Publications by authors named "Shiril Kumar"
Background And Aim: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection poses a major public health challenge in Indian settings due to its huge population and easy transmissibility of HCV among individuals who inject drugs (PWID, which is increasing in India). The National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), India has started the Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) centers to improve the health status of opioid dependent PWID and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among them. We conducted a cross-sectional study to find out the HCV sero-positive status and associated determinants in patients attending the OST centre in the ICMR-RMRIMS, Patna.
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- People living with HIV in Bihar, India, are at a higher risk for asymptomatic Leishmania infection (ALI), with a baseline prevalence of 7.4% found among participants in a study.
- The study examined various diagnostic methods for detecting ALI, revealing that rK39 ELISA was the most effective, while qPCR and rapid diagnostic tests showed low positive rates and weak agreement among them.
- Risk factors for ALI were identified as low CD4 counts and larger household sizes, with individuals exhibiting CD4 counts below 200 being significantly more likely to have ALI.
Facilitating Safe Discharge Through Predicting Disease Progression in Moderate Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Prospective Cohort Study to Develop and Validate a Clinical Prediction Model in Resource-Limited Settings.
Clin Infect Dis
August 2022
Background: In locations where few people have received coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, health systems remain vulnerable to surges in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. Tools to identify patients suitable for community-based management are urgently needed.
Methods: We prospectively recruited adults presenting to 2 hospitals in India with moderate symptoms of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 to develop and validate a clinical prediction model to rule out progression to supplemental oxygen requirement.
Introduction: HIV coinfection presents a challenge for diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Invasive splenic or bone marrow aspiration with microscopic visualisation of parasites remains the gold standard for diagnosis of VL in HIV-coinfected patients. Furthermore, a test of cure by splenic or bone marrow aspiration is required as patients with VL-HIV infection are at a high risk of treatment failure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA Multi-Country, Single-Blinded, Phase 2 Study to Evaluate a Point-of-Need System for Rapid Detection of Leishmaniasis and Its Implementation in Endemic Settings.
Microorganisms
March 2021
Article Synopsis
- The isothermal nucleic acid amplification techniques, particularly the recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) assay, have made it possible to detect pathogenic DNA directly in clinical samples, presenting a new approach in diagnostics over real-time PCR.
- A multi-country evaluation study was conducted in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka on clinical samples from patients with various forms of leishmaniasis to compare the diagnostic effectiveness of the RPA assay against real-time PCR.
- While real-time PCR showed higher sensitivity in detecting visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL), the RPA assay showed promise but was less sensitive for cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL
Background: Infection with Chikungunya alphavirus (CHIKV) can cause severe arthralgia and chronic arthritis in humans with persistence of the virus in perivascular macrophages of the synovial membrane by mechanisms largely ill-characterized.
Findings: We herein analysed the innate immune response (cytokine and programmed cell death) of RAW264.7 mouse macrophages following CHIKV infection.
Activation and control of CNS innate immune responses in health and diseases: a balancing act finely tuned by neuroimmune regulators (NIReg).
CNS Neurol Disord Drug Targets
February 2011
Innate immunity is an arsenal of molecules and receptors expressed by professional phagocytes, glial cells and neurons and involved in host defence and clearance of toxic and dangerous cell debris. However, any uncontrolled innate immune responses within the central nervous system (CNS) are widely recognized as playing a major role in the development of autoimmune disorders and neurodegeneration, with multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer's diseases (AD) being primary examples. Critically, neuroimmune regulatory proteins (NIReg) may control the adverse immune responses in health and diseases.
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