Strategic Framework for Strengthening Health Laboratory Services in the COVID-19 Pandemic in Iran.

Background & Objective: Providing equitable access to good quality, timely, and affordable laboratory testing has always been a top priority for the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoH-ME) and the Reference Health Laboratory (RHL). Considering the significant role of medical laboratories in disease surveillance, RHL developed a strategic plan to manage laboratory services during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the "Strategic Framework for strengthening health laboratory services, 2016-2020" proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). This article describes the steps taken to establish the strategic framework in Iran.

Health care-associated infections, including device-associated infections, and antimicrobial resistance in Iran: The national update for 2018.

Introduction: Surveillance of health care-associated infections (HAIs) is an essential part of an efficient healthcare system. This study is an update on incidence and mortality rates of HAIs in Iran in 2018.

Methods: Almost all hospitals across the country (940 hospitals) entered the data of HAIs and denominators to the Iranian Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (INIS) software.

Streptococcus agalactiae clinical isolates in Northwest Iran: antibiotic susceptibility, molecular typing, and biofilm formation.

Group B Streptococcus () is one of the colonizing bacteria in pregnant women which can be a causative agent of meningitis and neonatal sepsis. This organism has also been increasingly related to invasive infections in non-pregnant adults. In present study, we aimed to characterize the clonality of biofilm-producing isolates from various sources from two different clinical laboratories in Tehran, Iran.

Shiga toxin-producing bacteria as emerging enteric pathogens associated with outbreaks of foodborne illness in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Background: Detection of the cause of diarrhoeal diseases is important for the management of the outbreaks.

Aims: This study investigated the prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing bacteria in stool samples of patients with diarrhoea associated with outbreaks of foodborne illness in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Methods: A total of 532 stool and rectal swab samples from 70 sporadic outbreaks during May 2014 to August 2015 were examined for infection with Shiga toxin-producing bacteria.