title: Percutaneous exposure resulting in laboratory-acquired leptospirosis -- a case report.
abstract: A screw-capped glass tube containing a Leptospira culture accidentally broke and the laboratory worker who was handling the tube sustained a cut on his hand. The wound was flooded with the culture. The culture was that of strain MG 347 belonging to serovar Australis recovered from a patient, and it had undergone 52 passages in Ellinghausen McCullough Johnson Harris medium. The laboratory worker developed a headache 21 days after the accident and became febrile the next day. He was hospitalized for 5 days and was treated initially with doxycycline and later with ciprofloxacin. A blood sample collected on the second day of illness, after starting doxycycline therapy, yielded leptospires and the isolate, HZ 651, was identified as serovar Australis. Monoclonal antibody patterns and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA fingerprinting patterns of the isolate and strain MG 347 were identical, thus indicating that HZ 651 and MG 347 were clonal.
authors.affiliation: WHO Collaborative Centre for Diagnosis, Research, Reference and Training in Leptospirosis, Regional Medical Research Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, Post Bag No. 13, Port Blair 744 101, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India.
authors.forename: A P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Sugunan
authors.affiliation: WHO Collaborative Centre for Diagnosis, Research, Reference and Training in Leptospirosis, Regional Medical Research Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, Post Bag No. 13, Port Blair 744 101, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Natarajaseenivasan
authors.affiliation: WHO Collaborative Centre for Diagnosis, Research, Reference and Training in Leptospirosis, Regional Medical Research Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, Post Bag No. 13, Port Blair 744 101, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vijayachari
authors.affiliation: WHO Collaborative Centre for Diagnosis, Research, Reference and Training in Leptospirosis, Regional Medical Research Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, Post Bag No. 13, Port Blair 744 101, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India.
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Sehgal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002939:Ciprofloxacin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004318:Doxycycline / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006230:Hand Injuries / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D007757:Laboratory Infection / Q000209:etiology*; D041281:Leptospira interrogans serovar australis / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000472:pathogenicity; D007922:Leptospirosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000635:transmission*; D008297:Male
chemical_list: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents; D002939:Ciprofloxacin; D004318:Doxycycline