Respiratory tract infections

The spread of upper respiratory tract (URT) infections harms people's health and causes social burdens. Developing targeted treatment strategies for URT infections that exhibit good biocompatibility, stability, and strong antimicrobial effects remains challenging. The dual antimicrobial and antiviral effects of iodine (I2 ) in combination with the cooling sensation of l-menthol in the respiratory tract can simultaneously alleviate URT inflammation symptoms. However, as both I2 and l-menthol are volatile, addressing stability issues is crucial...

BACKGROUND: Arbaeen in Iraq has been one of the largest mass gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic with 14.5 million attendees in 2020. We set out to assess the prevalence of current or past COVID-19 among 2020 Arbaeen participants, and establish associations between COVID-19 test results, symptoms, and known recent exposure. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study involving participants who joined Arbaeen walk in Iraq in October 2020. COVID-19 PCR and/or rapid antibody test were conducted among consented participants...

UNLABELLED: Recent case reports and epidemiological data suggest that fungal infections represent an underappreciated complication among people with severe COVID-19. However, the frequency of fungal colonization in patients with COVID-19 and associations with specific immune responses in the airways remain incompletely defined. We previously generated a single-cell RNA-sequencing data set characterizing the upper respiratory microenvironment during COVID-19 and mapped the relationship between disease severity and the local behavior of nasal epithelial cells and infiltrating immune cells...

Veterinary hospitals house patient populations with diverse infectious statuses, microbiota, and histories of prior antibiotic therapy. Choanal swabs are commonly used for assessing the upper respiratory tract of birds for bacterial disease, with the samples submitted for cytologic testing and/or culture and antimicrobial sensitivity testing. The aim of this retrospective study was to identify and quantify bacteria isolated from choanal swabs collected from psittacine patients at a veterinary teaching hospital in Mexico City, Mexico...

BACKGROUND: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is one of the most common oral mucosal diseases, exhibiting a higher prevalence in women than men, but its pathogenesis is still unclear. Current research suggests that microbial dysbiosis may play an important role in the pathogenesis of OLP. Our previous research has found that the increase of Prevotella melaninogenica and decrease of Streptococcus salivarius have been identified as a potential pathogenic factor in OLP. Consequently, the objective of this study is to examine whether S...

Objective. Commonly recommended drugs for adults and children include proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), proven effective for treating peptic diseases like stomach ulcers, GERD, and Helicobacter pylori infections in children over 1-year-old. Yet, prolonged PPI use carries higher risks of adverse reactions, prompting this study's analysis. Methods. We have performed a systematic review of 30 articles, which include a total of 762 505 pediatric patients. Results. Adverse effects were encountered in 6.98% of the population...

Human respiratory viruses have an enormous impact on national health systems, societies, and economy due to the rapid airborne transmission and epidemic spread of such pathogens, while effective specific antiviral drugs to counteract infections are still lacking. Here, we identified two Keggin-type polyoxometalates (POMs), [TiW11 CoO40 ]8- (TiW11 Co) and [Ti2 PW10 O40 ]7- (Ti2 PW10 ), endowed with broad-spectrum activity against enveloped and non-enveloped human respiratory viruses, i.e., coronavirus (HCoV-OC43), rhinovirus (HRV-A1), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV-A2), and adenovirus (AdV-5)...

BACKGROUND: Prevotella heparinolytica is a Gram-negative bacterium that is commonly found in the oral, intestinal, and urinary tracts. It has been extensively studied in lower respiratory tract infections in horses, which has heparinolytic activity and can secrete heparinase and further induces virulence factors in cells and causes disease. However, no such cases have been reported in humans. CASE PRESENTATION: A 58-year-old male patient from China presented to the respiratory clinic in Suzhou with a productive cough producing white sputum for 20 days and fever for 3 days...

Early and differential diagnosis of sepsis is essential to avoid unnecessary antibiotic use and further reduce patient morbidity and mortality. Here, we aimed to identify predictors of sepsis and advance a machine-learning strategy to predict sepsis-induced respiratory tract infection (RTI). Patients with sepsis and RTI were selected via retrospective analysis, and essential population characteristics and laboratory parameters were recorded. To improve the performance of the primary model and avoid over-fitting, a recursive feature elimination with cross-validation (RFECV) strategy was used to screen the optimal subset of biomarkers and construct nine machine-learning models based on this subset; the average accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score were used for evaluation of the models...

Brain abscess is a focal suppurative process produced in most cases by bacterial agents. Aggregatibacter aphrophilus is a gram-negative bacteria belonging to the HACEK group, which causes infective endocarditis, liver abscesses, among others. Brain abscesses secondary to this germ are rare and, in most cases, it is associated with contact with pets, poor dental hygiene or dental procedures. Treatment consists of drainage of the abscess (greater than 2.5 cm) combined with antibiotic therapy, ideally beta-lactams...

The foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) Leader proteinase Lpro inhibits host mRNA translation and blocks the interferon response which promotes viral survival. Lpro is not required for viral replication in vitro but serotype A FMDV lacking Lpro has been shown to be attenuated in cattle and pigs. However, it is not known, whether leaderless viruses can cause persistent infection in vivo after simulated natural infection and whether the attenuated phenotype is the same in other serotypes. We have generated a FMDV O/FRA/1/2001 variant lacking most of the Lpro coding region (ΔLb)...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Newborns as a vulnerable population are exposed to congenital and acquired infections during and after birth. There are several reports of the isolation and reporting of infectious agents (IAs) in early life of newborns with respiratory manifestations, and the present comprehensive study provides a snapshot of the current global situation of the prevalence of IAs in newborns with respiratory symptoms. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic search was conducted in main databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Web of science, and Google scholar...

BACKGROUND: Acinetobacter baumannii is a clinically significant pathogen with a high incidence of multidrug resistance that is associated with life-threatening nosocomial infections. Here, we aimed to provide an insight into the clinical characteristics and outcomes of a unique group of A. baumannii infections in which the isolates were resistant to carbapenems and most other antibiotic groups in a tertiary-care intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: We performed a retrospective observational study in which records of patients hospitalized in the ICU between June 1, 2021 and June 1, 2023 were reviewed...

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of respiratory infections is largely underexplored in Kuwait. The aim of our study is to determine the etiology of infections from patients who are SARS-CoV-2 negative hospitalized with severe lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) in Kuwait during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: We conducted an observational cross-sectional study among severe LRTI patients between September 2021 and March 2022. Respiratory samples from 545 non-COVID-19 severe LRTIs patients were prospectively evaluated with FTD Respiratory 21 Plus® real-time PCR, targeting 20 different viruses and 1 atypical bacterial pathogen...

Hemophilus parainfluenzae  is a gram-negative coccobacillus that usually inhabits the respiratory tract. It is a causative agent of meningitis, usually in children. The author presents a case of a 34-year-old woman presented with fever, neck stiffness, and headache, two weeks after the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Her CT scan of the head showed sinusitis. CSF analysis showed monocytic pleocytosis. CSF cultures grew Hemophilus parainfluenzae . The patient improved on intravenous antibiotic ceftriaxone 2 grams every 12 hours...

Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter spp. is associated with nosocomial infections in intensive care unit patients, resulting in high mortality. Although Acinetobacter spp. represent a serious public health problem worldwide, there are a few studies related to the presence of carbapenemases in health care facilities and other environmental settings in Ecuador. The main aim of this study was to characterize the carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter spp. isolates obtained from four hospitals (52) and from five rivers (27) close to Quito...

The symptoms of COVID-19 include febrility and mainly catarrhal symptoms. In severe cases, patients present with progression to lower respiratory tract and acute respiratory distress (ARDS) and multi-organ dysfunction. Malaria caused by P. falciparum is a severe, endemic parasitosis, mainly in Africa. In some cases, it can be complicated with ARDS. We present a case of a patient who returned from Nigeria with respiratory symptoms, in which both COVID-19 infection and tropical malaria were proven; with a fatal outcome...

OBJECTIVES: The clamshell isothermal nucleic acid amplification analyzer RTisochip-S, a next-generation instrument featuring improved structural design, enhanced functional integration, reduced cost, and increased portability, was assessed for its suitability in clinical respiratory pathogens detection. METHODS: The certificated detection kit for lower respiratory tract bacteria (LRTB-kit) was applied to evaluate the performance of RTisochip-S via sensitivity, specificity, and repeatability analysis...

PURPOSE: Incidence of bleeding amongst warfarin and direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) users is greater following a respiratory tract infection (RTI). It is unclear whether immediate antibiotics modify this association. We estimated the risk of bleeding amongst warfarin and DOAC users with RTI by antibiotic treatment. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study used data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) GOLD for adults in England prescribed warfarin or a DOAC, who sought primary care for an RTI between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2019...

INTRODUCTION: Earthquakes rank among the most deadly natural disasters, and children are particularly affected due to their inherent vulnerability. Following an earthquake, there is a substantial increase in visits to emergency services. These visits stem not only from patients seeking care for physical traumas resulting from the earthquake and its subsequent complications, but also from individuals affected by the circumstances created by the disaster. STUDY OBJECTIVE: This study aims to determine the characteristics and outcomes of children who presented to the pediatric emergency department (PED) after the earthquake and to evaluate children who had crush injuries at a referral tertiary university hospital away from the earthquake area...