Nazrul Islam

Antimicrobial Susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae Isolated in Bangladesh (1997 to 1999): Rapid Shift to Fluoroquinolone Resistance

ABSTRACT Periodic monitoring of antimicrobial susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae is essential for early detection of emergence of drug resistance. A total of 343 gonococcal strains isolated from high-risk and general populations in Bangladesh from 1997 to 1999 were studied. The MICs of penicillin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone, and spectinomycin for the isolates were determined by the agar dilution method. Of the isolates from 1997, 9% were resistant (MIC ≥ 1.0 μg/ml) to ciprofloxacin, while 41 and 49% of the isolates from 1998 and 1999, respectively, were resistant to ciprofloxacin. Of the N. gonorrhoeae isolates from 1998 and 1999, 1.2 and 3.6%, respectively, both were penicillinase producing and displayed plasmid-mediated tetracycline resistance.

Sociology in Bangladesh: Search for a New Frontier

Sociology today faces an extraordinary crisis all over the world. The nature of this crisis is manifold and it varies from country to country and region to region. There is now growing awareness that sociology can move ahead through the blooming of a plurality of local traditions and through local-global pathways. The objective of this paper is to examine the crisis of sociology in Bangladesh and map the future direction that the discipline should take there. This paper argues that sociological discourses tend to flourish in their specific social terrains like other discourses. The history of sociology in Bangladesh reflects its social structure and political undercurrents and its location within the global system. Reflexivity does allow sociologists to look beyond their current discourses and carve out new ideas and research traditions. Sociology in Bangladesh, or in South Asia, should actively search for a new horizon – a horizon of intense professional interaction and of new ideas and new ways of doing sociology by deploying the new information technology.