You are doing a rotation in the hospital’s clinical laboratory. A sample of clou

Question

You are doing a rotation in the hospital’s clinical laboratory. A sample of cloudy cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a suspected meningitis case arrives and you are told to Gram stain it, and then to plate it on blood agar and chocolate agar (look it up). In the Gram stain you find gram negative rods of varying size and shape. You also find a lot of bacteria inside phagocytic cells. They are not diplococcic. Colonies grow on both of the plates you inoculated.
Later, the charge nurse tells you that the patient, a 3-year-old girl, has not received any childhood vaccinations.
1. What is the most likely causative organism? WHY?
2. Why was the child’s unvaccinated status helpful in diagnosis?
3. What is causing the cloudiness in the CSF?
4. What other types of infections can this organism cause in children? You are doing a rotation in the hospital’s clinical laboratory. A sample of cloudy cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a suspected meningitis case arrives and you are told to Gram stain it, and then to plate it on blood agar and chocolate agar (look it up). In the Gram stain you find gram negative rods of varying size and shape. You also find a lot of bacteria inside phagocytic cells. They are not diplococcic. Colonies grow on both of the plates you inoculated.
Later, the charge nurse tells you that the patient, a 3-year-old girl, has not received any childhood vaccinations.
1. What is the most likely causative organism? WHY?
2. Why was the child’s unvaccinated status helpful in diagnosis?
3. What is causing the cloudiness in the CSF?
4. What other types of infections can this organism cause in children? You are doing a rotation in the hospital’s clinical laboratory. A sample of cloudy cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from a suspected meningitis case arrives and you are told to Gram stain it, and then to plate it on blood agar and chocolate agar (look it up). In the Gram stain you find gram negative rods of varying size and shape. You also find a lot of bacteria inside phagocytic cells. They are not diplococcic. Colonies grow on both of the plates you inoculated.
Later, the charge nurse tells you that the patient, a 3-year-old girl, has not received any childhood vaccinations.
1. What is the most likely causative organism? WHY?
2. Why was the child’s unvaccinated status helpful in diagnosis?
3. What is causing the cloudiness in the CSF?
4. What other types of infections can this organism cause in children?

Explanation / Answer

1. The causative organism organism is most likely haemophilus influenza type B bacteria. The cloudy nature csf and colony growth in both plate suggest that it is a bacterial infection. Rod shaped nature, gram negative and not diploccocic indicate that it may be haemophilus influenza type B bacteria as it belongs to cocobacillus family.

2. The child unvaccinated status helps to grow of the colonies smoothly in both plate.

3. Cloudiness of CSF indicates infection or presence of plenty number of wbc or protein.

4. Epiglottitis, Pneumonia, bacteraemia etc.

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