Highlights from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology July 1997
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RECENTLY IDENTIFIED BACTERIUM CAUSES DISEASE
Scientists at the Fairfield Hospital in Australia and the VA Medical Center in Pittsburgh report what they believe to be the second case ever of illness caused by a recently discovered bacterium. The study appears in the July 1997 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
The report describes the case of 75-year-old Australian man who came to the hospital after 3 days of fever, chills, sweats, lethargy and anorexia. An initial treatment with antibiotics did not improve his condition, but after changing the antibiotics his condition improved and he recovered. Laboratory tests indicated that the organism that caused his fever was a recently described bacterium known as Desulfovibrio fairfieldensis.
Desulfovibrio bacteria are commonly found in nature and can be isolated from most water and soil types. They are anaerobic, meaning they can only grow in the absence of oxygen. Only five cases of human infection by Desulfovibrio have ever been described and this case represents only the second by this species.
"Laboratories need to be aware of the anaerobic, motile, vibrioid-like organisms, in particular Desulfovibrio species, as rare causes of human disease," say the researchers. (R. McDougall, J. Robson, D. Paterson, and W. Tee. 1997. Bacteremia caused by a recently described novel Desulfovibrio species. Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 35:1805-1808.)
FIRST REPORT OF LEGIONELLA SPECIES IN HUMAN DISEASE
A bacterium from the Legionella family, not previously associated with human disease, has been identified as the cause of pneumonia in a woman in France. Researchers from the Hopital Paul Brousse in Villejuif, France, report this first case in the July 1997 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
The researchers report on a 34-year-old woman who, 4 weeks after a liver transplant, developed severe pneumonia. She suffered neurological deterioration and eventually went into a coma. After several weeks of various antibiotic treatments and a second liver transplant, she recovered.
The cause of her pneumonia was found to be the bacterium Legionella parisiensis. This bacterium was first identified in a cooling tower in Paris in 1985 and since then no further isolations of this organism have been reported until this case. The family Legionellaceae comprises 42 species among which 18 have been isolated from patients with pneumonia. The most well known species is Legionella pneumophila, the cause of Legionnaire's disease, which accounts for nearly 90% of Legionella infections. (F.L. Presti, S. Riffard, F. Vandenesch, M. Reyrolle, E. Ronco, P. Ichai, and J. Etienne. 1997. The first clinical isolate of Legionella parisiensis from a liver transplant patient with pneumonia. Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 35:1706-1709.)
TESTING ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE IN THE 50's
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are not solely a phenomenon of the 1990s, but have been around at least since the 1950's. Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio report on the results of a study of over 200 streptococci isolated from patients in Washington, D.C. in 1950's. Their results appear in the July 1997 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
The 220 samples tested in this study were all group D streptococci obtained between 1953 and 1954 from Georgetown University Hospital, the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center Hospital or outpatient and referral services. More than half of the isolates tested expressed high-level resistance to streptomycin and nearly 60 percent were resistant to tetracycline. None of the samples showed resistance to ampicillin, vancomycin or gentamicin.
All totaled, 79 percent of the hospital isolates and 33 percent of the isolates from outpatients showed resistance to at least one of the antibiotics tested. Multiple-drug-resistance patterns were observed, with resistance to streptomycin, tetracycline and minocycline being the most common. (B. Atkinson, A. Abu-Al-Jaiba, and D. J. LeBlanc. 1997. Antibiotic resistance among enterococci isolated from clinical specimens between 1953 and 1954. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 41:1598-1600.)
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