The concept of disease eradication emerged as recently as the mid-20th century. The successful eradication of smallpox resulted in the concept of the extinction of the causative agent in man as well as in the environment, leading to the cessation of all control measures including vaccination. Subsequently, world resources have been invested in global polio eradication and measles eradication in the Western Hemisphere. The former is apparently now at the “end game”, the latter, after successful campaign in the Americas, aims at program development worldwide. However, both endeavors are being challenged by delays in schedules, unexpected technical problems, lack of global coordination, and ever-increasing political unrest. It is proposed that disease eradication be redefined as the extinction of the pathogen in man, not in nature, making for a more flexible approach in the post-eradication period. Smallpox eradication was a rare event. That concept is unrealistic in today’s world.

We report a 4-year-old girl with disseminated cystic echinococcosis in the lung and the liver and a solitary cyst in the left kidney. Mebendazole therapy produced complete resolution of the lung and kidney cysts. In the liver, most of the smaller cysts disappeared, whereas the larger cysts showed only partial response and required surgical excision. Our experience reinforce the finding in previous reports that long term medical treatment of cystic echinococcosis with mebendazole can be lifesaving in cases that are unmanageable by surgical treatment.

The aim of this study was to assess immunity levels against tetanus in the areas of 26 health centers in Samsun, Antalya, and Diyarbakir in Turkey in 2000 - 2001. The study group consisted of 2,465 healthy subjects aged 6 months old or above, randomly selected from each age group in the area. Of these, a total of 2,094 (85.0%) serum samples were assayed for tetanus antibody; 716 were from Antalya, 706 were from Diyarbakir, and 672 were from Samsun. The surveys were implemented in three steps: physical examination, interview, and blood collection. ELISA-in-house was used as a screening procedure and a particle agglutination test was used to reassess antibody titers of 1.0 IU/ml or below. It was revealed that 73.5% subjects had the full protection level (≥0.1 IU/ml) of antibody in Antalya, 59.9% in Diyarbakir, and 75.0% in Samsun, indicating that protection against tetanus was significantly lower in Diyarbakir than in Antalya and Samsun. The results also showed that the percentage of protective levels decreased with increasing age in three provinces and was higher in rural areas than urban areas in Diyarbakir. The study indicates that the immunity levels against tetanus can be considered as satisfactory among children and adolescents but that it is necessary to increase immunity against tetanus among adults through effective vaccination of pregnant women and those in military service and also among people older than 40 years of age.

The aim of present study was to evaluate the occurrence of Chlamydia trachomatis, Mycoplasma hominis, and Ureaplasma urealyticum in non-gonococcal urethritis (NGU) and to determine the bacterial resistance to six antibiotics in order to determine the most suitable treatment strategy. A total of 50 patients were enrolled into the study. Urethral samples were taken with a dacron swab placed into urethra 2 - 3 cm in males, and vaginal samples were taken from the endocervical region in women. The patient samples that did not grow Neisseria gonorrhoeae were accepted as NGU. Direct immunofluorescence technique was used for the investigation of C. trachomatis. Mycoplasma IST was used for the isolation of M. hominis and U. urealyticum. U. urealyticum was isolated from 24 patients. Thirteen of them had only U. urealyticum, and the rest had mixed pathogen organisms (7 U. urealyticum + M. hominis; 3 U. urealyticum + C. trachomatis, and 1 U. urealyticum + M. hominis + C. trachomatis). C. trachomatis was detected in 12 patients. While 8 patients had C. trachomatis only, the rest had a mixture of the pathogen organisms listed above. Partner examinations could be performed for only 22 patients’ partners. In the evaluation of antibiotic susceptibility, higher resistance was obtained against ofloxacin in U. urealyticum, and against erythromycin with M. hominis. Our results indicated that doxycycline or ofloxacin should be the first choice when empirical treatment is necessary.

Staphylococcus aureus isolates in 2001 from the nose and the throat of an adult population were characterized for their incidence and type. The incidence was 51%, present in 80 out of 157 individuals examined, consisting of 34 nasal carriers, 24 throat carriers, and 22 who carried the isolates in both the nose and throat. Among these isolates, 2 and 5 from the nose and the throat, respectively, were identified as methicillin-resistant S. aureus. S. aureus from the nose and throat of the same individuals were characterized for identification. Examination of their phenotypes revealed that in 11 individuals the clone of S. aureus in the throat was different from the nasal clone. These results suggested that staphylococcal flora in the nose and the throat were independently formed, and that attention should also be directed to the carriers of S. aureus in the throat for the control of nosocomial infection.

MEP3 of Microsporum canis encodes a 43.5 kDa extracellular keratinolytic metalloprotease, which is thought to be one of the virulence-related factors in dermatophytosis. In order to analyze the system underlying the regulation of MEP3 gene expression, the 5´-upstream region was isolated by inverse PCR. The nucleotide sequence of a DNA fragment of about 2.1 kb containing the coding region contains putative transcription factor binding sites and transcriptional initiation points. Further analyses of the regulatory sequence may be useful for understanding the molecular basis of the coordinated expression of the various genes involved in dermatophytosis.

Bacillus anthracis is considered to be one of the most potent biological weapons because of its highly pathogenic nature and efficiency of transmission. Routinely, a presumptive diagnosis of anthrax is achieved if the bands with predicted sizes are detected after the PCR targeted to the pag and cap genes residing on pXO1 and pXO2 plasmids, respectively. A positive control DNA prepared from the standard strains of B. anthracis (PAI and PAII) is usually included in the PCR tests. The handling of living B. anthracis, however, requires physical containment. The inclusion of DNA from B. anthracis as a positive control in the PCR test also has a potential risk of cross contamination that may confuse the results. In order to circumvent such problems, we attempted to construct a recombinant plasmid harboring the fragments of the pag and cap genes that could be distinguished from authentic sequences by the presence the restriction-enzyme site, the EcoRV site for the pag gene and the BamHI site for the cap gene, respectively, which were newly introduced. The strategy reported here provides a safe and reproducible positive-control DNA template. It also allows the detection of possible cross contamination, indicating that this strategy would be useful and convenient for the molecular identification of not only B. anthracis but also other highly pathogenic microbes.