Active clinical trials for "Communicable Diseases"

This study is a multi-site trial assessing the sensitivity of DENV Detect™ NS1 ELISA versus standard reference tests (e.g. PCR or viral culture) for dengue diagnosis in the US and internationally. The DENV Detect™ NS1 ELISA serves as an aid in the clinical laboratory diagnosis of early stages of Dengue infection in patients with clinical symptoms consistent with Dengue infection. This test is intended to be used on sera obtained within the first 7 days of symptoms. DENV Detect™ NS1 ELISA results (positive or negative) must be confirmed by testing with a reference standard test. Subjects will be patients who present with symptoms consistent with dengue infection, such as fever and myalgia. After informed consent is obtained and the subject is screened for eligibility, 2 diagnostic samples will be collected. The first will be collected within the first 7 days of symptoms onset, and the second will be collected at least 7 days later, between the 10th and 21st days post-onset of symptoms. ELISA and reference tests will be performed by different operators who are laboratory staff members. These staff members, blinded to each other's results, will evaluate the samples from each method independently.

This study serves as a feasibility study for a birth cohort study to investigate the influence of the sequence and load of infections and vaccinations on the development of the immune system of children. In this study, the investigators aim to test the methods developed to capture acute respiratory and gastrointestinal infections and their consequences of children aged 1 to 3 years in Braunschweig, Germany. Furthermore, the investigators want to study the influence of the environment on the microbiome of children by comparing children of the same child care centre with children from different child care centres. The methods developed include a symptom diary which has to be filled out on a daily basis by the parents. Furthermore parents are asked to take monthly anterior nasal swabs and stool samples from the study child independent from symptoms as well as one sample if symptoms occur. The parents are provided with instructions and the first nasal swab will be demonstrated by trained study personal. The study is powered to compare nasal swabs taken by the trained staff and the parents as primary outcome. Secondary outcome is the performance of reminders sent to the study participants. The diary and the specimen will be mailed to the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research where they will be analyzed for the nasal and gut microbiome. The nasal swabs taken at the time of an infection will be tested for respiratory viruses. After the study period of 3 months parents will be asked about the feasibility and acceptance of the symptom diary and taking the nasal swabs and stool specimens by means of questionnaires and interviews (face to face and focus groups). This will help our understanding of the feasibility and acceptance of the methods developed to capture acute respiratory and gastrointestinal infections of children and our understanding of the development and composition of the nasal and gut microbiota.

In this study, the investigator will be approaching pregnant women to undertake 2 years of weekly respiratory and nappy specimen collection from their healthy new born infant. These specimens will be mailed to the Queensland Paediatric Infectious Diseases (Qpid) Laboratory where they will be stored and batched tested for viruses and bacteria. As well as this, parents will keep a simple daily symptom diary for their child, allowing us to match detection of viruses and bacteria to periods when the study child did or did not have symptoms. This will help our understanding of what finding these viruses and bacteria in specimens from children really means.

The purpose of this study is to determine rates of oral and genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, and look at risk factors for HPV infection in healthy mid-adult women.

This study aims to prospectively estimate the incidence of Respiratory virus (RV) infections in children with symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) or lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH) using the FilmArrayTM System, a novel highly sensitive and rapid assay for RV detection. An aliquot from the leftover sample remaining after clinical diagnostic testing will be used for FilmArrayTM analysis. Patients will be accrued on the study over a one year period.

Validation of Vital Signs and Symptoms for the Diagnosis of Serious Infections in Acutely Ill Children in a High Prevalent Setting: The Paediatric Accidents & Emergencies through prospective observational data collection concerning specific items from the clinical and technical examination in diagnosing serious infections, such as meningitis, sepsis, pneumonia, pyelonephritis, bronchiolitis with hypoxia. Eventually we will attempt to validate a vital signs and symptoms rule derived from multiple low to high prevalent settings of acutely ill children.

Infections related to implantable pacemakers or cardioverters defibrillators are sometimes difficult to be diagnosed. Diificulties in the diagnosis include a low sensitivity of standard markers of inflammation such as C-reactive protein or white blood cell count and the diagnosis is mainly based on the clinical presentation. The observational DIRT-study evaluates if new biomarkers may be more suitable to support a diagnosis of device associated infections than the currently available ones.

A comparison of skin closure techniques (standard skin closure with staples versus a continuous (subcuticular) absorbable suture), to determine if this changes the rate of post operative wound infections in elective colorectal surgery patients.

We are interested in developing new and better ways of diagnosing the cause of lower respiratory tract infections including pneumonia. Currently we find the causal bug (bacteria or virus) in less than 50% of patients with pneumonia. A potential way to better find the bug responsible may include checking for bugs in the nose by a nasal wash or swab. Better diagnostics would allow more targeted antibiotic therapy and in the future this technique may be used as a way of checking the efficiency of new vaccines. We are recruiting both patients with respiratory infections and also a 'control' group of patients admitted to hospital who do not have respiratory infection. We need to have access to your medical history information to make sure you are eligible and suitable for the study. If you participate in the study, it is important that the study doctors continue to have access to your personal Investigator Designation Contact telephone Dr Andrea Collins PhD student/research SpR xxxxxxxxxxxxx Carole Hancock Research nurse 0151 706 4856 Prof Stephen Gordon Principle Investigator 0151 705 3169 NW PIL V1.3: October 2012 REC ref: 12/NW/0713 information so you can be followed up properly and so we can contact you during the study if needed. Patients in both groups will have a nasal wash (or swab), blood (30mls = 6 teaspoons) and urine taken on the day of recruitment and a nasal wash (or swab) and blood (30mls = 6 teaspoons) taken 6 weeks later (this is likely to be as an out-patient at the Royal Liverpool, in extreme circumstances this will occur at the patient's home).

The objective of the present study is to analyze the overall tubular function, and in particular that from the proximal tubule and the thick ascending loop of Henle (TALH) in patients with HIV infection receiving or not tenofovir-containing antiretroviral treatment in comparison with seronegative controls, by applying a validated tubular physiological test known as "Low sodium infusion test". Hypothesis is that patients with HIV infection and normal renal function will show subclinical tubular abnormalities compared with seronegative controls