R A Adegbola

..More clarity comes from this comparative analysis of seven complete sequences of the ICEHin1056 genomic island subfamily...

..We aimed to study health-seeking behaviour and experience of those with cough in The Gambia and to identify whether they had tuberculosis...

..We aimed to identify risk factors for pulmonary tuberculosis in those attending a general outpatients clinic in The Gambia, a sub-Saharan African country with relatively low HIV prevalence in the community and in TB patients...

..This study compares the molecular epidemiology of S. pneumoniae serotype 1 causing invasive disease in The Gambia between 1996 and 2005 to those carried in the nasopharynx between 2004 and 2006...

..We hypothesized that TB patients in The Gambia would have reduced ELISPOT counts after successful treatment...

..The study describes the molecular epidemiology of Streptococcus pneumoniae causing invasive disease in Gambian children..

..M. africanum causes up to half of TB in West- Africa and its relatively lower progression to disease suggests the presence of a large reservoir of latent infection relative to M. tuberculosis...

..We compared the diagnostic performance of an in-house T -cell and commercial whole blood-based IGRAs for the diagnosis of LTBI and TB disease in The Gambia...

..Few studies on bacteraemia in Africa have been published. We aimed to prospectively identify the causative organisms of bacteraemia in The Gambia and their relation to clinical diagnoses, outcome and antimicrobial susceptibility...

..eBURST analysis revealed that isolates from the two episodes of meningitis belonged to hypervirulent ST63 and ST3321 clonal complexes respectively...

..To describe the characteristics of pneumococcal isolates obtained from patients with invasive pneumococcal disease in The Gambia...

..We investigated the effectiveness of the vaccine when delivered through the expanded programme on immunisation and the effect of national immunisation on incidence of Hib disease...

..tuberculosis had previously been treated for tuberculosis. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is, as yet, not common in The Gambia. Periodic surveys for drug-resistant tuberculosis are recommended to monitor changes that may emerge over time...

..There is, however, considerable scope to improve the use of the cheaper techniques, and so facilitate the development and implementation of effective control measures...

..001). Hib carriage varied by year among nonvaccinated children. Hib conjugate vaccines are likely to produce a herd protective effect in underdeveloped communities, as recorded in Europe and the United States...

..3 microg/ml (95% CI: 1.0, 5.0). The PCV-9 studied was immunogenic in a Gambian population where it was also found to be efficacious...

..Unrelenting high morbidity and mortality have mandated that immunogenic vaccines be used to combat pneumococcal disease in infants...

..While these findings do not reveal the role, beneficial or harmful, of T(regs) in TB, they emphasize the probable importance of these cells...

..A tuberculosis (TB) case contact study in the Gambia...

..006). The mean and median values of haematological parameters in The Gambia are similar to other standards but the 90% reference range for each parameter encompasses lower values when compared with Western standards...

..Lung aspiration is currently the most sensitive method for diagnosing pneumonia in children. With appropriate training and precautions it can be safely used for routine diagnosis in suitable referral hospitals...

..To describe the pattern of tuberculosis (TB) occurrence in Greater Banjul, The Gambia with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Spatial Scan Statistics (SaTScan) and to determine whether there is significant TB case clustering...

..This case illustrates the possible utility of quantitative changes in the ELISPOT count in predicting progression from M. tuberculosis infection to disease...

..To understand the pattern of immune responses to pneumococcal proteins during invasive disease as a guide to their development as vaccine candidates...

..Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines should be made available to African infants...

..The study described in this paper was conducted to determine the bacterial and viral etiology of serious infections in Gambian infants younger than 91 days old...

..The positive predictive value for carriage was 96%, and the negative predictive value was 22%. The test is not useful for predicting etiology of disease in populations with a high rate of nasopharyngeal carriage of pneumococci...

..A respiratory rate of > or = 50 breaths/min in children with radiological evidence of lobar pneumonia would support lung aspiration as a positive result is significantly more likely than in children with a lower respiratory rate...

..A cut-off of 9-13 mm for the PPD skin test is reasonable when comparing with the ELISPOT...

..78, 95% CI 0.63-0.98). Our findings support previous data showing that VDR SNPs modulate the risk for TB in West Africans and suggest that variation within DC-SIGN and PTX3 also affect the disease outcome...

..These findings indicate that the uptake of long-chain fatty acids and TAG biosynthetic and degradative pathways are important aspects of mycobacterial lipid metabolism, meriting further investigation...

..We conclude that BCG is immunogenic, but this effector response is short-lived and can be limited in higher pre-existing anti-mycobacterial immunity, suggesting a possible threshold beyond which BCG immunogenicity is inhibited...

..In breast-feeding populations, maternal vaccination might prevent pneumococcal disease in young infants...

..This may reflect early signs of reactivation, reinfection, or a restricted, inefficient immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis...

..The concentrators broke down and were put into storage. A case study was done to find the reasons for the problem and to draw lessons to help improve both oxygen supplies and the success of future equipment donations...

..To prepare for national introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine of restricted valency, we studied nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Gambian infants...

..To determine the value of C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin in the evaluation of the efficacy of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in Gambian children...

..Improvements in diagnostics are needed, and will be important not only for sick individuals but also for populations, where better measures of disease burden will contribute significantly to the improvement of public health policy...

..A preliminary observation that Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells contain triacylglycerol lipid bodies in sputum, but not when growing in vitro, led us to investigate the extent of this phenomenon and its physiological basis...

..HIV-2 has been associated with less immune suppression, slower disease progression and longer survival...

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..ESAT-6/CFP-10 ELISPOT probably offers increased specificity in the diagnosis of M. tuberculosis infection in this tropical setting of endemicity, at the cost of some sensitivity...

..There is considerable variability in the outcome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We hypothesized that Mycobacterium africanum was less likely than M. tuberculosis to transmit and progress to tuberculosis disease...

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..S. Dingiri, which possesses an antigenic formula of 17:z:1,6, was sensitive to ampicillin, cefotaxime, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole and tetracycline but resistant to gentamicin, and was ST338...

..Little is known about the role of Chlamydia pneumoniae in the aetiology of acute respiratory tract infections (ARI) in children in developing countries...

..Mycobacterium africanum, a member of the M. tuberculosis complex that is infrequently found outside of western Africa, is the cause of up to half of the tuberculosis cases there...

..Trachoma is the leading infectious cause of blindness. However, there are few data on the natural history of trachomatous trichiasis to guide program planning or that investigate its pathogenesis...

..These issues are highly relevant to early clinical trials with all new tuberculosis vaccines in the developing world...

..To prepare for the introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine of restricted valency, we studied the nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Gambian villagers...

..007). A fusion protein of ESAT-6 and CFP-10 is equivalent to overlapping peptides for the diagnosis of latent M. tuberculosis infection. Use of a combination of peptides and fusion protein offers improved sensitivity...

..These individuals are a high-risk group, and the disease identified is less advanced than that found through passive case detection. An ELISPOT assay was relatively insensitive as a screening test for TB...

..This finding offers new possibilities for assessment of the efficacy of new interventions, and adjustment should be made for it when relating the early immune response to progression to disease...

..To address this deficiency, we conducted a longitudinal assessment of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot test (ELISPOT) test in comparison to the standard tuberculin skin test (TST)...

..To compare the enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay with the tuberculin skin test (TST) in children for the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in the Gambia...

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..This study was undertaken to investigate whether trachomatous trichiasis or conjunctival scarring are associated with increased prevalence of bacterial infection...

..tuberculosis and the human host and for assessing new interventions and diagnostic tests. We aimed to identify the incidence rate of new TB cases among TB contacts and to relate this to their initial Mantoux and ELISPOT test results...

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..Apparent differences between African-American and Caucasian-American H. pylori gene pools may bear on our understanding of H. pylori transmission and disease outcome...

..pylori colonization in West Africa differ from those seen in industrialized nations, and enable the development of appropriate treatment strategies for communities such as The Gambia. ..