Dr. Kavita Raja

Academic Qualifications

• Post graduate Diploma in Hospital Administration (Apollo Medvarsity Online course) 2016
• MPhil(Clin Epid.) ,Kerala, 2004
• MD, Kerala, 1995
• DCP, Kerala,1992
• MBBS ,Kerala,1986

Professional Record

• Professor Senior Grade and Head of Microbiology Department from 1/1/2021 till date
• Professor and Head of Microbiology and Chairperson COVID ICT subcommittee from 30/3/2020 till 31/12/2020
• Professor and Head of Microbiology and Medical Superintendent-in-charge, from 1st Dec 2017 till 17th March 2020
• Professor, Head and Associate Medical Superintendent; August 2015 to Nov 30th 2017; SCTIMST, TVM
• Professor, Head and First Appellate authority; Jan 2012 to November 2015; SCTIMST, TVM
• Professor, Head and Associate Dean; September 2010 to September 2015; SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram
• Associate Professor;June 2008 to June 2009 ;Medical College, Kottayam
• Associate Professor ;July 2002 to June 2008;Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram
• Associate Professor;July 2001 to July 2002;Medical College, Kozhikode
• Assistant Professor ;Sept 1995 to July 2001;Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram
• Lecturer trainee ;August 1991 to Sept.1995; Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram

Honors

• Member of SERB Task force for BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories
• Member of BOS, Kerala University of Health Sciences(KUHS)

Area of Interest

• Hospital Infections, Antibiotic usage, Infective Endocarditis, Epidemiology of SARS CoV2

Collaboration

• Kerala Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network, Govt of Kerala
• International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium(INICC) , Miami, USA
• Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh
• Kempegowda Institute of Medical Sciences, Karnataka
• Homograft valve bank, Govt Medical College, Trivandrum

Current Activities

• Member of high power Building Committee
• Member of NEP Committee since 2022
• Member of Institutional Review Committee since 2023
• Transparency Officer since Feb 2022
• Member of Academic Committee since December 2021
• Chairperson, Internal complaints Committee since June2021
• President, Academy of Clinical Microbiologists from 2023
• Member of Infection control Team from 2009
• Member of Hospital Infection Control Committee from 2009

Fellowships

• Commonwealth Professional Fellowship 2006 Attended training for two months from 3rd Feb 2007 to 30th March 2007, at the Health Protection Agency (HPA), Leeds, National Health Service Organisations and the Centre for Infections, Colindale, UK

Membership

• Founder member of Academy of Clinical Microbiologists (ACM)
• Member of European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases(ESCMID)
• Member of Hospital Infection Society (India) HISI
• Member of All India Pre and Para clinical Medicos Association(AIPCMA)
• Member of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists (IAMM)

On-going Projects

• Whole Genome Sequencing to understand the evolution of COVID 19 clusters in Healthcare workers and inpatients in a non-COVID tertiary care hospital and the impact of vaccination and selection pressure on the genome of SARS CoV2
• A prospective cohort study on Infective Endocarditis (IE) - microbiological profile and clinical outcomes

Projects Completed

• Fungal Infective Endocarditis - a retrospective case series- 2018
• Invasive Bacterial Infection Surveillance(IBIS)- 1999 to 2001 in collaboration with CMC, Vellore
• Internal faculty project on: "Nosocomial infection: Phenotypic characterization of resistant isolates and risk factors for resistance in a Tertiary Health care centre." From 17/7/2013 to 18/5/2015
• Project for PGDHA : "Delay in the discharge process and its relationship to patient satisfaction" from 1st to 14th November 2016

Professional Experience

• Teaching UG and PG students in Microbiology -1991 to 2009
• Clinical Microbiology practice -1995 till date
• Health care associated infections - 2009 till date
• Medical Superintendent from December 1st 2017 to March 14th 2020

Training

• "New Technologies and their Implications" National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISC campus, Bangalore, fro, 27th Feb to 2nd March 2011
• National Seminar on RTIA, Institute of Management in Government, Thiruvananthpuram, 11th and 12th October 2013
• Good Antibiotic Prescription Practices, epidemiology and Infection Control Certification Course 2014 at Amritha Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi
• "Quality Management Systems and Internal Audit in Medical Labs as per ISO 15189-2012" by Quality Council of India recognized Health Education and Learning Protocols(HELP)
• Contact programme for PGDHA course from20th June to 30th June 2016 ,Apollo Medvarsity at Bangalore

