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Abstract
Clostridium tertium is present both in soil and in oral and faecal human flora and has been reported as a cause of various infections, such as brain abscess, sepsis and necrotizing soft tissue infections.
A 12-year-old boy arrived at a rural hospital in the highlands of south-western Ethiopia with two cutaneous lesions on the left foot and elbow. The father said that the boy had fallen from a tree 6 days ago. A sample was taken from both lesions and cultured on blood agar. For both specimens, Gram-positive rods were observed following Gram staining and the following day growth on solid medium showed an aerotolerant sporulated Gram-positive bacillus. Treatment with intravenous penicillin was started and the boy recovered in 3 days. A concentrate of the culture inactivated with methanol was sent to a reference laboratory and identified by mass spectrometry as Clostridium tertium.
The combined use of basic clinical microbiology tools with new and simple diagnostic technologies is redefining our knowledge about the aetiology of some common infectious diseases.
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