Hydatid disease is an important emerging neglected disease worldwide, with significant geographic variation in seroprevalance. The disease is commonly diagnosed on basis of clinical suspicion, imaging and serology. This study was conducted to evaluate our experience with serology in diagnosing hydatid disease in terms of identifying the numbers of patients testing positive for antibodies against Echinococcus, and to study their clinical profile. This retrospective study included all patients who tested for anti-Echinococcus IgG antibodies by ELISA in the years 2014-2015. The clinical characteristics of seropositive patients were contrasted with seronegative patients, and the test results were correlated with radiological findings and, where performed, with histopathological studies. Analysis was performed on SPSS (IBM, Inc). Chi-square test was used to statistically compare between patient groups. Out of 54 patients evaluated by serology for Echinococcosis during the study period, Fourteen (26%) were seropositive. The two groups were comparable with respect to age, gender and most hematological parameters, excepting eosinophilia, which was more frequent among seropositive patients (28.6% vs. 2.5%; p=0.01). Alkaline phosphatase also tended to be higher among seropositives (42.9% vs 20%; p=0.09). Liver was the most frequent site involved (12 patients; 86%). Of the 29 patients who also underwent biopsy, all the seven patients with positive biopsy were seropositive, suggesting 100% sensitivity. The specificity was 81.8%, but this might be a lower estimate due to potentially high rate of false-negative biopsies, as all the seropositive patients also had imaging features suggestive of disease. The positive and negative predictive values were 63.6% and 100%, respectively. ELISA for detection of anti-Echinococcus antibodies is a simple serological test that helps in correlation with imaging finding in the diagnosis and subsequent management of hydatid disease.
A comprehensive SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance programme that integrates logistics, laboratory work, bioinformatics, analytics, and timely reporting was deployed through a public-private partnership in the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka in India. As a result, 12461 samples have been sequenced and reported to the Karnataka State public health officials as time-sensitive, decision support during the last one year and uploaded in global public databases in a timely manner. This programme has developed an analytics platform for studying SARS-CoV-2 sequences and their epidemiological context. Continuous sequencing effort enabled timely detection of emergence of Omicron variant in India and the subsequent spread of the same and its sub-lineages with more logistic growth (BA.10, BA.12 and BA.5) in Bengaluru. Our data also helped to provide timely information on variants to determine which of the Variants of Concern tracked globally, were observed in Bengaluru, ensuring targeted efforts and reducing unwarranted fear. This effort highlights the importance of, and the urgent need to, increase genomic surveillance to support the states with limited sequencing and bioinformatics capacity. We describe the development and deployment of this end-to-end solution for genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the city of Bengaluru.
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