Update! Microbe Meetup, Can you Dig it??

For the original post check here: http://thepetridishmicrobe.blogspot.com/2009/06/microbe-meetup-can-you-dig-it.html

Update: Ok so we have a GNCB oxidase neg, cat pos, with some bpolar staining and raised colonies associated with an appendectomy that does not present as an enteric pathogen. I have heard screams of setting up an API 20NE, but unfortunately came out with low selectivity! So I will help out of course we were going to set up a urea slant, TSI, simmons citrate, and motility here is what we got:

TSI: Acid over acid with no gas, and no h2s
Urea: Positive
Simmons: Negative
Motility: Non Motile

So far I have heard salmonella, shigella, but the gram stain would rule that out, and someone else emailed me with: The gram stain looks like a Y.pestis and the adentitis would be in line with that, however not really an enteric like pathogen.....hmmm sounds interesting, just for that maybe we will incubate everything at 25c to see what might come, you never know with these crazy bugs, check back tommorow for the results.

Acinetobacter, that's a quite a neato bacteria

Acinetobacter baumannii is a strictly aerobic, gram-negative coccobacillus that is oxidase negative, non-motile, and non-fermentative. This organism has a high capacity for survival on environmental surfaces, and has an ability to acquire antimicrobial resistance makes it an increased concern for nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections. It has been an increasingly hot button issue as it has become known to some nurses, soldiers, and microbiologists as Iraqnobacter due to its spread throughout the military hospitals. Many times soldiers have survived hellacious trauma on the battlefield only to succumb to even more damage by an organism that has picked up antimicrobial resistance factors to the drugs primarily associated with treating them almost impossible. Many (11%) of the A.baumannii isolates submitted to the CDC have been resistant to all carbapenems (by using a carbapenemases like CfiA, IMI-1etc.), which is the last line of antimicrobial therapy available to treat these organisms. Bob Woodruff, the reporter from ABC, famously contracted an MDR A.baumannii infection after surviving the attack on his unit.
Generally Acinetobacter baumannii does not cause infection, but in a hospital or other setting can enter into the body through open wounds, catheters, and breathing tubes and can cause an infection and depending on resistance patterns and overall patient health can lead to death. Health care and hospital workers can become colonized, however, colonization poses no threat to people who aren't already ill (card carrying microbiologists like me are a regular germ lab) but colonized health care workers and hospital visitors can carry the bacteria into neighboring wards and other medical facilities.
One of the best ways to handle Acinetobacter baumannii is to have an effective infection control policy, hand washing, effective equipment decon, and even a fecal surveillance program are good ways to control the spread of this bug. There are even new, effective ways of controlling the way the infection spreads to new patients like the one in this article: http://www.asm.org/microbe/index.asp?bid=64917. The article talks about taking a compound called hCAP – 18 that is normally produced by skin and acts as an antimicrobial peptide and placing it inside of wounds to see a significant drop of infectious organisms inside of wounds. Novel technologies like this are critical for passing into the next phase of microbiology where we are seeing increasing resistance to the drugs that have once worked.

Microbe Meetup Can You Dig It?

A 12 year old child has been admitted to the ER with severe stomach pain, diarrhea, right side pain, fever, and slight adentitis. The doctors diagnosed with an appendicitis, and proceeded to remove the appendix of the patient. However, 48 hours after the surgery the patient's symptoms still had not subsided the blood cultures, and cultured appendix from the surgery still had not yielded results, and the stool cultures had no yield in terms of enteric pathogens. After 72 hours there was light to medium growth on Blood agar, chocolate agar, and maconkey agar, the colonies are non hemolytic, white, and look like a bulls eye on blood agar, and non-lactose fermenters on maconkey. The gram stain produces gram negative cocco bacilli with some stain retention at the polar ends of the organisms.

They are catalase positive, and oxidase negative.

Where do we go from here? Shout out some steps I will accept the top 3 suitable ones and give you a result in the incubator by wednesday (it is a slow growing organism, I swear I am not lazy!) But remember the famous quote "the devil is in the details!"

Summertime and the livin's easy part deux! Roundup

Another week, another batch of recalls due to E.coli O157:H7 you can check out the CDC report here: http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2009/0625.html

At the bottom it gives some information that may look familiar to some of you who read my first post in relation to the Nestle' outbreak its here: http://thepetridishmicrobe.blogspot.com/2009/06/summertime-and-livins-easy.html

You can keep coming back to find your updates on 0157 here and check back a little later for an expanded discussion on not only E.coli O157, but also the Shiga toxin producing E.coli's that cause similar disease.

Updated Quick Microbe Meetup

Update to this original post: http://thepetridishmicrobe.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-this-quick-microbe-meetup.html

Check it out so you can get the skinny on the question before you see the answer!


Result: Upon careful examination of the gram stain you will see Gram negative diplococci that are kidney bean shaped, strongly indicative of the organism Neisseria meningitidis. Neisseria meningitidis usually appears as Gram (-) diplococci that sometimes may display considerable size variation, resist decolorization, and a distinct pink halo around the cells. The physician should be notified immediately so the antibiotic care can be administered.
After 18 to 24 hours the culture should be ready and growth on chocolate agar shows colonies that are generally larger than other gonococcal species, usually attaining a diameter of 1mm or more. Colonies are also low and convex, with a smooth, moist entire edge and a glistening surface. Sheep’s blood may present some alpha hemolysis and are grey, heavily encapsulated strains appear mucoid and are oxidase positive. N.meningitidis can be identified by acid production tests or by chromogeneic enzyme substrate tests. It acidifies glucose and maltose, but not sucrose fructose, or lactose. Serotyping is generally done to obtain epidemiological data on the organism and is done through a simple slide agglutination, also PCR, PFGE, and DNA fingerprinting.
All in all, N.meningitidis is an extremely pathogenic organism that can cause rapid death so stat diagnosis is key.

More saturday coffee! Bot Fly larvae video

If you are squemish dont watch this, and it has some language, but when you see the things, you will understand!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23eimVLAQ2c

Dont dry your swimsuit in the sun in Kenya!

Check out this really gross story about a traveler who gets the nasty little tumbu fly larvae in her skin!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1193233/A-bikini-bug-ate-alive--The-horrifying-story-happened-woman-left-swimwear-dry-sun.html