Research support (Major projects as Co-Principal Investigator 2017-22)

Personal Statement

His is trained in medical epidemiology and served as medical epidemiologist at the National Influenza center at ICMR-NIV, Pune.  He has been part of the central/ state Rapid Response Team for many outbreaks investigation and containment responses for Influenza, RSV, Nipah outbreaks [in 2018 and 2019] and COVID-19. His core area of work is respiratory pathogen infectious disease epidemiology. He has established a community platform of older adults wherein he is studying the respiratory pathogen burden. He has also established a cohort of pregnant women in which he is trying to study the effectiveness of Influenza vaccine and its outcome during pregnancy. He has been part of several committees like, RRT of Maharashtra IDSP, death audit of Pune municipal corporation for swine flu etc.

1. "Resurgence of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection During COVID-19 Pandemic in Pune, India", Accepted in BMC Infectious Diseases.
2. Adverse outcomes in patients hospitalized with pneumonia at age 60 or more: a prospective multi-centric hospital-based study in India. Accepted in PlosOne.
3. "Pan-India ILI & SARI Surveillance: Epidemiological, Clinical and Genomic analysis" has been approved for production and accepted for publication in Frontiers in Public Health, section Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention.
4. Krishnan A, Shekhawat K, Ortega-Sanchez IR, et al. Cost of acute respiratory illness episode and its determinants among community-dwelling older adults: a four-site cohort study from India. BMJ Public Health. 2023;1:e000103.
5. Abdulkader RS, Potdar V, Mohd G, Chadwick J, Raju MK, Devika S, Bharadwaj SD, Aggarwal N, Vijay N, Sugumari C, Sundararajan T, Vasuki V, Santhose NB, Razik CA, Madhavan V, Krupa NC, Prabakaran N, Murhekar MV, Gupta N. Protocol for establishing a model for integrated influenza surveillance in Tamil Nadu, India. Public Health. 17 August 2023;11:1236690. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1236690
6. Lavania M, Viswanathan R, Bhardwaj SD, Case report Title: Detection of Echovirus-18 in children suspected with COVID-19 with multisystem inflammatory syndrome -report from India Accepted in Frontier of Public health.
7. Aggarwal N, Potdar V, Vijay N et al. SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza Virus Co-Infection Cases Identified through ILI/SARI Sentinel Surveillance: A Pan-India Report. Viruses 2022, 14(3), 627; https://doi.org/10.3390/v14030627
8. Minhas N, Gurav YK, Sambhare S, Potdar V, Choudhary ML, Bhardwaj SD, Abraham P. Cost-analysis of real time RT-PCR test performed for COVID-19 diagnosis at India's national reference laboratory during the early stages of pandemic mitigation. PLoS ONE. January 2023;18(1):e0277867. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0277867
9. Chadha M, Prabhakaran AO, Choudhary ML, Biswas D, Koul P, Kaveri K, et al. Multisite surveillance for influenza and other respiratory viruses in India: 2016–2018. PLOS Glob Public Health. 2022;2(11):e0001001.
10. Krishnan A, Dar L, Amarchand R, et al. Cohort profile: Indian Network of Population-Based Surveillance Platforms for Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses among the Elderly (INSPIRE). BMJ Open 2021;11:e052473. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2021-052473
11. Bhardwaj SD, Choudhary ML, Gurav YK, Abraham P, Potdar VA; NIC Team. Epidemiological characterization of COVID-19 - Pune, 2020-2021. Indian J Med Res. 2021 Aug 16. doi: 10.4103/ijmr.IJMR_442_21. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34396993.
12. Potdar V, Vipat V, Jadhav S, et al. Correction to: Detection of SARS CoV 2 variants in India from UK returnees [published online ahead of print, 2021 Jul 30]. Infection. 2021;1. doi:10.1007/s15010-021-01660-3
13. Potdar V, Vipat V, Jadhav S, et al. Correction to: Detection of SARS‑CoV‑2 variants in India from UK returnees [published online ahead of print, 2021 Jul 30]. Infection. 2021;1. doi:10.1007/s15010-021-01660-3
14. Alagarasu K, Potdar VA, Vipat V, Hundekar S, Gunjikar R, Choudhary ML, Abraham P, Lole KS, National Influenza Centre Team [S Bhardwaj]. Utility of a modified heat inactivation method for direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR in viral transport medium bypassing RNA extraction: A preliminary study. Indian J Med Res [Epub ahead of print] [cited 2020 Sep 15]. (Impact factor- 1.505, citation:- nil]
15. Potdar V, Choudhary ML, Bhardwaj S, Ghuge R, Sugunan A P, Gurav Y, Yadav PD, Shete A, Tomar S, Anukumar B, Kaushal H, Sapkal G, Basu A, Cherian S, Abraham P. Respiratory virus detection among the overseas returnees during the early phase of COVID- 19 pandemic in India. Indian J Med Res 2020;151:486- 9(Impact factor- 1.505, citation:- nil]
16. Alagarasu K, Choudhary M L, Lole K S, Abraham P, Potdar V National Influenza Centre Team[S Bhardwaj]. Evaluation of RdRp & ORF-1b-nsp14-based real-time RT-PCR assays for confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection: An observational study. Indian J Med Res 2020;151:483-5 (Impact factor- 1.505, citation:- nil]
17. Prasad S, Potdar V, Cherian S, Abraham P, Basu A, ICMR-NIV NIC Team[S Bhardwaj]. Transmission electron microscopy imaging of SARS-CoV-2. Indian J Med Res 2020;151:241-3 (Impact factor- 1.505, citation:- 5]
18. Potdar V, Cherian SS, Deshpande GR, Ullas PT, Yadav PD, Choudhary ML, Gughe R, Vipat V, Jadhav S, Patil S, Nyayanit D, Majumdar T, Walimbe A, Gaikwad S, Dighe H, Shete- Aich A, Mohandas S, Chowdhury D, Sapkal G, Basu A, Gupta N, Gangakhedkar RR, Giri S, Dar L, Jain A, Malhotra B, Abraham P, NIC Team[S Bhardwaj]. Genomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 strains among Indians returning from Italy, Iran & China, & Italian tourists in India. Indian J Med Res 2020;151:255-60 (Impact factor- 1.505, citation:- 2]
19. Chadha M, Hirve S, Bancej C, Barr I, Baumeister E, Caetano B and WHO RSV Surveillance Group[S Bhardwaj]. Human respiratory syncytial virus and influenza seasonality patterns— Early findings from the WHO global respiratory syncytial virus surveillance[Sumit Bhardwaj]. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2020 Mar 12. doi: 10.1111/irv.12726. Online ahead of print. (Impact factor- 2.954, citation:- 2]