TORCH Screening Test in Pregnant Women of Kirkuk City

In the course of pregnancy, the developing fetus might have some infections that can be transmit to him transplacentally from his mother. Early identification and treatment of these infections in a neonates is essential. Prenatal caution comprehends a range of tests, involving a TORCH screen test.From the beginning of July till the end of December 2014. 500 blood samples were collected for TORCH screening from pregnant women whom attended virology section in Azadi Teaching Hospital. The TORCH screening was performed using ELISA technique.The result of TORCH screening tests was not differed significantly between year 2013 and 2014, but there was significant differences between the frequency of the microorganisms included in TORCH screening, the highest was for Cytomegalovirus and Rubella with rates of 29.2, 39.1 % and 30.3, 41.8 % for each of the two viruses respectively. Lower frequency was observed for Toxoplasma with rate of 9.5, 8.9 % followed by Herpes simplex virus with a rate of only 1.1, 2.6 %. High rate of mixed infection were between Cytomegalovirus and Rubella. The frequency of chronic infections were significantly higher comparing with acute and subacute cases. The rate of infections was not effected by patients age.Cytomegalovirus, Rubella and Toxoplasma are prevalent among pregnant women in Kirkuk city and probably they are the causative agents of abortion and infertility found among them, therefore it's better for pregnant woman or those planning to become pregnant to be tested for TORCH infections, and vaccinated against Rubella, Cytomegalovirus, Herpes simplex virus and Toxoplasma to grantee her health as well as her baby.

An Experience of Microbiological Data Sharing

Summary Objectives: The control of infections and their resistance to antibiotics in hospitals is a matter of vital importance in the follow-up of transplant patients. This project has the purpose of translating microbiological reports from an obsolete file structure to a system which could guarantee a more correct and quick transmission of data, a system of storage which reduces the possibility of errors, a smoother manipulation, consultation and updating of data and, at least, a simple way to compute the cost of analysis, based on the costs determined by the national’s DRG. Methods: The proposed solution is a semiautomatic interface which translates these data into a relational database on a daily basis, interprets the requests coming from external centers and produces reports. The prospective to use this tool for several centers indicates to us the need to choose an HL7 output for the interface. Results: A prototype version of this program was installed in February 2004. In this period, routine work has been recorded with an average of 6.5 samples per day, with a maximum of 23 samples. Moreover, historical data from 1998 has been translated. The main source of errors in these data was due to patient identification problems with an average occurrence of 4.06% in the virology section and of 4.16% in the microbiological division. Conclusions: A complete reorganization of the system would be desirable but at the moment it is not realistic because of obvious budget problems. The proposed approach, mainly the HL7 interface, seems to be a reasonable compromise.

Detection of enteroviruses in cases of neurological disorders in the State of Pará, Brazil

Eighty-one cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples mainly from cases of aseptic meningitis and motor deficiency syndrome were sent to the Virology Section of Evandro Chagas Institute, Belém Pará, in the period of January 1995 to January 1996 in order to isolate viruses. All samples were inoculated onto HEp-2 cell culture and newborn mice, with negative results. The probability of isolating viruses by these methods is reduced because of the low concentration of viral particles in these specimens. In order to obtain more information about the etiology of these cases, a group of 23 samples were selected to be tested by a more sensitive technique than the virus isolation - the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Specific primers directed to conserved regions in the enterovirus genome were used, considering that this group of viruses is frequently associated with these neurological disorder. The age of the patients ranged from 1 to 55 years and nearly all of them lived in Belém, State of Pará, North of Brazil. Of 15 samples analyzed by RT PCR nine (60%) were positive; of these, 6 (66.6%) had motor deficiency and 3 (33.3%) developed aseptic meningitis. These results show that it is important to investigate enterovirus as cause of these syndromes.