Department of Microbiology, St. John's Medical College & Hospital, Bangalore, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the XVIII National Conference of Indian Virological Society at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, December 11–13, 2008.
Respiratory Syncytial virus is one of the major respiratory tract viral pathogens in developed and developing countries, causing acute lower respiratory infections among infants and young children. Rapid detection is important for timely specific effective antiviral treatment, avoiding unnecessary antibiotics. The gold standard for diagnosis of respiratory infections - virus isolation by conventional cell cultures is slow, takes many days for isolation and identification of the virus. At present, there is no baseline data available regarding prevalence of RSV in Bangalore. Study is a prospective one to evaluate efficacy of DFA to detect RSV antigen in NPA, in cases of ARI (according to WHO definitions for classification of ARI), from infants & children upto three years age, already admitted in Paediatric Ward and Intensive Care Units and those attending regular Paediatric OPD. A total of 50 nasopharyngeal aspirates will be collected, with informed consent from parent/guardian, by trained staff. Deposits of centrifuged NPAs will be directly spotted on slides and fixed. Direct fluorescence for RSV antigen will be performed using specific monoclonal antibodies to RSV. A positive result is indicated by presence of two or more intact cells showing specific fluorescence. A negative result is indicated by absence of fluorescence in a minimum sampling of 20 epithelial cells. DFA has been standardized with positive control slide for RSV showing bright apple green fluorescence. Detailed results of NPAs positive for RSV will be presented along with nature of ARI & correlation with age.
