Volume 11, Number 9—September 2005
Dispatch
Gram-positive Rod Surveillance for Early Anthrax Detection
, and Connecticut Bioterrorism Field Epidemiology Response Team
Table 1
Characteristics of gram-positive rod bacterial isolates from blood culture, Connecticut, March–December 2003
| Genus | Total | Reported n* (%) | Time from inoculation to growth |
No. inoculated bottles with growth by bottle type |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. isolates† | Median (h) | Range (h) | % positive <24 h | No. isolates† | No. aerobic inoculated (% aerobic positive) | No. anaerobic inoculated (% anaerobic positive) | |||
| Bacillus‡ | 193 | 134 (69) | 161 | 23.5 | 2.7–70.3 | 56 | 134 | 242 (43) | 218 (21) |
| Clostridium | 73 | 47 (64) | 69 | 15.3 | 1.4–71.9 | 75 | 70 | 134 (13) | 134 (68) |
| Corynebacterium‡ | 293 | 94 (32) | 220 | 42.9 | 2.8–71.9 | 8 | 94 | 178 (49) | 174 (15) |
| Lactobacillus | 26 | 14 (54) | 20 | 31.7 | 9.0–70.0 | 35 | 14 | 25 (52) | 25 (56) |
| Listeria | 14 | 14 (100) | 13 | 26.1 | 9.3–65.0 | 38 | 13 | 26 (58) | 24 (71) |
| Propionibacterium | 10 | 7 (70) | 7 | 49.2 | 18.0–68.1 | 13 | 4 | 9 (100) | 9 (33) |
| Other§ | 9 | 4 (44) | 8 | 41.3 | 14.8–70.3 | 14 | 7 | 13 (85) | 11 (45) |
| All | 618 | 314 (51) | 498 | 33.6 | 1.4–71.9 | 34 | 336 | 627 (41) | 595 (34) |
*n = number identified by mandated reporting. The remainder of isolates were identified by laboratory audit.
†No. of isolates for which information on time from inoculation to growth and number of bottles to which samples had been added and number of bottles yielding isolate were available, respectively. Not all laboratories were able to retrieve these data retrospectively for laboratory audits.
‡No Corynebacterium diphtheriae or Bacillus anthracis organisms were reported.
§Other category includes Bifidobacterium (2), Brevibacterium (2), Actinomyces (1), Aureobacterium (1), Erysipelothrix (1), Eubacterium (1), and Oerskovia spp. (1).
1The Connecticut Bioterrorism Field Epidemiology Response Team members are Kasia Frenette, Lisa LoBianco, Katy Marshall, Diana Mlynarski, Ava Nepaul, and Terry Rabatsky-Ehr.