BackgroundBlood gas analysis and blood lactate measurement have important roles in patient management. Point‐of‐care (POC) testing simplifies and provides rapid blood gas and lactate measurements. This study aimed to compare pH, pCO2, pO2, and lactate measurements between a POC device and a benchtop blood gas analyzer typically used in a hospital central laboratory, and to evaluate the inter‐device variability of the POC device.MethodsA cross‐sectional study was conducted with a sample size of 100. Each sample was measured for pH, pCO2, pO2, and lactate using a Nova pHOx plus L® benchtop blood gas analyzer in the central laboratory and an i‐STAT® handheld POC device. The results of both devices were compared using Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficients and Bland‐Altman tests. Testing of the inter‐device variability was done by using three different i‐STAT® devices, and the results were compared statistically.ResultsStrong correlations were observed for all test results. In Bland‐Altman analysis, ≥95% of the results were within the limits of agreement, with the exception of lactate, which had only 93%. The results that were beyond the limits were primarily lactate levels >8 mmol/L. Biases between the benchtop analyzer and the i‐STAT® were not clinically significant, except pH. No significant inter‐device variability was observed between the i‐STAT® analyzers.ConclusionThis comparison study of pH, pCO2, pO2, and lactate measurements between Nova pHOx plus L® and i‐STAT® analyzers showed good agreement. However, lactate measurement results >8 mmol/L on the i‐STAT® analyzer should be interpreted with caution.

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BackgroundThus far, Indonesia has recorded over 4,000,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 144,000 fatalities; 12.8% of cases have been in children under 18 years. Whole-genome viral sequencing (WGS) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been demonstrated to help differentiate hospital-acquired infection from community-acquired coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Our study highlighted the use of WGS to investigate the origin of infection among pediatric oncology patients in Jakarta. The aim of our study was to evaluate clinical and laboratory characteristics and also the efficacy of using WGS to confirm hospital-acquired COVID-19 infection in a cluster of immunocompromised children within a single ward of a tertiary hospital in metropolitan Jakarta based on quasispecies, viral load, and admission dates.MethodReal-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs was used to diagnose the patients and also guardians and healthcare workers (HCWs) in the ward, followed by WGS of RT-PCR positive cases to establish their phylogenetic relationships.ResultUsing WGS, we showed that SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a cluster of children with underlying malignancy was characterized by high similarity of whole virus genome, which suggests nosocomial transmission.