Background: Neonatal sepsis is a continuing problem causing significant burden on health care, especially in developing world. As blood culture has low sensitivity in diagnosis of neonatal sepsis, strong clinical suspicion along with combination of different laboratory tests is required. The data available for extensively studied acute phase reactant, procalcitonin (PCT) remains controversial. This study was done to assess role of PCT alone and in combination with different tests for diagnosing neonatal sepsis.Methods: Blood samples of 275 neonates (>35 weeks of gestation) admitted to NICU, with suspicion of neonatal sepsis were collected for bacterial culture, serum procalcitonin level and sepsis screen (CRP, mESR, I/T ratio, Total Leucocyte Count, Absolute Neutrophil Count).Results: Blood culture was positive in 30.5% of enrolled neonates. At a cut-off value of 0.5 ng/ml the sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV of serum PCT in neonatal sepsis cases was 73.8%, 47.1%, 48%, 80.4% respectively. Serum PCT was found raised in 60 (48.8%) clinically suspected cases of neonatal sepsis where sepsis screen and blood culture both were negative, also it was not raised in 17 (32.7%) of clinically suspected cases of septicemia where both blood culture and sepsis screen were positive. Amongst other individual tests, CRP was found to have best sensitivity (79.7%) and NPV (85%) followed by PCT (73.8% and 80.4%) while best specificity was found for I/T ratio (93.7%) followed by mESR (89%) for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis with positive blood culture. Best NPV was seen for combination of PCT+CRP+I/T ratio (95.6%) for the suspected cases of neonatal sepsis.Conclusions: Thus, we conclude that serum PCT can play a useful role when combined with other test markers but may not find its way as a sole diagnostic marker for diagnosing neonatal sepsis in term/near term babies.

Malaria is a parasitic disease caused by and is associated with acute febrile episodes. The disease burden is highest in Southeast Asia. Various measures are being taken to curb the disease in different countries. Even after the introduction of various programmes there has been reports of imported malaria which has been transported from highly endemic countries to less endemic or countries not having cases of Malaria. Not only this, various other viral disease come in as coinfection with malaria which makes the situation even worse. Here we describe one such case of malaria imported from traveller from Nigeria to India who also developed coinfection with Chikungunya.

Introduction: Bacterial meningitis among adults is a medical emergency and requires immediate diagnosis as well as immediate treatment. As clinical diagnosis is not always reliable, laboratory isolation along with antimicrobial susceptibility results are crucial. Conventional agar culture methods gives poor sensitivity and delayed results. Automated culture methods like BACTEC are suitable option for culture of sterile fluids beside blood culture. Aim: To determine the bacterial agents causing meningitis in this region, along with their antibiogram by using automated culture system BACTEC FX40. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional, observational study was conducted between October 2019-September 2020 in Department of Microbiology, Rohilkhand Medical College and Hospital, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India. Cereospinal Fluid (CSF) samples received from medicine Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and wards were processed by inoculating them on BD BACTEC Peds Plus/F bottle and then incubating them on BACTEC BD FX40 system. The bottles flagged and positive were subcultured and further processed according to standard laboratory procedures. The antibiotic sensitivity test was performed from isolated organisms by Kirby-Bauer Disc Diffusion method according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Results: A total of 108 CSF were received for culture by automated methods from patients suspected of meningitis during the study period. Out of them 84 (77.8%) beeped as positive while 24 (22.2%) were sterile. From the positives, 77 showed growth of gram positive cocci, three were gram negative bacilli and four showed growth of environmental and skin contaminants that were excluded from the study. All gram positive cocci were identified as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The antibiotic sensitivity testing showed 100% sensitivity to vancomycin and linezolid. Only 25 isolates of S. aureus were sensitive to cefoxitin. Both the isolates of Escherichia coli (E. coli) were sensitive to cefazolin, ceftazidime, aztreonam. Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) was sensitive to amikacin and piperacillin/tazobactum. Conclusion: A shift in the trend was observed in the aetiology of bacterial meningitis with Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as the most predominant isolate among adult population. BACTEC FX40 system was found more sensitive in detecting pathogens over the conventional methods with reduced time to positivity. Early detection of causative organism will facilitate early initiation of suitable antibiotic therapy, thereby reducing mortality and meningitis associated complications.