Biruck Yeshitela

Background: Dengue fever is an arthropod vector-borne disease transmitted to humans by infected Aedes mosquitoes. Ethiopia has a favorable ecology for arthropods and report high burden of acute febrile illnesses. However, the contribution of arboviral infections to the burden of acute febrile illnesses is barely known. In this study the seropositivity to dengue virus infection and associated risk factors were assessed in Arba Minch districts, southern Ethiopia. Methods: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted in a consecutive group of 529 acute febrile patients between May to August 2016. Socio-demographic data, residence place and clinical signs and symptoms were collected using structured questionnaires. Sera were tested for anti-dengue IgG and IgM using Euroimmune indirect immunofluorescent assay. Data analysis was done using SPSS V-20 (IBM Corp, 2012). P-value < 0.05 was taken as statistically significant. Result: Seropositivity was 25.1% (133/529) and 8.1% (43/529) for anti- IgG and IgM respectively. Conclusion: The high IgM prevalence detected indicate the probability of active transmission with a potential of public health significance that calls for a proactive follow up of the communities in the study area to forecast and avert the risk.

Melioidosis is an often fatal infectious disease with a protean clinical spectrum, caused by the environmental bacterial pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei. Although the disease has been reported from some African countries in the past, the present epidemiology of melioidosis in Africa is almost entirely unknown. Therefore, the common view that melioidosis is rare in Africa is not evidence-based. A recent study concludes that large parts of Africa are environmentally suitable for B. pseudomallei. Twenty-four African countries and three countries in the Middle East were predicted to be endemic, but no cases of melioidosis have been reported yet. In this study, we summarize the present fragmentary knowledge on human and animal melioidosis and environmental B. pseudomallei in Africa and the Middle East. We propose that systematic serological studies in man and animals together with environmental investigations on potential B. pseudomallei habitats are needed to identify risk areas for melioidosis. This information can subsequently be used to target raising clinical awareness and the implementation of simple laboratory algorithms for the isolation of B. pseudomallei from clinical specimens. B. pseudomallei was most likely transferred from Asia to the Americas via Africa, which is shown by phylogenetic analyses. More data on the virulence and genomic characteristics of African B. pseudomallei isolates will contribute to a better understanding of the global evolution of the pathogen and will also help to assess potential differences in disease prevalence and outcome.

This study was done to determine the prevalence and phenotypic characterization of Enterococcus species isolated from clinical samples of pediatric patients in Jimma University Specialized Hospital, Southwest Ethiopia. The overall prevalence of Enterococci species was 5.5% (22/403). Five (22.7%) of Enterococci species were vancomycin resistant. Haemolysin, gelatinase and biofilm production was seen among 45.5, 68.2 and 77.3% of isolates respectively. The overall rate of antibiotic resistance was 95.5% (21/22). High resistance was observed against norfloxacin (87.5%), and tetracycline (77.3%). Whereas, low resistance (36.5%) was observed against ciprofloxacin and eighteen (80.8%) of the isolates were multi-drug resistant.

Urinary tract infections are some of the most common bacterial diseases both in general population and amongst HIV infected patients. It is important to define the prevalence and drug susceptibility pattern of bacteriuria among HIV patients in Ethiopia and especially in Addis Ababa, because of the information scarcity about bacteriuria in HIV patients in our region. A cross sectional study was conducted in ALERT Center; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; from 2014 to 2015 among 165 adult HIV patients. Midstream urine was collected with sterile wide-mouthed urine cups. Samples were inoculated to Cysteine lactose electrolyte deficient, Blood agar and MacConkey accordingly and biochemical tests performed to identify the isolates. Drug susceptibility pattern of isolates were determined using the disk diffusion techniques. Data analyzed using SPSS version-20 software package. Chi-square test was used to see the association between the outcome variable and independent and the strength of the association was identified using odds ratio in the binary logistic regression. Female study participants showed at least three times more likely to have bacteriuria (AOR=3.25, 95% CI= 0.98-10.79) than the male. Subsequent multivariate analysis CD4 value less than 200 cells/mm3 (p=0.02) retained its significance association. Presence of dysuria was almost three times (AOR=2.87; 95% CI=0.84-9.79) and previous history of UTI at least two times (AOR=2.38; 95%=0.73-7.72) more likely to have bacteriuria than absence of them. The isolated bacteria were E. coli (38.5%), followed by S. aureus (30.8%), P. mirabilis (11.5%), S. epidermidis (11.5%) and S. saprophyticus (7.7%). Bacterial isolates in the current study were most sensitive to ceftriaxone (100%), nitrofurantoin (88.46%), gentamicin (84.62%) and ceftazidime (84.62%) while resistant to ampicillin (84.62%), tetracycline (92.31%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (88.46%). The occurrence of bacteriuria and susceptibility pattern of the antibiotics in the current study was comparable to other studies in HIV patients. The identified bacteria were reported by other authors as UTI causative agents in HIV patients. Still, bacteriuria in HIV patients needs more consideration for better management and preventing drug resistance.