Indian J Med Res
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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has spread rapidly, causing unprecedented case fatalities across the world. The first laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 and also the first death associated with the disease in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh (UP) was reported from Basti on March 31, 2020. The present study describes a cluster of 17 cases including one death of confirmed COVID-19 in Basti, UP, India. ⋯ The funeral acted as a super-spreader event for the transmission of infection among family members, relatives and others. Active contact tracing and confirmation of infection among the contacts led to the isolation of 16 SARS-CoV-2 positive cases and hence the limited spread of the disease. Asymptomatic carriers and super-spreader events are among the major challenges in the control and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Early testing, quarantine and social distancing may play key role in breaking the chain of transmission.
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In December 2019, a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in China and rapidly spread globally including India. The characteristic clinical observations and outcomes of this disease (COVID-19) have been reported from different countries. The present study was aimed to describe the clinico-demographic characteristics and in-hospital outcomes of a group of COVID-19 patients in north India. ⋯ In this single-centre study of 144 hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 in north India, the characteristic findings included younger age, high proportion of asymptomatic patients, long time to PCR negativity and low need for intensive care unit care.
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Public health and diagnostic laboratories are facing huge sample loads for COVID-19 diagnosis by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). High sensitivity of optimized real-time RT-PCR assays makes pooled testing a potentially efficient strategy for resource utilization when positivity rates for particular regions or groups of individuals are low. We report here a comparative analysis of pooled testing for 5- and 10-sample pools by real-time RT-PCR across 10 COVID-19 testing laboratories in India. ⋯ Results from this multi-site assessment suggest that pooling five samples for SARS-CoV-2 detection by real-time RT-PCR may be an acceptable strategy without much loss of sensitivity even for low viral loads, while with 10-sample pools, there may be considerably higher numbers of false negatives. However, testing laboratories should perform validations with the specific RNA extraction and RT-PCR kits in use at their centres before initiating pooled testing.