Listeria monocytogenes human infection is a relatively rare disease which usually is meningitis in newborn babies.
The organism was isolated from blood cultures of a 52 year old female patient with meningitis. It was considered that the underlying disease, i.e. S.L.E., and the steroid therapy which the patient had been receiving played some role for the Listeria infection.
The isolate was showing characteristics of L. monocytogenes, i.e. diphtheroid like morphology, motility with four peritrichous flagella, hemolytic small colonies on blood agar, growth in the presence of 7.5% salt and at 4 C, and inducing monocytosis in an experimentally infected rabbit. Serologically the organism was identified as L. monocytogenes 4b. The isolate was showing susceptibility to many antibiotics tested including ampicillin, penicillin and tetracycline which were the recommended drugs of choice for the treatment of Listeriosis.
It is the general opinion that Listeriosis is not so rare as literatures are showing. It is considered that some of the isolate of the organism from clinical specimens are mistakenly discarded due to the fact that the organism shows diphtheroid like morphology and that not many laboratories are able to recognize the organism. Literatures are seen which emphasize more careful examination of gram positive bacilli with diphtheroid like morphology especially when they are isolated from blood or from spinal fluid of patient.
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