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editorial
. 2001 Jan;39(1):416. doi: 10.1128/JCM.39.1.416.2001

First Report of Candida dubliniensis in the Middle East

David A Stevens 1
PMCID: PMC87752  PMID: 11191232

The report this year of Polacheck et al. (2) of isolation of Candida dubliniensis in Israel has come to our attention. In it, the authors mention that theirs is “the first report of identification of this novel species in the Middle East.” However, last year my colleagues and I reported (1) “geographic areas from which C. dubliniensis has not previously been reported,” including Israel. In addition, we and our Israeli collaborator reported these isolations in Israel at last year's Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (E. Lefler, M. J. McCullough, K. V. Clemons, and D. A. Stevens, Abstr. 39th Intersci. Conf. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., abstr. 961, 1999).

REFERENCES

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J Clin Microbiol. 2001 Jan;39(1):416. doi: 10.1128/JCM.39.1.416.2001

AUTHORS' REPLY

David C Coleman 1, Derek J Sullivan 1

In the January 2000 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, we reported the recovery of Candida dubliniensis isolates associated with carriage and infection in five human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative patients in Israel (1-8). The main purpose of this article was to highlight the recovery of this recently described pathogenic yeast from non-HIV-infected patients and from nonoral sites, since previous reports in the literature suggested that C. dubliniensis was primarily associated with oral carriage and infection in HIV-infected individuals (1-2, 1-4, 1-7, 1-9–1-12). In our article, we also stated that these isolates were the first C. dubliniensis isolates reported from the Middle East. This statement was based on a detailed review of the mainstream published literature immediately prior to the submission of our article for publication in July 1999 (1-8), nearly 2 months before the publication of the poster abstract authored by Dr. Stevens and colleagues at the 39th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy held at San Francisco, 26 to 29 September 1999 (E. Lefler, M. J. McCullough, K. V. Clemons, and D. A. Stevens, Abstr. 39th Intersci. Conf. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., abstr. 961, 1999) and more than 3 months before the publication in November 1999 of the article by McCullough et al. referred to by Dr. Stevens. Numerous studies from our laboratory and those of other researchers have demonstrated that C. dubliniensis has a widespread geographic distribution in HIV-infected individuals (1-2–1-4, 1-6, 1-7, 1-9, 1-12), and this organism is present in this subject cohort worldwide. Taking all of these points into consideration, and as the main purpose of our article was to highlight the recovery of C. dubliniensis from cases of infection in non-HIV-infected patients, it seems trivial at this stage to argue over who first reported the recovery of C. dubliniensis from a particular geographic location. What is important now, given the growing number of reports of septicemia caused by this organism (1-1, 1-5, 1-7), is to determine the incidence of C. dubliniensis infection in other immunocompromised groups and the incidence of nonoral carriage of C. dubliniensis.

REFERENCES

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