Exchange with Tamara’s bodily fluid which was negative did not reduce infection from initial infected sample but it infected her sample. After Tamara’s sample became positive it infected every other sample it was mixed with, that is, Gabe’s and Chris’s fluids.
This indicates that an encounter with an infected partner’s body fluids had a 100% chance of infection based on the conditions provided in the lab.
Patient zero in this case is the first person who was infected with Chlamydia trachomatis.
The graph shows that the number of infected patients multiplied by two after every period from one patient in the beginning week to eight patients in the third week. Therefore, the disease infections will multiply by two in every period thus growing the number of patients exponentially if no interventions are taken. It was very easy to identify Patient Zero simply because only one fluid was infected at the beginning of the experiment.
Epidemiologists could face a challenge in identifying the epidemic source because every infected patient has an equal chance of infecting other persons just as patient 1has. The most effective methods of intervention should be conducting regular screening, encouraging abstinence from sex as well as use of condoms during sexual intercourse.
The Chlamydia trachomatis DNA was extracted from culture stocks and fluid used in the experiment using the High Pure PCR Template Preparation Kit, which is a modified kit that is commercially available. The PCR and the sequencing primers used for the amplification and sequencing were designed according to the nucleotide sequence of various Chlamydia trachomatis strains found in the medium fluid. The protocol for extraction, amplification as well as sequencing was tested on reference of strains of the culture stocks in the laboratory and on the medium fluid sample collected in the study conducted to investigate the spread of Chlamydia trachomatis through mixture of infected bodily fluids and uninfected bodily fluids.
The Chlamydia gene was successfully amplified and sequenced from 15 laboratory Chlamydia trachomatis reference strains and from the 28 Chlamydia trachomatis samples collected from all of the students’ test tubes used in the study, only 8 samples tested positive. Among the positive samples, there were nine different genotypes of Chlamydia trachomatis: B (5, 4%), D (2, 10%), E (3, 5%), F (1, 11%), G (3, 2%), J (5, 3%) and K (4, 5%).
The mistakes made during the study were: some of the sample fluids were not mixed well after exchange with another fluid. As such, the bacteria were not uniformly distributed in five of the eight infected fluids.
This technique can be applied in research to determine spread of other epidemic diseases such as cholera that are transmitted through exchange of bodily fluids or waste for example urine. The experiment teaches us the importance of avoidance of encounter with other people’s bodily fluids a lesson that can be taken into practice by adults by ensuring that they abstain from sex, have one partner or use a condom during sexual intercourse. Failure to ensure safe sex would mean high probability of getting infected with Chlamydia trachomatis. Apart from that, nurses should observe high levels of hygiene such as washing hands and changing gloves after attending to every patient. Failure to change gloves could lead to transfer of Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria from one patient to another.