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Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the most important public health challanges all over the world. World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that almost one third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis). Early diagnosis, an adequate therapy, and preventions measures of disease spread are essential for an efficient control of TB. Problems that arise are related to the clinical management and prevention of dissemination of the disease in the general population. In terms of diagnosis, of great importance is the early detection of M. tuberculosis and the detection of susceptibility to antituberculous drugs in the mycobacteriology laboratory. The advent of new and modern methods of molecular diagnosis has considerable shortened the time in which the bacteriological diagnosis and susceptibility tests to antituberculous drugs are established. Such a test is GenoTypeMDRTBplus. Studying the 234 pathological prelevates positive to microscopy from the period October - December 2013, we have revealed that 161 strains were sensitive to rifampicin and isoniazid, and 54 strains were resistant. Others results of the study will be presented in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although controlled by vaccination long ago, diphtheria may become a re-emergent disease as a result of at least two factors: the circulation of toxigenic strains in endemic areas (countries of former CSI, some of them neighbouring countries of Romania) and the lack of interest of the local health institutions for surveillance of this very low incidence disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the carriage of potentially toxigenic Corynebacterium strains in healthy people in Romania. In this study, 1120 biological samples were analysed consisting of swabs, nasal exudates and conjunctival secretions collected from 730 healthy individuals from eight different geographic regions of the country, in order to establish carriage of potentially toxigenic strains belonging to the Corynebacterium genus. 129 strains of the Corynebacterium species were isolated and identified by phenotypic and molecular methods: Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum (n = 76), C. propinquum (n = 34), C. striatum (n = 9), C. macginleyi (n = 2), C. glucuronolyticum/seminale (n = 2), C. group F1(n = 6). These species are saprophytic species for the upper respiratory tract, some of them being an opportunistic pathogen especially in immunocompromised hosts. The present data require the attention of clinicians, epidemiologists and microbiologists since diphtheria is an infectious disease that could re-emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]