Tinea capitis in Iraq: laboratory results

A school survey of 4461 primary-school children was carried out in which 204 cases of tinea capitis were clinically diagnosed. All cases were cultured and examined microscopically in order to compare the validity of the two methods. Microscopy detected 92 positive cases (45.1%), whereas culture detected 105 cases (51.4%). We also isolated and identified the species causing tinea capitis in our sample. These included Trichophyton verrucosum (38 cases), T. rubrum (22 cases), T. mentagrophytes var. mentagrophytes (12 cases) and T. tonsurans (11 cases). Our results are compared with other studies.

HLA antigens associated with susceptibility to herpes simplex virus infection

HLA antigen frequencies in 150 patients with recurrent herpes simplex virus infection and 176 normal Iraqi controls were studied. Highly significant increased frequencies of HLA-A1, -B5 and -DR1 were found in patients as compared to control individuals. The frequencies of HLA-A3 and -A23 were also significantly increased in patients. When we subdivide the patients into groups according to rate of recurrence of symptomatic infection or ELISA reading of antibody titre no preferential association of HLA antigens with any particular subgroup is apparent. These results were compared with published findings for other ethnic populations and found to be compatible with them.