Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic that affected almost all countries worldwide with more than 29,439,120 confirmed cases and 932,486 deaths recorded till on September 14, 2020. However, on May 25, 2020, after 2 months from the first reported case of COVID-19 in Libya, the country was among very few countries in the world that had very few cases of COVID-19 with a total of 75 confirmed cases and three deaths during the first 2 months since the detection of the first case on March 24, 2020. Based on the global epidemiological pattern of the disease, the magnitude of COVID-19 in Libya could have been much worse. However, the reality is eccentrically different and the epidemiology exhibited different scenario with very few cases being recorded during the first 2 months of pandemic in Libya. In this article, a review of COVID-19 situation in Libya is presented with thoughts about the potential reasons that could explain the very few cases of COVID-19 in the country in context with the global figures of the pandemic.
Ibrahim Eldaghayes(11-2020)

This study was conducted to investigate the presence of Enterococcus spp. in meat, meat products and seafood. A hundred and four samples were randomly collected from different geographic localities in Libya. The samples were subjected to microbiological analysis for enumeration and isolation of Enterococcus spp. by conventional cultural and molecular identification using PCR and partial sequencing of 16S rDNA techniques. Out of 104 samples, 73 (70.2%) isolates were found to be enterococci based on their cultural characteristics on ESD medium. However, out of 36 samples subjected to molecular identification, only six isolates were confirmed to be Enterococcus spp. using PCR and partial sequencing of 16S rDNA technique. All enterococci strains tested for their antibiotic sensitivity profiles showed high percentage of multi-resistance phenotype. These results can be used for further studies on enterococci as an emerging food borne pathogen and its role in human infection in Libya and would suggest that meat, meat products and seafood might play a role in the spreading of enterococci through the food chain with antimicrobial resistance characteristics.
Salah M. Azwai(1-2017)

Foot-and-mouth disease viruses are often restricted to specific geographical regions and spread to new areas may lead to significant epidemics. Phylogenetic analysis of sequences of the VP1 genome region of recent outbreak viruses from Libya and Saudi Arabia has revealed a lineage, O-Ind-2001, normally found in the Indian subcontinent. This paper describes the characterization of field viruses collected from these cases and provides information about a new real-time RT-PCR assay that can be used to detect viruses from this lineage and discriminate them from other endemic FMD viruses that are co-circulating in North Africa and western Eurasia.
Ibrahim Eldaghayes(12-2014)