The 2024 global shortage of BD BACTEC bottles disrupted diagnostic workflows, requiring laboratories and healthcare systems to implement alternative strategies. We evaluated blood culture performance before, during, and after the shortage, and assessed the use of an alternative manual system (Colorcult, MicroXpress, Tulip Diagnostics). While these bottles allowed testing to continue, they showed reduced recovery rates, longer time-to-detection, and higher contamination compared with automated systems. These findings emphasize the diagnostic risks of non-automated alternatives, especially for slow-growing organisms, and underline the need for validated contingency strategies. To our knowledge, this is the first study from India to evaluate such adaptations during a global shortage.
Bansal et al. (Fri,) studied this question.