Microbiology

Diarrohea: Diarrhoea can be caused by different types of bacteria or parasites or viruses. Treatment vary for all these different organisms and hence, stool for culture and stool for routine for parasites helps diagnose the organism and treatment can then be started.

Urinary tract infection: Mostly caused by bacteria alone and every women must have faced this UTI atleast once or even more in their lifetime. Hence it is necessary to find the root cause of this infection before initiating treatment. The Microbiology department can also provide you the report of which antibiotics should be used and which should not.

Typhoid fever: Typhoid being one of the cause of fever can be tested by blood culture by growing this organism as well as understanding about which antibiotics are effective thereby helping doctor to provide proper management.

Tuberculosis(TB): Tuberculosis of lungs are common but TB can infect any organ of the body. Its detection is difficult but not impossible. Hence, for TB of lungs, if cough is more than 2 weeks, get yourself tested for tuberculosis which is carried out in Microbiology department.

Fungal infection of skin/nails: White patch of the skin/brittle nails is mostly due to fungal infection. Skin scraping can be done and fungi can be easily identified in dept of Microbiology.

How are these tests performed

The laboratory is equipped with state of art automated machines with high precision with frequent checking on quality control and all the machines are interfaced with computer so that the values are automatically transferred thereby preventing typographical errors.

Knowing is better than blindly treating Its time for us to be proactive in identifying the cause of the disease and also find the antibiotics which can be used.

• Check with your doctor who will decide the required test.
• Growth of correct microorganisms is solely dependent on procedure of sample collection. E.g. For urine culture- Urine needs to be collected and processed immediately. Early morning urine is NOT RECOMMENDED.
• Donot take antibiotics on your own which will lead to antibiotic resistance.

Key offerings by dept. of Microbiology

• Gram stain for bacteria
• Stain for Tuberculosis(AFB stain)
• KOH mount for fungi
• Bacterial culture and sensitivity
• Fungal culture and sensitivity
• Modified ZN stain (for opportunistic parasites)
• Blood culture for bacteria and fungi
• Enzyme detection by using multiplex immunochromatography assay for CRE.
• Colistin Microbroth dilution method
• Rapid urine test for histoplasma capsulatam
• Synergy test for Ceftazidime-avibactam and Aztreonam
• Data of antimicrobial resistance

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Microbiologist

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