterobacteriaceae, 28% Gram-positive bacteria and 14% Gram-negative bacteria and drug-bug combination was performed following the Global Antimicrobial Surveillance System (GLASS) guidelines by the World Health Organization.Conclusions: The most important resistance to address is a high level of ESBL in Enterobacteriaceae, which necessitates the use of carbapenems for treatment. Resistance to carbapenems is recorded in this report but not confirmation of genes by genotypic methods. During this period, no increase in vancomycin-resistant Enterococci was observed.
In this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorod were successfully prepared at different growth times (15, 30 and 60 min) using the microwave irradiation method. The ZnO nanorods were simply synthesized at a ...low temperature (90 °C) with low power microwave assisted heating (about 100 W) and a subsequent ageing process. The synthesized nanorod were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and Ultraviolet–Visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis). The FESEM images showed nanorods with diameter ranging between 50 and 150 nm, and length of 150–550 nm. The XRD results indicate that ZnO nanorods of different time of growth exhibits pure wurtzite structure with lattice parameters of 3.2568 and 5.2125 Å. UV–Vis characterization showed that energy gap decreases with increase in time. The result also shows that growth of ZnO at 60 min produces an energy band gap of 3.15 eV. In general, the results of the study confirm that the microwave irradiation method is a promising low temperature, cheap and fast method for the production of ZnO nanostructures.
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