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Half of pregnancies in India unintended: Lancet

Agencies
December 15, 2017

New York Dec 15: An estimated 15.6 million abortions took place in India in 2015, with the majority of women taking pills at home without adequate counselling, according to a study which found that about half of the pregnancies in the country were unintended.

Published in The Lancet Global Health, the first national study of the incidence of abortion and unintended pregnancy in India found that 15.6 million abortions were performed in the country in 2015.

This translates to an abortion rate of 47 per 1,000 women aged 1549, which is similar to the abortion rate in neighbouring South Asian countries.

"Women in India face considerable challenges trying to obtain abortion care, including the limited availability of abortion services in public health facilities," said Dr Susheela Singh, vice president for international research at New Yorkbased Guttmacher Institute.

"Our findings suggest that a shortage of trained staff and inadequate supplies and equipment are the primary reasons many public facilities don't provide abortion care," said Singh, co-principal investigator of the study.

Researchers found that the vast majority of abortions (81%) were achieved using medication abortion (which, in India, is commonly referred to as medical methods of abortion, or MMA) that was obtained either from a health facility or another source.

Fourteen per cent of abortions were performed surgically in health facilities, and the remaining 5% of abortions were performed outside of health facilities using other, typically unsafe, methods.

The study also estimated the incidence of unintended pregnancy in India and found that out of the total 48.1 million pregnancies in 2015, about half were unintended meaning they were wanted later or not at all.

Unintended Pregnancy Rate

The estimated unintended pregnancy rate was 70 per 1,000 women aged 1549 in 2015, which is similar to the rates in neighbouring Bangladesh (67) and Nepal (68), and much lower than the rate in Pakistan (93).

"Although abortion has been legal under a broad range of criteria in India since 1971, we have never had a reliable estimate of the number occurring until now," said Dr Chander Shekhar, professor at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai.

"This new evidence provides policymakers with information that is essential for designing and implementing effective reproductive healthcare programmes," said Shekhar.

The researchers used two direct methods for measuring incidence. One was compiling national sales and distribution data on MMA (mifepristone and mifepristone-misoprostol combipacks), which represents the vast majority of all abortions in India.

The second was implementing a large-scale survey of public and private health facilities in six states - Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh - where close to half of Indian women of reproductive age live.

Currently, slightly fewer than one in four abortions are provided in health facilities, researchers said.

The public sector - which is the main source of health care for rural and poor women - accounts for only one-quarter of facility-based abortion provision, in part because many public facilities do not offer abortion services.

Close to three in four abortions are achieved using MMA drugs from chemists and informal vendors, rather than from health facilities, researchers said.

They said MMA is safe and effective when used in accordance with World Health Organisation guidelines. The researchers propose a number of steps to improve the availability and quality of abortion services in health facilities, including training and certifying more doctors to provide abortion care.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

Washington, Aug 2: Children under the age of five have between 10 to 100 times greater levels of genetic material of the coronavirus in their noses compared to older children and adults, a study in JAMA Pediatrics said Thursday.

Its authors wrote this meant that young children might be important drivers of Covid-19 transmission within communities -- a suggestion at odds with the current prevailing narrative.

The paper comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for schools and daycare to reopen in order to kickstart the economy.

Between March 23 and April 27, researchers carried out nasal swab tests on 145 Chicago patients with mild to moderate illness within one week of symptom onset.

The patients were divided into three groups: 46 children younger than five-years-old, 51 children aged five to 17 years, and 48 adults aged 18 to 65 years.

The team, led by Dr Taylor Heald-Sargent of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, observed, "a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract of young children."

15 countries with the highest number of cases, deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic

The authors added that a recent lab study had demonstrated that the more viral genetic material was present, the more infectious virus could be grown.

It has also previously been shown that children with high viral loads of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are more likely to spread the disease.

"Thus, young children can potentially be important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the general population," the authors wrote.

