Assessment of efficacy and safety of artesunate plus sulfadoxine pyrimethamine combination for treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria

Background: Resistance of Plasmodium falciparum to antimalarial drugs is common in India. World Health Organization (WHO) recommends artemisinin‑based combination therapy (ACT) to counter the development of resistance in P. falciparum. WHO recommends that ideally antimalarial drug treatment policy or guidelines should be reviewed regularly and updated at least once every 24 months. In consideration to the above recommendation, we planned to conduct the following study. The objective was to determine the efficacy and safety of artesunate + sulphadoxine‑pyrimethamine (AS + SP) in patients with uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria.Methods: The study included 60 patients of uncomplicated P. falciparum. Each patient received AS + SP as per WHO guidelines. Diagnosis was confirmed by peripheral blood film. All patients were followed‑up on days 1, 3, 14, and 28 for detailed clinical and parasitological examination.Results: Of a total 60 patients, 55 patients were followed‑up for 28 days. Remaining 5 patients were lost in follow‑up. As per protocol analysis, 91% (50) of patients had demonstrated adequate clinical and parasitological response. Remaining 9% (5) had treatment failure in which 5.5% (3) had late parasitological failure and 3.6% (2) had late clinical failure. In our study, mean parasite clearance time was 45.2 ± 4.2 hrs.Conclusion: AS + SP is safe and effective drug for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria. However, the efficacy of this ACT needs to be carefully monitored periodically since treatment failure can occur due to resistance

Effect of gabapentin on haloperidol induced inhibition of conditioned avoidance response in rat

Background: Haloperidol, an antipsychotic adversely affects acquisition and retention of a learned task. We decided to test the effect of Gabapentin, a new anti-epileptic drug using conditioned avoidance response model with cook’s pole climbing apparatus and haloperidol.Methods: Four groups of six rats were taken for this purpose. All the rats were first given drugs for five days and then trained for a period of 15 days. Gabapentin was given in a dose of 100mg/kg intra peritoneal, while haloperidol was given 0.5mg/kg intra peritoneal.Results: At the end of the training duration rats in the vehicle and gabapentin treated group achieved ≥85% acquisition responses. While the haloperidol and haloperidol + gabapentin group did not achieve the desired percentage of learning. A learning curve was plotted by using the percentage of conditioned responses in each group versus number of days. The mean ± SD percentage of conditioned responses of day 14 and 15 were for haloperidol group 26.19 ±11.90, for vehicle group 86.90 ± 4.29, for the gabapentin treated group 95.24 ± 2.38 and for the gabapentin + haloperidol group 46.42 ± 12.20. These figures and the learning curve suggest that gabapentin treated rats had a better acquisition response and haloperidol depressed learning.Conclusions: At the end of study duration we found that gabapentin significantly improved the acquisition response than the vehicle control group. Also haloperidol depressed the acquisition response. Gabapentin did not lead to reversal of haloperidol induced depression of acquisition process

Abstracts of National Conference on Research and Developments in Material Processing, Modelling and Characterization 2020

This book presents the abstracts of the papers presented to the Online National Conference on Research and Developments in Material Processing, Modelling and Characterization 2020 (RDMPMC-2020) held on 26th and 27th August 2020 organized by the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Science in Association with the Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India. Conference Title: National Conference on Research and Developments in Material Processing, Modelling and Characterization 2020Conference Acronym: RDMPMC-2020Conference Date: 26–27 August 2020Conference Location: Online (Virtual Mode)Conference Organizer: Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, National Institute of Technology JamshedpurCo-organizer: Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, IndiaConference Sponsor: TEQIP-