Honour to Dept of Virology PGIMER
Dr. Ishani Bora, Associate Professor, Department of Virology and the team have bagged the second Best Poster Award for her original research work on “Paradigm Shift in Respiratory Viruses Causing Lower Respiratory Tract Infections among Paediatric Patients during COVID-19 Pandemic”.
The award was bestowed to her in the recently concluded 45th Annual Conference of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologist (MICROCON 2022) held at Bhubaneswar. Lower respiratory infections (LRIs) are the commonest cause of mortality in children less than 5 years and majority them are because of respiratory viruses such as Influenza,RSV, Swine Flu etc.
The study was focussed to see the changes in the pattern of viruses in children with LRIS before the pandemic and during pandemic period. Interestingly, it has been observed that there was a drastic reduction in viral infections due to Respiratory Syncytial virus (RSV) during the delta and Omicron wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, it appears that SARS-CoV-2 played a substantially role towards the existence of other viral pathogens known to cause severe respiratory infections in children either by altering the immunity or by physical intervention whichneeds to be elucidated to understand the disease pathogenesis and virus to virus interactions.
