With regard to the probability of infection, 28%% of infected patients were scored as having a definite infection, 17 % had a probable infection and 55 % had a possible infection (for definitions, see Additional file 2).
Our results also suggest that the 2-step mechanism (the virus particles, due to productive cycle at the early stage of infection, competent for infection of uninfected B-cells and immortalization of B-cells) is the most probable for infected primary B-cells to be driven to transformation by EBV infection in vitro (see Figure 11).
We defined these persons as probable NiV-infected case-patients.
There have been numerous reports where probable Ebola-infected patients had to be driven away from health care facilities due to lack of bed availability.
On April 11 , 2003 the Institute was notified that a probable SARS-infected person had flown from Hong Kong to Frankfurt, Germany, on March 30 to 31, 2003, and then traveled extensively in Europe after onset of symptoms.
Our results succeeded in highlighting the differences between the two selected locations in this study, where the non-urban area (Northern location) showed a high incidence of human brucellosis among the AFI patients, which could be due to probable exposure to infected dairy products or direct contact with infected animals common in the nomadic Bedouin population lifestyle in such rural locations.
Eighteen of 829 contacts exposed to a confirmed case-patient and 7 of 226 contacts exposed to a patient who had a probable case became infected, for secondary attack rates of 2.2% and 3.1%, respectively (p = 0.4).
Seven of 92 contacts exposed to a confirmed case-patient and 13 of 132 contacts exposed to a patient who had a probable case became infected, accounting for secondary attack rates of 7.6% and 9.8%, respectively (p = 0.8).
During our study period, most patients with HIV were not on antiretroviral treatment, and it is probable that co-infected patients succumbed to the disease before being identified and treated as MDR or XDR-TB.
However, a more probable explanation is that infected strains artificially appeared to be more related to each other in our analysis just because of their contamination with DNA of mycoplasmas.