"Behavioral habits of young children and close quarters in school and daycare settings raise concern for SARS-CoV-2 amplification in this population as public health restrictions are eased," they concluded.

The new findings are at odds with the current view among health authorities that young children -- who, it has been well established, are far less likely to fall seriously ill from the virus -- don't spread it much to others either.

However, there has been fairly little research on the topic so far.

One recent study in South Korea found children aged 10 to 19 transmitted Covid-19 within households as much as adults, but children under nine transmitted the virus at lower rates.

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News Network
February 26,2020

New York, Feb 26:  A new wearable sensor that works in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) technology could help doctors remotely detect critical changes in heart failure patients days before a health crisis occurs, says a study.

The researchers said the system could eventually help avert up to one in three heart failure readmissions in the weeks following initial discharge from the hospital and help patients sustain a better quality of life.

"This study shows that we can accurately predict the likelihood of hospitalisation for heart failure deterioration well before doctors and patients know that something is wrong," says the study's lead author Josef Stehlik from University of Utah in the US.

"Being able to readily detect changes in the heart sufficiently early will allow physicians to initiate prompt interventions that could prevent rehospitalisation and stave off worsening heart failure," Stehlik added.

According to the researchers, even if patients survive, they have poor functional capacity, poor exercise tolerance and low quality of life after hospitalisations.

"This patch, this new diagnostic tool, could potentially help us prevent hospitalizations and decline in patient status," Stehlik said.

For the findings, published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, the researchers followed 100 heart failure patients, average age 68, who were diagnosed and treated at four veterans administration (VA) hospitals in Utah, Texas, California, and Florida.

After discharge, participants wore an adhesive sensor patch on their chests 24 hours a day for up to three months.

The sensor monitored continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) and motion of each subject.

This information was transmitted from the sensor via Bluetooth to a smartphone and then passed on to an analytics platform, developed by PhysIQ, on a secure server, which derived heart rate, heart rhythm, respiratory rate, walking, sleep, body posture and other normal activities.

Using artificial intelligence, the analytics established a normal baseline for each patient. When the data deviated from normal, the platform generated an indication that the patient's heart failure was getting worse.

Overall, the system accurately predicted the impending need for hospitalization more than 80 per cent of the time.

On average, this prediction occurred 10.4 days before a readmission took place (median 6.5 days), the study said.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing a report that suggested its advice on the novel coronavirus needs updating after some scientists told the New York Times there was evidence the virus could be spread by tiny particles in the air.

The WHO says the Covid-19 disease spreads primarily through small droplets, which are expelled from the nose and mouth when an infected person breaths them out in coughs, sneezes, speech or laughter and quickly sink to the ground.

In an open letter to the Geneva-based agency, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence they say shows that smaller exhaled particles can infect people who inhale them, the newspaper said on Saturday.

Because those smaller particles can linger in the air longer, the scientists - who plan to publish their findings in a scientific journal this week - are urging WHO to update its guidance, the Times said.

"We are aware of the article and are reviewing its contents with our technical experts," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply on Monday to a Reuters request for comment.

The extent to which the coronavirus can be spread by the so-called airborne or aerosol route - as opposed to by larger droplets in coughs and sneezes - remains disputed.

Any change in the WHO's assessment of the risk of transmission could affect its current advice on keeping one-metre physical distancing. Governments, which also rely on the agency for guidance policy, may also have to adjust public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

"Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence," Benedetta Allegranzi, the WHO's technical lead for infection prevention and control, was quoted as saying in the New York Times.

WHO guidance to health workers, dated June 29, says that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets and on surfaces.

But airborne transmission via smaller particles is possible in some circumstances, such as when performing intubation and aerosol-generating procedures, it says.

Medical workers performing such procedures should wear heavy-duty N95 respiratory masks and other protective equipment in an adequately ventilated room, the WHO says.

Officials at South Korea's Centers for Disease Control said on Monday they were continuing to discuss various issues about Covid-19, including the possible airborne transmission. They said more investigations and evidence were needed.

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