Is routine screening for necessary in ICU?

Background And Objectives: The capability to cause invasive infection, multi-drug resistance, and health care-associated outbreaks of have made it a pathogen of great concern. Estimating how many patients in our intensive care unit had colonization and what characteristics put patients at risk for having spp. colonization were the primary goals of the study.

Time to positivity of blood cultures causing candidemia and its relation to mortality.

Background And Objectives: Early diagnosis of candidemia is of vital importance in reducing mortality and morbidity. The main objective of the study was to determine the TTP (Time to Positivity) of different species of causing bloodstream infection and to see whether TTP can help differentiate which is frequently fluconazole resistant from Fluconazole sensitive .

Materials And Methods: TTP (Time to positivity) and AAT (Appropriate Antifungal therapy) were noted for Blood cultures becoming positive for .

Prevalence and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of and in stool among patients presenting with diarrhea in a tertiary care centre in South India.

Background And Objectives: Bacterial causes of gastroenteritis include spp, diarrheagenic and spp. Although infections caused by NTS (Non Typhoidal ) and are usually self-limiting, antibiotic treatment is prefered in severely ill or immunocompromised individuals. The main objective of the study was to find out the prevalence of and among the stool samples received in Believers Church Medical College hospital and the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of spp.

Evaluation of chromogenic agar medium, can it be a suitable alternative to conventional culture system for identification of uropathogens?

Background And Objectives: Urinary tract infections (UTI) account for major proportion of outpatient load and hospital admission globally. In most of the clinical microbiology laboratories MacConkey agar (MAC) and Cystine lactose electrolyte-deficient (CLED) agar are being used for identification of uropathogens. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of HiCrome UTI by comparing isolation rate and presumptive identification of uropathogens against CLED and MAC agar.

Cryptococcal antigen prevalence in HIV patients from a tertiary care centre in South India.

Background And Objectives: Cryptococcosis is an opportunistic mycosis, caused by . Cryptococcal meningitis is one of the most fatal opportunistic infections associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The aim of this study was to find the prevalence of cryptococcal antigenemia in people living with HIV (PLHA) and also to find the prevalence of opportunistic infections among these patients.

COVID-19 Vaccines Portray the Bright Side of Human Creativity, But It Means Nothing until They Prove Their Worth: A Study on Seroconversion after the first Dose of Covishield Vaccine in Central Kerala.

Background: COVID-19 vaccines, we believe, have come to rescue us from the clutches of the dreaded severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). With rapid ongoing mutations, it is difficult to predict the effectiveness of seroconversion following vaccination. This study aims to find out the proportion of people with seroconversion following first dose of Covishield vaccine.

Non O1/ O139 Vibrio in a Patient with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

An elderly male with underlying Hepatocellular carcinoma came with history of fall with head and ear trauma, vomiting, abdominal pain, fatigue. Patient died within hours due to Septic shock Blood culture grew Non O1/O139 Vibrio cholerae which was later found to be non-toxigenic. This was a lethal case of non-O1/non-O139 V.

Ventriculoperitoneal shunt infection by Cryptococcus neoformans sensu stricto: Case report and literature review.

Background: Cryptococcal ventriculoperitoneal shunt infection is known to occur due to an underlying infection in the patient rather than by nosocomial transmission of Cryptococcus during shunt placement. A case of chronic hydrocephalus due to cryptococcal meningitis that was misdiagnosed as tuberculous meningitis is described.

Case Report: Patient details were extracted from charts and laboratory records.

Prevalence of Anti-HBc Antibodies among HBsAg Negative Individuals and Its Association with Occult Hepatitis B.

 Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is an endemic in many Asian countries, and among the major routes of transmission, transfusion is the one that should be prevented. Occult HBV infection (OBI) is defined as the presence of HBV DNA in the absence of detectable HBsAg, with or without anti-HBV antibodies. The aim of this study was to detect the prevalence of anti-HBc total antibodies among the HB surface antigen (HBsAg) negative individuals by way of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and detect the presence of HBV DNA among the anti-HBc seropositives by polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Comparison of PCR and phenotypic methods for the detection of methicillin resistant .

Background And Objectives: Resistance to methicillin in methicillin resistant strains of (MRSA) is due to the presence of gene, which encodes a low affinity penicillin binding protein (PBP)-2a or PBP2. Accurate and rapid identification of MRSA in clinical specimens is essential for timely decision on effective treatment. The aim of the study was to compare three different methods for detection of MRSA namely cefoxitin disc diffusion, CHROM agar MRSA and VITEK-2 susceptibility with PCR which is the gold standard reference method and to find the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of these isolates by VITEK-2.

Prevalence of hepatitis C among haemodialysis patients in a tertiary care hospital in south India.

Background And Objectives: Hepatitis C is the most common hepatotropic viral infection that affects patients on maintenance hemodialysis. Most of the laboratories in India depend on HCV antibody detection by ELISA. PCR based studies on detection of HCV RNA among haemodialysis patients are very scanty in India.

causing deadly sepsis.

Infections caused by are extremely rare but can be relatively fatal in septicemia. We report a case of a 76 year old female who presented with pustules in the skin and later developed into septicemia. She succumbed to the illness despite escalating the antibiotic therapy to meropenem.

Prevalence of dengue and leptospirosis co-infection in a tertiary care hospital in south India.

Background And Objectives: Dengue and Leptospirosis were often discussed separately with rash being more common in dengue and jaundice in leptospirosis. But with increasing reports of co-infection, the situation has become worse. The main objective of this study was to look for the presence of both Dengue and Leptospira IgM antibodies in serum samples of patients, presenting with acute febrile illness.

A prospective cross sectional study of detection of toxin in patients with antibiotic associated diarrhoea.

Background And Objectives: infections (CDI) include self-limiting antibiotic associated diarrhoea (AAD), antibiotic-associated colitis, and pseudomembranous colitis. The present study aimed at detecting toxin in stool samples of patients with AAD and analyzing the antibiotic use and presence of other risk factors in these patients.

Materials And Methods: In this study, which was conducted on 660 samples, a 2- step strategy was used.

Antimicrobial activity of plumbagin, a naturally occurring naphthoquinone from Plumbago rosea, against Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans.

Candida albicans and Staphylococcus aureus are opportunistic pathogens. Despite causing a number of independent infections, both pathogens can co-infect to cause urinary tract infections, skin infections, biofilm associated infections, sepsis and pneumonia. Infections of these two pathogens especially their biofilm associated infections are often difficult to treat using currently available anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agents.