Clinical Microbiology: Open Access

Screening elephant keepers at Pinnawala Elepahant Orphanage â?? Sri Lanka for respiratory diseases

8^th CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE

October 26-28, 2017 | Paris, France

Nishantha Wickramanayaka

University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Clin Microbiol

Abstract:

Apart from being an orphanage, Pinnawala, Sri Lanka now is considered as destination for local and international tourists. Out of 88, 5 elephants at Pinnawala had been diagnosed to be having tuberculosis antibodies in their blood possibly due to human elephant interactions. Considering that elephant keepers are at high risk in contacting Tuberclosis (TB), a zoonotic disease, a chest screening program for elephant keepers was held with special emphasis on TB. Preliminary screening was done in February 2017 at Pinnawala, as a mobile chest clinic arranged with Chest Clinic, Kandy in which 121 employees were examined by 3 experienced chest medical officers. They identified one keeper with mMrc score 1. A total of 25 workers including suspected keepers, other workers and veterinary surgeons in Pinnawala who are in close contact with elephants were referred to the chest clinic for further examination. Among such referred individuals, 6 were long time smokers and one keeper had chronic asthma. These individuals were screened under the supervision of a chest consultant, for general respiratory diseases, chest X- rays, Mantoux test and AFB for strongly suspected individuals. Routing chest x-rays and other examinations suggested that all individuals were free from TB and other forms of occupational respiratory diseases. This finding urges a need to question the suspicion in the past of elephant keepers being at high risk to contract TB from elephants in Pinnawela elephant orphanage. Variability of Bacillus thuringiensis Mexican strains by ERIC-PCR and Biofilm Formation Patricia Gomez de Leon Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is of important agronomical research interest because of its beneficial use as biological pesticide. There are some limitations regarding the subspecies classification and the studies at phenotypic and genotypic levels are important to ascertain its variability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the variability by ERIC-PCR and by biofilms formation among strains from Mexico. The relationships between forty environmental strains from the collections of the CINVESTAVIrapuato and IBT-UNAM were evaluated by ERIC-PCR and the biofilm-forming ability by a 96-well microplate-based assay at 72 and 96 h of incubation. Thirty-nine fingerprinting patterns, based on 24 polymorphic fragments (139 to 2468 bp) were generated and used to construct a dendrogram. Almost all strains (95%) formed biofilms after 96 h of incubation, whose OD620 data were stratified into 4 categories as follows: 32.5% of them were strong (OD620>1.03), 35% were moderate (OD620 1.03-0.52), 27.5% were weak (OD620 0.51-0.27) and 5% were null (OD620 �?� 0.26). The subset of strains from the CINVESTAV collection showed more heterogeneous biofilm-forming ability. A large intra-species genomic variability was observed among Bt isolates. At 96 h of incubation, most strains from the CINVESTAV collection showed moderate to strong biofilm forming ability, whereas those from IBT-UNAM collection were mainly weak biofilm producers. Results showed a large intra-species genomic variability in Bt. However, some strains could be correlated as they were found within clusters depending on the location of isolation.