Institutional outbreak of varicella in a child welfare institute in Chandigarh, North India.
Introduction
Varicella outbreaks are known to occur in developing nations as vaccine coverage is still low.


Material and Methods
In the present study, an institutional outbreak from Chandigarh, India, is reported wherein the utility of non-invasive samples such as saliva and urine was studied for the molecular diagnosis of varicella by conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR), real-time PCR and real-time loop-mediated isothermal amplification (real-time LAMP).


Results
The results of the present study showed that saliva and urine samples can be used for outbreak investigation of varicella compared to varicella-zoster virus DNA in vesicular swab samples with reasonable sensitivity.


Conclusion
Thus, molecular techniques may be useful in the early identification of the outbreak and timely isolation, and the treatment of cases can further prevent its spread.
['Singh|Mini P|MP|', 'Rungta|Tripti|T|', 'Kumar|Archit|A|', 'Goyal|Kapil|K|', 'Bharti|Bhavneet|B|', 'Ratho|R K|RK|']
D000293:Adolescent D000914:Antibodies, Viral D002644:Chickenpox D002648:Child D002669:Child Welfare D004279:DNA, Viral D004196:Disease Outbreaks D005260:Female D006268:Health Facilities D014645:Herpesvirus 3, Human D006801:Humans D007194:India D008297:Male D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction D012463:Saliva D014556:Urine
varicella polymerase chain reaction Loop-mediated isothermal amplification