10 lakh children yet to be administered polio drops in Karnataka

[email protected] (The Hindu)
February 25, 2013

 10_lakh_childrenBangalore, Feb 25: Nearly 10 lakh of the 74.31 lakh children below the age of five in the State are yet to be administered oral polio drops during the second round of the Pulse Polio immunisation drive that began on Sunday.

By covering more than 64.46 lakh children across the State on day one of the drive, the Health Department has claimed to have achieved 86.75 per cent coverage. The remaining children will be covered in the next three days when the health department officials and volunteers will go on a door-to-door campaign to ensure that all the children are administered polio drops

While districts such as Udupi, Kodagu, Tumkur, Shimoga and Mysore achieved over 90 per cent coverage, the coverage was less than 80 per cent in north Karnataka districts such as Bidar, Gulbarga and Yadgir.

Speaking to The Hindu, B.V. Karur, Project Director, Reproductive and Child Health programme said, “I appeal to the people to cooperate and get oral polio drops administered for their children during the house to house visits.”

Meanwhile, in Bangalore, more than 1.13 lakh children are yet to be immunised in the second round conducted the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits. Around 5.36 lakh children were given drops on Sunday achieving 82.49 percent coverage.

Devaki Umesh, Chief Health Officer, BBMP said, “We will try to achieve our target during our door-to-door visits and make special preparations to ensure that we provide drops to the high risk groups such as migrants.”

Meanwhile, when The Hindu visited some of the pulse polio booths in the city, a few parents complained that they had to travel a longer distance this time to get the polio drops administered to their children.

Sayeeda Khurram, a two-year old, was brought to the booth at Yelahanka General Hospital by her mother from Kogilu. Her mother said, “Last time it was easy for us to get these drops as a booth had been set up near our house.”

Harishith G., had come to Rajajinagar Maternity Home to get polio drops administered for his three-year-old relative.

He said, “There has been wide publicity for this campaign. All vaccinations should receive coverage like this one.”

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 12: Disruption in one night's sleep can lead to getting Alzheimer's disease, a recent study has stated.

The interruption in the sound sleep for a single night aggravates the level of tau protein in any young male's body, thus gives rise to the chances of developing the disease.

According to CNN, the report was published on Wednesday in neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Our study focuses on the fact that even in young, healthy individuals, missing one night of sleep increases the level of tau in blood suggesting that over time, such sleep deprivation could possibly have detrimental effects," says study author Dr Jonathan Cedernaes, a neurologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.

As defined by the Alzheimer's Association, tau is the name of a protein that helps in stabilizing the internal structure of the brain's nerve cells. An abnormal build-up of tau protein in the body can end up in causing interior cells to fall apart and eventually developing Alzheimer's.

"When you get more of that deep sleep and you get the REM sleep in the normal amounts, that improves clearance of abnormal proteins which we think is good," said Mayo Clinic neurologist Dr Donn Dexter, not the study author but a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

Earlier studies have also shown that getting deprived of sleep can allow higher tau development and accumulation. Thus that poor sleep can hasten the development of cognitive issues.

Researchers caution that the study is small and inconclusive, and acknowledged they were not able to determine what the increased levels might mean.

"This study raises more questions than answers," agreed Dexter on a concluding note, sharing, "What this is telling us is that we have to dig more deeply. Despite something we do for a third of our lives, we know so little about sleep and we're learning every day, particularly when it comes to sleep and dementia."

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Agencies
June 21,2020

Lower neighbourhood socioeconomic status and greater household crowding increase the risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, warn researchers.

"Our study shows that neighbourhood socioeconomic status and household crowding are strongly associated with risk of infection," said study lead author Alexander Melamed from Columbia University in the US.

"This may explain why Black and Hispanic people living in these neighbourhoods are disproportionately at risk for contracting the virus," Melamed added.

For the findings, published in the journal JAMA, the researchers examined the relationships between COVID-19 infection and neighbourhood characteristics in 396 women who gave birth during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak in New York City. Since March 22, all women admitted to the hospitals for delivery have been tested for the virus, which gave the researchers the opportunity to detect all infections -- including infections with no symptoms -- in a defined population

The strongest predictor of COVID-19 infection among these women was residence in a neighbourhood where households with many people are common.The findings showed that women who lived in a neighbourhood with high household membership were three times more likely to be infected with the virus. Neighbourhood poverty also appeared to be a factor, the researchers said.Women were twice as likely to get COVID-19 if they lived in neighbourhoods with a high poverty rate, although that relationship was not statistically significant due to the small sample size.

The study revealed that there was no association between infection and population density.

"New York City has the highest population density of any city in the US, but our study found that the risks are related more to density in people's domestic environments rather than density in the city or within neighbourhoods," says co-author Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman."

The knowledge that SARS-CoV-2 infection rates are higher in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and among people who live in crowded households could help public health officials target preventive measures," the authors wrote.

Recently, another study published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, showed that dense areas were associated with lower COVID-19 death rates.

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Agencies
February 23,2020

Los Angeles, Feb 23: According to researchers, if administered quickly, a common medication that reduces bleeding could be a treatment for bleeding stroke.

The Spot Sign and Tranexamic Acid on Preventing ICH Growth - Australasia Trial (STOP-AUST) was a multicenter, prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 clinical trial using the antifibrinolytic agent tranexamic acid in people with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH).

ICH is a severe form of acute stroke with few treatment options.

Tranexamic acid is currently used to treat or prevent excessive blood loss from trauma, surgery, tooth removal, nosebleeds and heavy menstruation. For this study, one hundred patients with active brain bleeding were given either intravenous tranexamic acid or placebo within 4.5 hours of symptom onset.

Researchers analyzed brain CT scans taken during the 24-hour period after treatment with tranexamic acid or placebo.

Researchers found a trend towards reduced hemorrhage expansion in the group treated with tranexamic acid, especially in those treated within 3 hours of the brain bleed. However, this trend was not statistically significant. The finding was consistent with previous research using the medication.

"Further trials using tranexamic acid are ongoing and focusing on ultra-early treatment - within 2 hours. 

This is where the greatest opportunity for intervention appears to be. Tranexamic acid is inexpensive, safe and widely available. Our results and others provide great impetus for further, focused research using this treatment," Nawaf Yassi said.

Larger trials focused on patient outcomes are required for this therapy to enter routine clinical practice.

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