Research

TITLE: Etiology of childhood pneumonia in India: an ICMR task force study (2017-2020)

Sponsoring agencyICMR, India

Project leader Dr. K L Ravi Kumar, Chief- Central Research Laboratory

Year in which started 2017

Duration in months 24 months

Research Objectives

To estimate the relative prevalence of selected bacterial and viral pathogens in cases with clinically diagnosed community acquired severe pneumonia and in healthy controls among children aged 29 days to 59 months of age.

Research outcomes

The study helped to establish robust and practical diagnostic methods for determining etiology of childhood pneumonia utilizing a standardized protocol and develop a repository of bacteriological samples and isolates of key pathogens associated with pneumonia.

TITLE: Multi-centric prospectivehospital-based sentinel surveillance to determine theetiology of acute bacterial meningitis in children with conventional & molecular methods. (2018-2020)

Sponsoring agency Sanofi Pasteur, India

Project leader Dr. K L Ravi Kumar, Chief- Central Research Laboratory

Year in which started 2018

Duration in months 24 months

Research Objectives

  • To determine the etiological agents of acute probable bacterial meningitis in children aged 1-59 months in India
  • To estimate the proportion of Neissieria meningitidis in acute probable bacterial meningitis in children aged 1-59 months in India

Research outcomes

  • To describe and compare among demographic, clinical and laboratory features of confirmed meningococcal, pneumococcal and H influenzae-b meningitis cases.
  • To determine the circulating serogroups and describe the molecular epidemiology of Neisseria meningitidis among confirmed meningococcal meningitis cases.
  • To determine the circulating serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae among confirmed cases of pneumococcal meningitis cases, and describe their socio-demographic and clinical features

TITLE:Global Surveillance of bacterial pathogens using whole genome sequencing

Sponsoring agency NIHR, UK & BIRAC, Govt of India

Project leaderDr. K L Ravi Kumar, Chief- Central Research Laboratory

Year in which started 2018

Duration in months 48 months

Research Objectives

  • Develop capacity for locally-led research projects in LMICs and sampling frameworks to address national public health and research needs.
  • Provide actionable data at national and international levels to identify high-risk lineages of bacterial pathogens and determinants of antibiotic resistance, and open-access tools to understand their distribution and spread
  • Provide resourcing and training for local capacity and expertise to ensure ownership of outputs and utility for action.
  • Build a network of laboratories and experts across strategically important countries from which to expand to similar local contexts elsewhere

Research outcomes

Development of enhanced local healthcare systems and research to enable more refined identification of microbial pathogens that will have direct impact on standard infection control practices, the time taken to identify outbreaks, and ultimately to the benefit of patients and the general population.

Through this, there will be an increase in capacity for research, and local expertise in applying this knowledge to public health agendas. This will enable each country to increase public health capacity for spotting and stopping emerging epidemic lineages, whilst feeding into, and learning from, other sites and from global surveillance