saeedeh mahfouzi

In Jan 2020, the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China spread increasingly to other countries worldwide which WHO declared it as a public health emergency of international concern. Iran was included in the affected countries. Throat swab specimens were collected and tested by using real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) kit targeting the E region for screening and RNA dependent RNA polymerase for confirmation. Conventional RT-PCR was conducted for the N region and the PCR products were sequenced by Sanger sequencing. The first seven cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections were identified in Qom, Iran. This report describes the clinical and epidemiological features of the first cases of SARS-CoV-2 confirmed in Iran. Future research should focus on finding the routes of transmission for this virus, including the possibility of transmission from foreign tourists to identify the possible origin of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Iran.

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common type of bacterial infectious diseases which occurs in all age groups. The aim of this study was to determine anti-microbial resistance pattern of bacterial pathogens causing UTIs in hospitalized patients at the Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Urine samples were collected from 11157 hospitalized patients at different wards of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, between January 2015 and December 2015.The cultured plates were assessed for significant bacterial growth. Anti-microbial susceptibility test was performed using standard disk diffusion method. Out of the 11157 collected urine samples, significant bacterial growth of 25.38% was observed. The most common cause of UTI was gram-negative bacteria (82.2%). More than 50% of the gram-negative bacteria were resistant to ceftriaxone, ceftazidime and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Enterococcus spp. (10.1%) was found as the third causative agent of UTIs and the most common gram-positive bacteria. we conclude that the examination of the most common etiological agent of UTIs and their antimicrobial resistance patterns is advantageous and necessary in order to design a guideline for empirical therapy.