Publications by authors named "Manisha Biswal"

Article Synopsis
  • Urban rodents at Kolkata's Alipore Railway Station were studied for their role in spreading zoonotic pathogens, particularly Bartonella spp., through fleas, highlighting the link between high rodent populations and increased disease risk due to nearby human activity.
  • The study involved collecting and identifying rodents and fleas, as well as detecting Bartonella DNA to understand its prevalence and phylogenetic relationships among different species.
  • Results showed a high prevalence of Bartonella infections in rodents (53.33%) and fleas (79.1%), with some haplotypes indicating cross-species transmission between rodents, fleas, and humans, underscoring the public health implications of these findings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: An eschar is not always present in all scrub typhus patients. Furthermore, such patients may present to tertiary care hospitals after administration of doxycycline. The present study aimed to determine the usefulness of using the swab from eschar sites in the diagnosis of scrub typhus in patients who present post-doxycycline therapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - This study investigates the prevalence and prognosis of secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH) in adult scrub typhus patients in North India, finding it affects 18.7% of patients.
  • - Key diagnostic factors include high-grade fever, seizures, and elevated ferritin levels, with ferritin showing the strongest correlation (AUC 0.83) for diagnosing sHLH.
  • - The research highlights that patients with sHLH have a significantly higher in-hospital mortality rate (21.4%) compared to those without (6.6%), stressing the importance of early detection for better management.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the prevalence and impact of candidaemia in 67 ICUs across India, assessing how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced its rates and mortality.* -
  • Data from 401,601 patient days revealed higher candidaemia rates in COVID-19 ICUs (2.52/1000 patient days) compared to non-COVID-19 ICUs (1.05/1000 patient days), with associated mortality significantly higher in COVID-19 cases (61% vs. 41%).* -
  • Analysis identified C. tropicalis as the most common isolated species (26.7%), while C. auris, which had a high mortality rate, accounted for 17.5% of isolates
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients receiving mechanical ventilation in India. Surveillance of VAP is essential to implement data-based preventive measures. Implementation of ventilator-associated events (VAE) criteria for surveillance has major constraints for low resource settings, which can lead to significant underreporting.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is the commonest healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in intensive care units (ICU), especially in trauma patients. VAP imposes a significant cost burden on the healthcare ecosystem. However, there are few data from the developing world.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Respiratory physiotherapists (RPs) are an integral part of healthcare workers delivering care to intubated patients. Our study aimed to evaluate the effect of awareness campaigns on hand hygiene (HH) compliance among RPs.

Method: An observational single-center study was conducted between 2015 and 2022 in different ICU types in both adult and paediatric settings.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The current systematic review aimed to collect and analyze the comprehensive evidence regarding Polymerase Spiral Reaction (PSR) and to estimate its diagnostic performance and usefulness as a point-of-care (PoC) assay.

Methods: Literature was retrieved systematically from 2015 to 2023 from PubMed and Scopus. Studies were screened and selected against pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Scrub typhus infection is reemerging leading cause of acute febrile illnesses in post-rainy or monsoon season in Southeast Asia. It is caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi and spread by the bite of chiggers, larval forms of trombiculid mites. The clinical picture can range from simple acute febrile illness to multiorgan dysfunction.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Detection of infectious diseases, especially among immunocompromised and patients on prolonged anti-microbial treatment, remains challenging, limited by conventional techniques with low sensitivity and long-turnaround time. Molecular detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) also has limited utility as it requires a targeted approach with prior suspicion of the infecting organism. Advancements in sequencing methodologies, specifically next-generation sequencing (NGS), have presented a promising opportunity to identify pathogens in cases where conventional techniques may be inadequate.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Scrub typhus is a zoonotic disease caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi. Although the presence of eschar is considered pathognomic, diagnosis of scrub typhus is challenging due to overlapping presentation. The diagnosis is based on the serological and molecular assay.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) or acute febrile encephalopathy is a clinical condition characterized by altered mental status occurring after or along with a short febrile illness. In developing countries, infections are the predominant cause of AES. Prominent infections known to cause AES include viruses (such as herpes simplex virus [HSV], Japanese Encephalitis [JE] virus, dengue, enteroviruses [EVs]), bacteria, fungus, and parasites.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers trapped rodents in Chandigarh and Punjab, screening them for ticks and rickettsial agents using specific PCR methods and sequencing to identify genetic relationships.
  • * The findings confirm the presence of Rickettsia rhipicephali in the community, a non-pathogenic rickettsial agent, and call for increased surveillance to assess the prevalence of rickettsial diseases in the region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background & Aims: The reported burden of multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) infections is highest in patients with cirrhosis from India. We evaluated whether colonisation at multiple barriers predisposes to such infections and poor outcomes in patients with cirrhosis.

Methods: We prospectively performed swab cultures, antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), and genotype testing for MDROs from various sites (rectum, nose, composite-skin, and central-line) in patients with cirrhosis (2020-2021) on admission and follow-up at a tertiary institute.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The maintenance bundle of care for all venous access devices (peripheral intravenous catheters, PIVC; central venous catheters, CVCs; hemodialysis ports) is important to prevent secondary sepsis in critically ill patients. This quality improvement project analyzed the effect of intensive training and education of health care workers (HCWs) on maintenance bundles for venous access devices.

Methods: The study period comprising of preintervention phase (3-months) included 25 random visits to the intensive care unit for point observations regarding maintenance of all venous access devices in-situ in all intensive care unit patients on the day of the visit.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The utility of surveillance stool culture (SSC) to guide antibiotics for febrile neutropenia (FN) is unresolved in non-transplant settings. The prospective study explored the prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) in SSCs, its correlation with mortality, and the concordance of SSCs with cultures obtained during subsequent episodes of FN amongst children with acute leukemia. SSCs were obtained at presentation and 2 mo into chemotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rickettsial diseases (RD) are widely reported all over the world. Scrub typhus (ST) is a major tropical infection which is well documented all over India. Therefore, the index of suspicion of scrub typhus is high among physicians with regard to patients presenting with acute febrile illness (AFI) and acute undifferentiated febrile illness (AUFI) in India.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rickettsial infections are an important cause of acute febrile illness in developing countries. They can rarely present with cutaneous manifestations such as gangrene. Here we report a 12-year-old boy who presented with acute undifferentiated fever, multiorgan dysfunction, and gangrene of bilateral toes and ear lobes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

 In the ongoing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic, a long hospital stay and empirical broad-spectrum antibiotics make the patients prone to acquire nosocomial infections especially with unconventional organisms, and is one such rare nosocomial pathogen.  The given study is a case-series-based study conducted from September 2020 to April 2021 in which clinically suspected pneumonia patients who recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were included.  Seventeen isolates were obtained in pure culture from the tracheal aspirates of nine COVID-19 patients (including repeat samples to rule out colonization) within a period of eight months (September 2020-April 2021).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background Considering the virulent nature of the COVID-19, the safety of healthcare workers (HCW) became a challenge for hospital administrators. Wearing a personal protective equipment (PPE) kit, called donning, which can be easily done by the help of another staff. But correctly removing the infectious PPE kit (doffing) was a challenge.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF