Response to comment on: Microbiological profile of eye donors and the effectiveness of ocular surface decontaminants during in situ corneal retrieval.

Dear Editor,

We thank the author(s) for the interest and comment on our “letter to editor” titled “Microbiological profile of eye donors and the effectiveness of ocular surface decontaminants during in situ corneal retrieval” published in July edition of “Indian Journal of Ophthalmology.”[1] The concerns raised by the group are valid and have been clarified below with appropriate references:

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected eye donation procedures.[2] However, the timeline for the procurement of the corneas in our study was from 2012 to 2015, much before the COVID-19 era. Thus, the number of corneas included in the study was more.

Before any ophthalmic procedures, 5% povidone-iodine is preferred. 5% povidone- iodine has been found to be safe and effective ocular surface decontaminating agent.[3] Hence, in our study also, we preferred to use 5% povidone-iodine for surface decontamination.

Limbal swabs were taken after 3 min of corneal topical drug application. This was consistent with the study done before by Sharma et al.,[4] where swabs were collected after 3 min of drug application.

Financial support and sponsorship

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Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.