Volatile Organic Compound Identification-Based Tuberculosis Screening among TB Suspects: A Diagnostic Accuracy Study.

Tuberculosis (TB) affects a third of the global population, and a large population of infected individuals still remain undiagnosed-making the visible burden only the tip of the iceberg. The detection of tuberculosis in close-proximity patients is one of the key priorities for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of TB elimination by 2030. With the current battery of screening tests failing to cover this need, the authors of this paper examined a simple and inexpensive point-of-care breath analyzer (TSI-3000(I)), which is based on detecting the volatile organic compounds that are emitted from infected cells and released in exhaled breath as a screening tool for the detection of TB. A single-center pilot study for assessing the diagnostic accuracy of the point-of-care Tuberculosis Breath Analyzer was conducted, and it was compared against the WHO-recommended TrueNat assay, which is a rapid molecular test and was also treated as the reference standard in this study. Of the 334 enrolled participants with TB signs/symptoms, 42.51% were TrueNat positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The sensitivity of the Tuberculosis Breath Analyzer was found to be 95.7%, with a specificity of 91.3% and a ROC area of 0.935. The test kit showed considerable/significant high sensitivity and specificity as reliability indicators. The performance of the Tuberculosis Breath Analyzer tested was found to be comparable in efficiency to that of the TrueNat assay. A large cohort-based multicentric study is feasibly required to further validate and extrapolate the results of the pilot study.

Post-COVID Syndrome and Severity of COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Epidemiological Evaluation From North India.

Background COVID-19 has now lasted for more than two years as a pandemic and has had enduring effects on the health of people as the post-COVID syndrome. Recent literature has shown the long-term effects of COVID-19 on various organ systems, including but not limited to respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, musculoskeletal, and gastrointestinal systems. Methods and objectives We aimed to estimate the prevalence of post-acute COVID symptoms in a tertiary care center in northern India; observe the effects of the demographic profile of age, BMI, gender, and presence of comorbidities on the persistence of post-COVID syndrome, and explore any correlation between the severity of COVID-19 disease and the persistence of post-COVID symptoms. We designed a survey containing structured questions evaluating post-COVID symptoms beyond three weeks (post-acute COVID phase), six weeks (post-COVID phase), and 12 weeks of acute illness. It was administered online.  Results Prevalence of post-COVID symptoms both after three and six weeks was reported to be 16.67% and 7.37%, respectively. The most common symptoms to persist were musculoskeletal symptoms (fatigue), followed by upper respiratory symptoms. Disease severity (p<0.05), BMI (p<0.05), and comorbidities were seen to affect post-COVID symptoms significantly, whereas gender and age of the patient had no significant effect. Disease severity significantly affected the persistence of post-COVID symptoms up to 12 weeks; however, this effect does not hold true in long COVID haulers. Also, the risk of developing persistent post-acute COVID symptoms was more in moderate to severe disease than in mild disease. Conclusion The pandemic might be close to over, but it is not out of our lives yet, and the persistence of post-COVID symptoms is exigent.