Major Achievements

• Founded the Academy of Clinical Microbiologists along with Dr.Mabel Legori(Founder President),which is a 300 member (2 members abroad) organization now that stands for all Doctors of Medicine who have specialized in Medical Microbiology and are interested in interaction with the clinician in treating infectious diseases, controlling outbreaks in hospitals and the community and preventing misuse of antibiotics that leads to multidrug resistant strains. The organization has a website and a journal published by Medknow publications(both online and hard copy) Organization has created awareness regarding clinical application of medical microbiology and misuse of antibiotics, by conducting Continuing medical Education programmes , workshops and conferences for microbiologists, students and clinicians for the past 20 years.

Organisational Activities

• HPCA Committee Chairperson
• Canteen Committee chairperson from 2015 to 2017
• Cadre review committee chairperson in 2019
• Infection Control advisory committee for the new block
• Dean for students affairs from 2010 to 2013
• COVID ICT sub-committee chairperson from May 2020 onwards till 2022
• Appellate authority for Right to Information from 2014 to 2017
• Appointed as member of Mentor Team in SCTIMST for starting SARs CoV2 RTPCR test for the state of Kerala, A&N islands and Lakshadweep in 2020

Completed Assignments

• HPCA report
• Cadre review report
• COVID Infection Control Manual - being updated regularly
• Hospital Infection Control Manual- being updated regularly

Books and Journals edited

• Associate Editor of Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology since January 2023 till date
• Journal of Academy of Clinical Microbiologists from 2014 to 2017 as Chief Editor

Presentations

• Infective Endocarditis- A diagnostic Dilemma in TRICON 2021(National Conference of Academy of Clinical Microbiologists) on 19th March 2021
• COVID 19 Diagnostics - In Control and Prevention of COVID-19 in a non-COVID hospital, Webinar conducted by Hospital Infection Control Unit and Department of Microbiology on 13th March 2021

Invited talks

• Fungal infective endocarditis- a neglected challenge- TRICON 2023 , Sept 30th 2023.
• How COVID changed the Healthcare sector- Microbiologists perspective- AIIMS, Bhuvaneshwar, SASH 2022
• "Bugs that produce Drugs-A biotechnology Miracle", International Seminar by Department of Biotechnology, University of Kerala
• Research in a Laboratory setting - Class for MPhil students, KUHS
• Appropriate Antibiotic Use - Class for General Surgery Residents , Govt Medical College , Trivandrum

No. of Publications

No. of Books Authored/ Edited

• Raja, K. . Enterococcal Infections: Recent Nomenclature and emerging trends. In: Hemeg, H. , editor. Streptococcal Infections [Working Title] [Internet]. London: IntechOpen; 2022 [cited 2022 Jun 14]. Available from: https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/82193 doi: 10.5772/intechopen.104792

