• Blood donors
• HBV
• HCV
• HIV
• Seroprevelance
• Somalia
• Syphilis

• Humans
• Blood Donors/statistics & numerical data
• Syphilis/epidemiology
• Syphilis/blood
• Retrospective Studies
• Hepatitis B/epidemiology
• Hepatitis C/epidemiology
• Female
• Male
• Seroepidemiologic Studies
• Adult
• HIV Infections/epidemiology
• Middle Aged
• Young Adult
• Tertiary Care Centers/statistics & numerical data
• Adolescent

Since the cultural diversity in Western Europe is growing, this study assessed whether foreign‐born chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients have more cirrhosis than Dutch‐ or Belgian‐born patients, with a main focus on the Turkish population. Baseline characteristics (eg, socioeconomic status [SES]), biological characteristics, and disease outcome (eg, cirrhosis) were collected for all patients. Between December 2009 and January 2015, 269 CHB patients participated from the outpatient departments of three hospitals in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Turkey. Out of the 269 CHB patients, 210 were foreign‐born and 59 were Dutch‐ or Belgian‐born. Compared with Dutch‐ or Belgian‐born patients, foreign‐born patients had a higher prevalence of low SES (58% vs 31%; P = 0.001) and cirrhosis (27% vs 10%; P = 0.007). Among the Turkish population, there were no significant differences regarding the prevalence of low SES (73% vs 61%; P = 0.170), alcohol abuse (1% vs 5%; P = 0.120), anti‐hepatitis C virus positivity (4% vs 0%; P = 0.344), anti‐hepatitis D virus positivity (1% vs 6%; P = 0.297), and cirrhosis (37% vs 27%; P = 0.262) between patients (n = 102) living in Turkey (local) and Turkish CHB (n = 38) patients living in the Netherlands or Belgium (immigrant). In multivariate analysis, low SES (odds ratio, 5.7; 95% confidence interval, 2.3‐14.5; P < 0.001) was associated with cirrhosis. In this study, foreign‐born CHB patients were associated with more advanced HBV‐related liver disease with 27% having cirrhosis. However, ethnicity was not associated with cirrhosis when SES was included in the multivariate analysis. The similar prevalence of cirrhosis in local Turkish compared to immigrant Turkish CHB patients is novel and warrants further investigation.

Foreign‐born individuals have a higher prevalence of cirrhosis than Dutch‐ or Belgian‐ born individuals

• Turkish
• cirrhosis
• disease outcome
• ethnicity
• hepatitis B
• socioeconomic status

• Blood donors
• Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
• Hepatitis C virus
• Nucleic acid amplification techniques

To describe the clinical presentation of patients diagnosed with presumed latent ocular syphilis and congenital ocular syphilis at tertiary referral center in Turkey, and to compare the clinical findings with patients described in other studies, specifically focusing on demographics and co-infections.

This is a retrospective study reviewing the medical records of patients diagnosed with ocular inflammation between January 2012 and June 2014 at a tertiary referral center in Turkey. Ocular syphilis was diagnosed on the basis of non-treponemal and treponemal antibody tests, and cerebrospinal fluid analysis. All the patients diagnosed with ocular syphilis were tested for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Toxoplasma gondii, rubella, cytomegalovirus, and herpes.

A total of 1,115 patients were evaluated between January 2012 and June 2014, and 12 patients (1.07%) were diagnosed with ocular syphilis based on the inclusion criteria. None of the patients were seropositive for HIV. Two patients were seropositive for T. gondii-specific IgG. Clinical presentations include non-necrotizing anterior scleritis, non-necrotizing sclerokeratitis, anterior uveitis, intermediate uveitis, posterior uveitis, panuveitis, and optic neuritis. All of the patients showed clinical improvement in the level of ocular inflammation with intravenous penicillin 24 million U/day for 10 days. Three patients received additional oral methotrexate as an adjunctive therapy. Two cases received low-dose trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole.

Ocular syphilis is an uncommon cause of ocular inflammation in HIV-negative patients. Central retinochoroiditis is the most common ocular manifestation, and it is the most common cause of visual impairment. Ocular syphilis might present associated with co-infections such as T. gondii in developing countries. Oral methotrexate might be beneficial as an adjunctive therapy for ocular syphilis in resolving the residual intraocular inflammation and cystoid macular edema after specific therapy with intravenous penicillin.

