- Volume 5, Issue 1, 2018

Introduction. Species of the genus Rhizobium are opportunistic, usually saprophytic, glucose-non-fermenting, Gram-negative bacilli found in agricultural soil. Rhizobium pusense infections are the least common Rhizobium infections and have low incidence.

Case presentation. Herein, we report the first case of sepsis with R. pusense in Japan in a 67-year-old Japanese woman with a history of hyperlipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes, hypothyroidism and osteoporosis. She had undergone cerebrovascular treatment because she was diagnosed with a subarachnoid haemorrhage. The results of postoperative blood culture showed oxidase-positive, urease-positive, non-lactose-fermenting Gram-stain-negative rods. Using the Vitek2 system, the isolate was distinctly identified as Rhizobium radiobacter. However, 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed 99.93 % similarity with the type strain of R. pusense and 99.06 % similarity with the type strain of R. radiobacter. Additional gene sequencing analysis using recA (97.2 %) and atpD (96.2 %) also showed that the isolated strain is most closely related to R. pusense. The patient was cured by treatment using intravenous meropenem (3 g/d) for 4 weeks and was discharged safely.

Conclusion. The definite source of sepsis was unknown. However, the possibility of having been infected through the catheter during the cerebrovascular operation was speculated.

Introduction. Pythiosis is caused by Pythium insidiosum, a fungus-like organism in the class Oomycetes. It can infect humans and a variety of animal species in tropical, subtropical and some temperate regions. Cases of animal pythiosis have occurred predominantly in horses in the skin and subcutaneous tissue at the limbs and in the ventral portion of thoracoabdominal wall - lesions in the nasal region are rarely reported. Moreover, although many human pythiosis cases have been reported in Thailand, no cases of animal pythiosis in Thailand have been reported.

Case presentation. We report a case of pythiosis in a horse infected at the nasal cavity. Diagnosis was performed by zoospore formation by bait technique, immunohistochemical stain, immunochromatography and sequence analysis.

Conclusion. The sequences of rDNA were 99 % and 96 to 99 % identical to GenBank isolates of Pythium insidiosum from two Thai human patients and horses from various countries, respectively. This represents the first confirmed report of nasal equine pythiosis in Thailand.