Select Publications

• Jyothi Embekkat Kaviyil , Kavita Raja , Rakhal Gaitonde, Sreekumar Easwaran, Kumari Kala V, Dinoop Korol Ponnambath. Targeted Sanger Sequencing of a Cluster of COVID-19 Cases in the Surgical ICU of a Non-COVID Hospital: Lessons Learned. Cureus Sept 2023; 15(9): e44755. doi:10.7759/cureus.44755(Springer-Nature)
• Raja K, Mukhopadhyay C, Shetty AK, Chinnan JP, Sudarsana J, Ponnambath DK, et al. Detection and reporting of Carbapenemase producing Gram negative bacilli in Clinical Microbiology: A survey of practices in laboratories across India. J Acad Clin Microbiol 2022;24(2):55-62
• Ponnambath DK, Kaviyil JE, Raja K, Abraham M, Thomas B. A Rare Case of Cerebellar Abscess due to Listeria Monocytogenes in an Elderly Patient with Ulcerative Colitis. Neurol India 2022;70:1692-3
• Ramesh G, Paul W, Puthanveetil VV, Raja K, Kaviyil JE, Raman spectroscopy as a novel technique for the identification of pathogens in a clinical microbiology laboratory, Spectroscopy Letters, 2022; 55(8): 546-551
• Ponnambath DK, Kaviyil JE, Raja K, Kesavapisharady K, Thomas B, Narasimhaiah D, Sehgal R, Kaur U. An unusual guest in an unusual location of the brain of a rural tribal man. J Acad Clin Microbiol2022;24:44-7
• Kaviyil JE, Ponnambath DK,Sasidharan B, Vidyadharan P, Raja K. Aggregatibacter aphrophilus, a HACEK group pathogen as a cause of prosthetic valve endocarditis. J Acad Clin Microbiol 2022;24:41-3
• International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 45 countries for 2013- 2018, Adult and Pediatric Units, Device-associated Module. INICC Report 2013-2018
• Kavita Raja. Mentoring for COVID-19 testing -An exercise in teaching from a National Institute. National Journal of integrated Research in Medicine (NJIRM) 2020; Vol.11(4) July-August Supp. Issue: 35
• Sanjay Bhattacharya, Ranganathan Iyer, Kavita Raja et al. Special Article on A survey of practices to diagnose, manage , prevent and control COVID-19 from 28 centres. Journal of The Academy of Clinical Microbiologists, 2019; 22:1:5-11
• Kavita Raja, Molly Antony, Sanjay Ganapathi. Fungal infective endocarditis: A case series. Journal of The Academy of Clinical Microbiologists, 2018; 20(2): 96-101
• Raja K, Antony M, Rani R, Bridget G. Role of phenotypic testing in determining the mechanism of resistance in Gram-negative bacilli & risk factors for meropenem resistance. Indian J Med Res 2019;149:303-6
• Raja K, Antony M, Harikrishnan S. Infective Endocarditis due to Streptococci and Enterococci: A 3yr retrospective study. Indian J Pathol Microbiol 2018; 61(4):545-548
• Raja K, Bridget G. Central Line Associated bloodstream infection: A study on creating awareness about specimen collection. J Patient Saf Infect Control,2017;5(2):78-82
• Kavita Raja, Sanjay Bhattacharya, Beena Philomena J, Savitha Nagaraj, Sarada Devi KL, Sathiavathy KA; Comparison of antimicrobial susceptibility testing practices in 20 clinical microbiology laboratories in India. ;J.Acad. Clin Microbiol.2017; 19(1): 5-11
• Kavita Raja, Rema Devi S, Soja V, Shenoy KT. Diagnostic Test evaluation of IgM ELISA and Lepto-Tek Dridot in the serodiagnosis of Leptospirosis. Health Sciences; April-June 2016: 23-28
• Keerti S, Kumar Pradeep SS, Raja K, Nandkumar Maya A. Role of Antibiotics in Biofilm formation by Pseudomonas isolates. Journal of Environmental Research and Development;Oct-Dec 2015,10(2):271-276
• Kavita Raja. Editorial on Penicillin Sensitive Bacteria. JACM; Jan-June 2014, 16(1): 17-19
• Kavita Raja, Molly Antony,K P Shashidhar, M Unnikrishnan. Case Report: Moraxella osloensis causing left subclavian artery thrombus infection. JACM, Jan-June 2013; 15(1):25-27
• Kavita Raja. Guest Editorial on Rational Use of Antibiotics. Kerala Journal of Ophthalmology. Mar 2011; 8(1): 7-10
• Kavita Raja, Gracyamma Bridget, Molly Antony, Baiju.S.Dharan, Pennamma K.J. Case report: Prevention of Nosocomial respiratory infection in the congenital Heart Disease Post-op ICU.JACM.2011;13(1): 53-56
• Kavita Raja, V K Ajit Kumar and Narayanan Namboodiri . Case report : Cardio embolic stroke with Prosthetic valve endocarditis/bacteraemia due to Staphylococcus aureus. JACM June 2009;11(2):65-68
• Kavita Raja. Brief Communication: Hospital acquired infections-A practical Experience. June 2009;11(1):17-19
• Kavita Raja . Editorial on Blood Culture. JACM. June 2008;10(1): 15-20
• Kavita Raja. Dengue Fever: The rise and establishment of a new disease in Kerala, India with special reference to the capital, Thiruvananthapuram. JACM .Dec 2007;9(2):65-70

Reviewer

• SERB Proposals
• Journal of Artificial Organs
• Journal of Patient Safety and Infection Control
• Journal of Academy of Clinical Microbiologists