• T. gondii
• human immunodeficiency virus
• methotrexate
• ocular syphilis
• scleritis
• uveitis

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has endured several major events of infection parenteral transmission. Recent work has established the utility of using hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a proxy biomarker for assessing the epidemic potential for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) parenteral transmission. In this review, we use data on the prevalence of HCV infection antibody (seroprevalence) among general population and high risk population groups to assess the potential for HIV parenteral transmission in MENA. Relatively low prevalence of HCV infection in the general population groups was reported in most MENA countries indicating that parenteral HIV transmission at endemic levels does not appear to be a cause for concern. Nonetheless, there could be opportunities for localized HIV outbreaks and transmission of other blood-borne infections in some settings such as healthcare facilities. Though there have been steady improvements in safety measures related to parenteral modes of transmission in the region, these improvements have not been uniform across all countries. More precautions, including infection control training programs, surveillance systems for nosocomial infections and wider coverage and evaluation of hepatitis B virus immunization programs need to be implemented to avoid the unnecessary spread of HIV, HCV, and other blood-borne pathogens along the parenteral modes of transmission.

• Hepatitis C virus
• Human immunodeficiency virus
• Parenteral transmission
• Middle East and North Africa
• Proxy biomarker

• Africa, Northern/epidemiology
• Cross Infection/diagnosis
• Cross Infection/epidemiology
• Cross Infection/prevention & control
• Cross Infection/transmission
• Cross Infection/virology
• Epidemics
• Female
• HIV/pathogenicity
• HIV Infections/diagnosis
• HIV Infections/epidemiology
• HIV Infections/prevention & control
• HIV Infections/transmission
• HIV Infections/virology
• Hepacivirus/pathogenicity
• Hepatitis C/diagnosis
• Hepatitis C/epidemiology
• Hepatitis C/prevention & control
• Hepatitis C/transmission
• Hepatitis C/virology
• Humans
• Infection Control/methods
• Injections/adverse effects
• Male
• Middle East/epidemiology
• Pregnancy
• Pregnancy Complications, Infectious/diagnosis
• Pregnancy Complications, Infectious/epidemiology
• Pregnancy Complications, Infectious/prevention & control
• Pregnancy Complications, Infectious/virology
• Prevalence
• Prisoners
• Renal Dialysis/adverse effects
• Risk Assessment
• Risk Factors
• Seroepidemiologic Studies
• Substance Abuse, Intravenous/complications
• Transfusion Reaction
• Virulence

The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of syphilis infection by Treponema pallidum hemagglutination assay (TPHA) among blood donors in Delhi and to study their correlation with other markers of transfusion transmitted infections such as hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) so as to establish the utility of TPHA over and above venereal diseases research laboratory test (VDRL), not only as a marker for testing T. pallidum infection, but also as a marker of high risk behavior.

This prospective study was carried out in the Regional Blood Transfusion Centre, Lady Hardinge Medical College and associated Sucheta Kriplani Hospital, New Delhi for a period of 2 years. Donated blood was screened for TPHA seroreactivity along with screening for anti HIV I and II, anti-HCV, HBsAg by third generation enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay test. A total of 8082 serum samples of blood donors were collected from healthy blood donors in our blood bank. They were classified into two groups- test group and control group based on TPHA positivity. The co-occurrence of HBsAg, HIV and HCV infection were determined in TPHA positive blood donors (test group) in comparison with TPHA negative blood donors (control group).

We found the TPHA seroreactivity to be 4.4% in Delhi's blood donors. Nearly 8.2% (663/8082) of the donated blood had serological evidence of infection by at least one pathogen (syphilis/HIV/hepatitis B virus/HCV) and 6.63% (44/663) donors with positive serology had multiple infections (two or more). Quadruple infection was seen in one donor, triple infection was seen in three donors and double infection was seen in 40 donors. Prevalence of HIV seroreactivity was found to be statistically significant and HCV seroreactivity statistically insignificant in TPHA positive group in comparison to TPHA negative group.

In our study, the TPHA seropositivity correlated with higher HIV and HCV seropositivity and the same correlation has been observed by several other studies also. In view of these observations, we propose that testing for syphilis by more sensitive and specific treponemal markers like TPHA rather than VDRL, rapid plasma reagin tests; as TPHA also has the added advantage of picking up all the high risk donors, whereas, VDRL picks up only currently infected donors. Moreover, TPHA should be continued as a marker of high risk behavior especially in high prevalence areas like India where we don’t have universal access to markers like nucleic acid amplification technique.

• Co-infection
• Syphilis
• Treponema pallidum hemagglutination assay
• transfusion transmitted infections

• Adolescent
• Blood Donors/statistics & numerical data
• Hepatitis B/epidemiology
• Hepatitis B Surface Antigens/analysis
• Hepatitis C/epidemiology
• Hepatitis C Antibodies/analysis
• Humans
• Prevalence
• Retrospective Studies
• Seroepidemiologic Studies
• Turkey/epidemiology
• Virus Diseases