Aerobic blood culture should be incubated for how many days, before discarding ?

Ans. is 'd' i.e., 14 days Blood specimens of 5 or 10 ml generally are added to bottles containing, 50 or 100 ml of reagent (medium) to achieve a 1:10 blood medium ratio. All bottles should be transpoed to the laboratory as soon as possible and immediately incubeted at 35 +- 2degC in an upright position (Note - Lower incubation temperature may be preferred for isolation of some specific bacteria, e.g. Listeria grows well at 20-25degC). A total incubation period of 7 days is generally sufficient for routine isolation procedure, which can be extended up to 14 days before discarding those that do not show evidence of growth.