HIV/AIDS-Associated Cryptococcosis in Portugal Spanning the Pre- to Post-HAART Era: A Retrospective Assessment at the Genotypic Level Based on URA5-RFLP.
Cryptococcosis caused by the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunistic mycosis, infecting mainly immunodepressed individuals. Molecular epidemiology studies of cryptococcosis in Europe are limited. This paper presents a retrospective study of cryptococcosis in 105 cryptococcal isolates from two hospitals in Lisbon, Portugal, among HIV/AIDS patients, from 1991 to 2007. Among these patients, the number of […]
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Laboratorial diagnosis of paracoccidioidomycosis and new insights for the future of fungal diagnosis.
Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is the most prevalent mycosis in Latin-America. As for other mycosis, its importance of has been largely underestimated, partially due to the limited geographical distribution of the etiologic fungal agent (Paracoccidioides brasiliensis).
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Routine screening of harmful microorganisms in beach sands: implications to public health
Beaches worldwide provide recreational opportunities to hundreds of millions of people and serve as important components of coastal economies. Beach water is often monitored for microbiological quality to detect the presence of indicators of human sewage contamination so as to prevent public health outbreaks associated with water contact
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Insights on the genotype distribution among Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii Portuguese clinical isolates
This study provides a comprehensive picture of the C. neoformans/C. gattii molecular types most often associated with human cryptococcosis in Portugal and assesses the impact of C. gattii in these infections. One hundred and twenty-two clinical isolates, from distinct patients, were identified as C. neoformans and genotyped by URA5-RFLP, with the molecular types VNI (45.5 %) and VNIII (30.9 %) being the most commonly found ones.
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