Infectious Diseases

Question 1

What organism can cause fish-tank granuloma?

Answer 1

Mycobacterium marinum

Question 2

How Trypanosoma brucei and is transmitted to humans and what illness does it cause? How is it treated?

Answer 2

By the bite of the tsetse fly and it causes West African trypanosomiasis. Treated with Suramin.

Question 3

What is the treatment for Enterobius vermicularis (threadworm) infection?

Answer 3

Mebendazole

Question 4

What is the treatment of choice for Schistosomiasis?

Answer 4

Praziquantel

Question 5

What are the features of Whipple’s disease?

Answer 5

Symptoms:
Wasting illness with arthralgia, arthritis, fever, and diarrhoea. Malabsorption is common. If the disease affects the small intestine, patients may also have steatorrhea. Early symptoms include fever, malaise, and lymphadenopathy may precede the onset of GI symptoms by 1-10 years.

Physical sings:
Cachexia
Abdominal distention
Glossitis
Angular cheilitis
Chvostek’s or Trousseau’s signs (secondary to hypocalcaemia)
Gingivitis (secondary to vitamin C deficiency)
Night blindness (secondary to vitamin A deficiency).

Also possible:

• Perioral and malar hyperpigmentation.
• Meningoencephalitis, ataxia and clonus (cerebellum) or loss of inhibition (frontal)
• Cardiac complications include pericarditis, myocarditis, and left-heart valve lesions
• Finger clubbing

Question 6

What bacterium causes Whipple’s disease?
Is it gram positive or gram negative?
How is it treated?

Answer 6

Tropheryma whippelei
Gram positive bacterium.
Penicillin and streptomycin