Background and Objectives Although about 80% of coronavirus disease‐2019 (COVID‐19) cases are reported to be mild, the remaining 20% of cases often result in severe disease with the potential of crushing already overstrained health care services. There has been sustainable growth of COVID‐19 cases worldwide since mid‐May 2020. To keep tabs on community transmission of COVID‐19 infection screening of the samples from a large population is needed which includes asymptomatic/symptomatic individuals along with the migrant population. This requires extra resources, man power, and time for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 by real‐time polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR). In the current scenario, the pooled sample testing strategy advocated by the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi is a new approach that is very promising in resource‐limited settings. In this study, we have evaluated the pooled strategy in terms of accurate testing results, utilization of consumables, and identification of borderline positive cases. Materials and Methods Between April and June 2020, we performed COVID‐19 testing by RT‐PCR from areas with varying prevalence of population referred to COVID laboratory, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow. In the first step, the samples are collated into pools of 5 or 10. These pools are tested by RT‐PCR. Negative pools were reported as negative whereas positive pools of 5 and 10 are then deconvoluted and each sample is tested individually. Results In the present study, we tested 4620 samples in 462 pools of 10 and 14 940 samples in 2990 pools of 5. Among 10 samples pool, 61 (13%) pools flagged positive in the first step. In the second step, among 61 pools (610 samples) deconvoluted strategy was followed in which 72 individual samples came positive. The pooled‐sample testing strategy helps saves substantial resources and time during surge testing and enhanced pandemic surveillance. This approach requires around 76% to 93% fewer tests done in low to moderate prevalence settings and group sizes up to 5–10 in a population, compared to individual testing. Conclusions Pooled‐sample PCR analysis strategies can save substantial resources and time for COVID‐19 mass testing in comparison with individual testing without compromising the resulting outcome of the test. In particular, the pooled‐sample approach can facilitate mass screening in the early coming stages of COVID‐19 outbreaks, especially in low‐ and middle‐income settings, and control the spread by meticulous testing of all risk groups.

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Introduction: As regard to all pandemics, the current COVID-19 pandemic, could also have been better managed with prudent use of preventive measures coupled with rapid diagnostic tools such as rapid antigen tests, but their efficacy is under question because of projected lower sensitivity as compared to Real Time Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, which although considered gold standard has its own limitations. Methodology: A prospective, single centre study was carried out to evaluate the performance of Standard Q COVID-19 Ag, a rapid immuno-chromatographic assay for antigen detection, against TrueNat, a chip-based, point-of-care, portable, Real-Time PCR analyzer for diagnosis of COVID-19; on 467 nasal swab samples from suspected subjects at a fever clinic in North India in month of July 2020. Results: Of the 467 specimens tested, TrueNat showed positive result in 29 (6.2%), majority of whom were asymptomatic (72.4%) while 4/29 (13.9%) had influenza like illness and 2/29 (6.8%) presented with severe acute respiratory illness. Compared to TrueNat, Rapid antigen test gave concordance for 26 samples, while for 2 samples the result was false positive; giving an overall sensitivity of 89.7% (95% CI = 72.6- 97.8) and a specificity of 99.5%, indicating strong agreement between two methods. Conclusion: Community prevalence plays an important role is choosing the laboratory test and result interpretation. Rapid antigen detection tests definitely have a big role to play, especially in resource limited setting, for early diagnosis as well as for source control to halt the spread.

Aim of this study was to know the prevalence of Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CoNS) in Blood Stream Infection (BSI) among patients attending a Superspeciality hospital in North India. Objective of this study was to compare incidence of CoNS in ICU and ward patients suffering from BSI and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern. This retrospective hospital based study was conducted in the Microbiology Department, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow for a period of two years (January, 2017 -December, 2018). Blood samples from a total of 6498 patients from Out-Patient, In-Patient and Intensive care unit departments were subjected to aerobic and anaerobic bacterial culture. Culture positive broth was subcultured on Blood Agar and MacConkey Agar to isolate pathogens in pure culture. Pure cultured isolates were tested for antimicrobial susceptibility pattern by Kirby Bauer Disk Diffusion method as per CLSI 2018.During the study period, out of total 3284 samples in 2017 and 3214 in 2018, 663 and 595 were found to be culture positive respectively.Staphylococci were isolated from 636 (9.78%) patients (10.2% in 2017 and 9.2% in 2018). Staphylococcus aureus was isolated from 18.8% and CoNS from 81.2% of total Staphylococcal isolates. Among CoNS isolates 70.7% were found to be Methicillin Resistant CoNS (MRCoNS). This study observed CoNS as a major cause of BSI as compared to Staphylococcus aureusThe significance of CONS bacteremia should be evaluated better in light of clinical profile of the patient. Better screening and infection control practices in the future can decrease the rate of methicillin resistant CoNS in our centre.

Cryptosporidium is one of the major causes of diarrhea in HIV-positive patients. Infection is related to the ingestion of oocyst-contaminated drinking water or food. In HIV infected individuals, this infection could have a higher mortality and vary in clinical manifestation. We report a case of cryptosporidiosis in a recently detected HIV patient who was suffering from intermittent diarrhea for last 2 months. Stool samples were collected and examined by modified Kinyoun’s acid fast staining. On microscopy of smear, we found pink, spherical oocyst 4-6µm in diameter. The absolute CD4+ count of patients was 85 cells/µl and viral load was 560 copies/ml. Patient was treated with an antiparasitic drug Nitazoxanide for 3 days and anti-retroviral Treatment started in ART clinic. On follow up there was resolution of symptoms and no complaints of intermittent diarrhea.