Human monkeypox is a viral zoonosis endemic to West and Central Africa that has recently generated increased interest and concern on a global scale as an emerging infectious disease threat in the midst of the slowly relenting COVID-2019 disease pandemic. The hallmark of infection is the development of a flu-like prodrome followed by the appearance of a smallpox-like exanthem.

We describe a 42-year-old woman with histologically confirmed lobomycosis, a cutaneous fungal infection rarely reported outside of Latin America. Our case represents the first published report of imported human lobomycosis in Canada and the fifth in an industrialized country.

We describe a 27-year-old man with acute cholecystitis, hepatic abscess, and bacteremia caused by Clostridium hathewayi, a newly described gram-negative, endospore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium. This report is the first of human infection caused by this microorganism.

We describe a fatal case of Clostridium symbiosum bacteremia in a 70-year-old man with metastatic colon cancer. Our report is the first, in the world literature, of human infection caused by this microorganism.

We report two cases of Nocardia cyriacigeorgica septicemia and disseminated infection in the setting of profound immunodeficiency. In both instances, diagnosis was rapidly facilitated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing of blood culture isolates. These constitute the first confirmed reports of Nocardia cyriacigeorgica bloodstream infection in humans.

We describe the development and evaluation of a novel pair of real-time, fluorescence-based PCR assays using molecular beacon probes for rapid, sensitive, and specific detection and quantification of Plasmodium falciparum and other Plasmodium species organisms.