Recently I was working with medical missionaries who have a health clinic
in rural Kenya. The lab tech thinks he has found what looks like to him
acid-fast cocci in the sputum of 3 patients. Two of the patients are AFB
neg, one is AFB pos. One patient is a 32 yr. old female, one is a 19 yr.
old male, and the third is a middle-aged female. The patients have a
persistent cough, and have been on tetracycline and penicillin. The lab
tech has used this batch of Ziehl--Nelson stain about 15 times, and only
these 3 times has he found what looks like acid-fast cocci. He took one
of the slides to the lab of a private hospital in Nairobi, and they said
they have not seen anything like that before. The lab tech wants to take
this lab a sample of sputum so they can try to duplicate his results. Has
anyone seen or heard of anything like this before? Is there just some
obvious mistake that is being made? Please respond with any ideas! Thank
you.
Theresa Haveman
