1.The Deadly Ebola Threat in the Midst of an Overwhelming Dengue Epidemic
Alwi Muhd Besar ; Siti Suraiya Md Noor ; Yeong Yeh Lee
Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences 2014;21(6):9-13
The recent death tolls and morbidities associated with two deadly viral haemorrhagic fevers (VHFs), i.e., Ebola and dengue, are simply shocking. By the end of August 2014, 65 672 people were afflicted with dengue fever (DF) in Malaysia, with 9505 from Kelantan, and there were 128 reported deaths. More astounding are the death tolls associated with Ebola: 3091 deaths from 6574 reported cases so far. It is not difficult to imagine the potential disaster if Ebola spreads beyond Africa. VHFs are characterised by an acute onset of fever, vascular disruption and a rapid progression to shock and death. The revised World Health Organization (WHO) 2012 classification (dengue with and without warning signs and severe dengue) is more clinically relevant and allows more streamlined admission. With good administrative support and public health and governmental efforts, the dengue epidemic in Malaysia is now more contained. However, there should be no laxity with the imminent lethal Ebola threat. Human-to-human transmission is an important mechanism for the spread of Ebola, and this calls for strict precautions regarding contact with any suspected cases. In contrast, the control and elimination of dengue would require successful control of the vectors and their breeding sites.
2.Development and validation of TaqMan real-time PCR for the detection of Burkholderia pseudomallei isolates from Malaysia
Mohd Ali, M.R ; Foo, P.C. ; Hassan, M. ; Maning, N. ; Hussin, A. ; Syed Ahmad Yunus, S.Z. ; Fauzi, M.H. ; Muhd Besar, A. ; Harun, A. ; Ismail, N. ; Chan, Y.Y.
Tropical Biomedicine 2019;36(2):379-389
Rapid detection of Burkholderia pseudomallei, the etiologic agent of melioidosis,
allows for timely initiation of appropriate treatment and better clinical outcomes. In the
current gold standard, the culture method is time consuming and suffers from low sensitivity.
Meanwhile, previously reported molecular assays are fast and sensitive, but their performance
on isolates from Malaysia, an endemic region of melioidosis is under reported. This study
designed oligonucleotides targeting orf2 of Type III secretion system (TTSS) genes cluster
for the detection of Malaysian B. pseudomallei isolates and evaluated the assay on 95 local
B. pseudomallei strains, 58 other microorganisms and 71 clinical specimens from patients.
The developed assay exclusively detected all tested B. pseudomallei isolates with a detection
limit of 20 fg per reaction (equivalent to ~2.5 copies). Subsequent testing on clinical samples
showed that the assay detected all confirmed specimens with the growth of B. pseudomallei
(n = 10/10). None of the negative specimens had a detectable signal of our TTSS-orf2 assay
(n = 0/61). In conclusion, the present study provides crucial preliminary data for a subsequent
study and should be considered as a potential alternative to current time-consuming culture
method for the detection of B. pseudomallei.