New comment on your post “CORNEAL SCRAPING IVE VIDEO”
Author: Manu Prakash (IP address: 205.154.255.130, 205.154.255.130)
Email: manup@stanford.edu
URL: http://www.stanford.edu/~manup
Comment:
Dear @Erolab,

Thanks for sharing the video. Can corneal scrapings be done in the
field? What classes of eye infections are often detected this way?

A few tips on slide making for foldscope. in the last step – the slide
(cover slip) should be facing downwards so the lens is looking through
the cover slip. Also, for all my wet samples; I always attach two
pieces of tape covering the edges of the cover slip. This way, when I
insert a slide – it does not slip sideways.

Would love to talk more and understand better the needs in the field.
You can write to me directly at manup@stanford.edu

Wonderful project.

Cheers
Manu

Dear Sir

Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our corneal scraping scrutinization video. As a microbiologist working in this diagnostic field for the past 20 years, I must thank you for your wonderful innovative idea – invention of foldscope and we are indeed proved of it.

In your mail you have inquuired whether corneal scraping shall be examined in under the foldscope field?

Yes, foldscope could be more useful to eye doctors. I served at Aravind Eye Hospitals Madurai as well as at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India for more than 5 years. As a diagnostic microbiologist, we came across some difficulties during corneal sample transport and its microbiological examination with respect to availability of facilities; trained staff members (or) microbiologist so as to diagnose the corneal infections. More importantly, we had to refer corneal infected patients/ cases to other referral hospitals owing to the lack of cost- effective diagnostic facilities.

In particular, corneal infections have been a serious ophalmic issue in our country. According to the World Health Organization, corneal diseases are among the major causes of vision loss and blindness in the world today, after cataract and glaucoma.( 2 ) In India, it is estimated that there are approximately 6.8 million people who have vision less than 6/60 in at least one eye due to corneal diseases; of these, about a million have bilateral involvement.( 3 , 4 ) It is expected that the number of individuals with unilateral corneal blindness in India will increase to 10.6 million by 2020.( 4 ) According to the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB) estimates, there are currently 120,000 corneal blind persons in the country. According to this estimate there is an addition of 25,000-30,000 corneal blindness cases every year in the country.( 5 ) The burden of corneal disease in our country is reflected by the fact that 90% of the global cases of ocular trauma and corneal ulceration leading to corneal blindness occur in developing countries.( 6 ) Indian J Community Med . 2013 Oct-Dec; 38(4): 198–206.

Against the indicated facts which we have highlighted in the DBT project proposal,, I hope your contribution/ invention – Foldscope would certainly assist to identify and solve some important problems in this field.  Remarkably, for the past 8 months, we have been using foldscope for the rapid examination and identification microbial pathogens in corneal samples collected from suspected cases. More importantly, we also generated appropriate data of comparative studies between normal binocular microscope and the foldscope.

In your mail you have been asked about placing of cover slip on the slide.

Sir, we use 10% KOH wet mount for processing , when you use exact amount (volume) the cover slip will not move; for safer side, we can use tape as you stated. Sometimes we also use tape for the same.

Fungal ulcer can be immediately identified using the foldscope, also more useful for Doctors to treat the patient on the spot.

For bacterial ulcer, we find some difficulties, because of the size of the bacteria and ability of the foldscope magnification. Foldscope observation of fungal filaments from culture using Lacto phenol cotton blue staining (LP) has been found to be effective.

Here, we have conducted foldscope hands- on sessions for Erode ophthalmic association Doctors and trained them to use foldscope. We need to concentrate all the districts especially rural and urban hospitals.

My sincere thanks to you for your hard work behind Foldscope invention, we have been truly sincere in bringing this project to the most essential and important diagnostic fields so as to help the society. I am very optimistic that with some improvement and modifications of the current model of the novel device, we can achieve more in future.

Thanking you