An Exploratory Study to Find the Early Trend and Pattern Recognition of COVID-19 Infection in India: A Severity Model-Based Prediction

Background: Recent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has inflicted the whole world critically. Although India has been listed amongst the top ten highly affected countries to date, one cannot rule out COVID-19 associated complications in the near future. Aim & Objective: We aim to build the COVID-19 severity model employing logistic function which determines the inflection point and help in the prediction of the future number of confirmed cases. Methods and Material: An empirical study was performed on the COVID-19 patient status in India. We performed the study commencing from 30 January 2020 to 12 July 2020 for the analysis. Exploratory data analysis (EDA) tools and techniques were applied to establish a correlation amongst the various features. The acute stage of the disease was mapped in order to build a robust model. We collected five different datasets to execute the study. Results: We found that men were more prone to get infected with the coronavirus disease as compared to women. On 165-days based analysis, we found a trending pattern of confirmed, recovered, deceased and active cases of COVID-19 in India. The as-developed growth model provided an inflection point of 72.0 days. It also predicted the number of confirmed cases as 17,80,000.0 in the future i.e. after 12th July. A growth rate of 32.0 percent was obtained. We achieved statistically significant correlations amongst growth rate and predicted COVID-19 confirmed cases. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the effective application of EDA and analytical modeling in building a mathematical severity model for COVID-19 in India

Awareness of geriatric welfare services among rural elderly population

Background: Elderly population suffers from income loss, decreased social role and increased dependence along with physical and mental problems associated with ageing. Geriatric welfare services are aimed to address this problem related to old age. The main focus of the existing geriatric welfare services are below the poverty line elderly population. However, the benefit from these services can be obtained if elderly population have awareness about these welfare services. Main objective of the study was to study the awareness regarding geriatric welfare services among rural elderly population and its association with gender.Methods: Community based cross- sectional study was carried out at field practice area of Rural Health Training Centre, JN Medical College, AMU, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India by using systematic random sampling with probability proportionate to size among 225 rural elderly individuals using pretested and predesigned questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS 20. Chi square test was used. P value <0.05 was considered significant.Results: Among the geriatric welfare services 28.9% were aware of the social security schemes, 84% were aware of the special govt. facilities, 35.6% were aware of the health insurance schemes. Males had significant higher awareness of geriatric welfare services than the females.Conclusions: The study revealed that awareness of geriatric welfare services among rural elderly population was very low that needs to be addressed to improve utilization of these services.

Effect of utilization of antenatal services on pregnancy outcome in Aligarh - A Community based study

Background:&nbsp;Low birthweight has long been used as an important public health indicator. Low birthweight is not a proxy for any one dimension of either maternal or perinatal health outcomes rather this indicator is a good summary measure of a multifaceted public health problem that includes long-term maternal malnutrition, ill health, hard work and poor pregnancy health care. Methods: The present Community based prospective study was conducted in the field practice areas of the Urban and Rural Health Training Centers, Department of Community Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Registered pregnant women who were in their first trimester and whose Expected Date of Delivery lie within our study period of one year were considered for study. Three home visits were made (two in antenatal period, one in post-natal period). Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Percentages, and Chi Square Test used.&nbsp; Results: Prevalence of LBW was found to be 40%. Statistically significant association was found between antenatal visits, iron folic acid supplementation and birth weight of baby. Conclusion: More number of antenatal visits equate to better antenatal care of females.&nbsp; It may result in better compliance with irofol supplementation and dietary intake and also early detection of any complications thus resulting in lower rates of LBW

Clinico-epidemiological study of safe and unsafe chronic suppurative otitis media

Introduction: Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media (CSOM) remains one of the most commonest chronic infectious diseases worldwide particularly in children and adolescents. India has been classified as the high prevalence country with national prevalence of 4%. Knowledge of differential regional prevalence of risk factors is required for adequate health education of masses and for customised preventive and control measures in respective areas. Aims: To study the clinical and socio-demographic profile of patients with CSOM. Methods: The study was carried out in the department of Otorhinolaryngology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU, Aligarh from November, 2017 to December, 2019. Patients with CSOM attending the otorhinolaryngology OPD and those admitted in IPD were included in the study. Results: A total 200 cases of chronic suppurative otitis media including both safe (mucosal) and unsafe (squamous) type were studied. The mean age of participants was 22.8 ± 15.18 years. Of the total participants, 111 (55.5%, 95% CI 48.6 to 62.2) were males, 89 (44.5%, 95% CI 37.8 to 51.4) were females and the majority (60.5%, 95% CI 53.6 to 67) of them were from rural background. Around one-fourth of the patients were illiterate (23%, 95% CI 17.7 to 29.3) and the patients mostly belonged to lower side (lower middle, upper lower and lower) of the spectrum of Kuppuswamy socioeconomic classification. The distribution of age-group, gender and laterality (side of involvement) was similar (P&gt;0.05) in both safe and unsafe type. Overall, 151(75.5%, 95% CI 69.9 to 80.9) patients were found to have conductive hearing loss, 30 (15%, 95% CI 10.7 to 20.6) with mixed and 19 (9.5%, 95% CI 6.2 to 14.4) did not have any hearing loss at presentation. The distribution of patients with regards to hearing loss was found to be similar in both safe and unsafe groups (P = 0.311). Conclusion: CSOM particularly afflicts younger age populations from rural background with poor socioeconomic status. Appropriate timely interventions in the form of health promotion, education about the risk factors and improvement in the living conditions will result in decrease in incidence and prevalence of the disease. Moreover, knowledge of symptoms and signs of the disease is likely to result in early seeking of healthcare and hence better treatment outcomes and prevention of complications

Nutritional status among pregnant women of Aligarh district and its association with birth weight

Background: Low birth weight is a prospective marker of future growth and development and a retrospective marker of mothers nutritional and health status.Methods: A community based prospective study conducted in field practice areas of Urban and Rural Health Training Center Department of Community Medicine, JNMCH, AMU, Aligarh. Participants were registered pregnant women who were in their first trimester and whose expected date of delivery lies within our study period. Study period was of one year. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Percentages and chi square test used.Results: Prevalence of LBW was found to be 40%. Occurrence of LBW babies decreased as the nutritional intake of mothers in the form of kilocalories consumed per day increased. The association between dietary calorie intake and birth weight was found to be statistically highly significant.Conclusions: Nutritional status of mother has to be improved not only during pregnancy, but also in her early childhood by undertaking food supplementation programs implemented through National Health Programs that improve the weight gain during delivery and result in improved fetal outcome

Infant Mortality in Rural Aligarh

BackgroundInfant mortality rate is regarded as an important and sensitive indicator of the health status of a community. It also reflects the living standard of the people and the effectiveness of interventions for improving maternal and child health. Multiple factors related to social and economic conditions, health care and environment have a significant role to play on childhood mortality and improving childhood mortality is a national priority. The present study was planned to 1) determine the mortality rate among neonates and infants. 2) identification of pattern of various factors in relation to infant mortality and 3) to identify the causes of death in this age group.  Method  All the deaths in children under 12 months during July 2005 to June 2006 in Jawan block of district Aligarh, India were recorded. The cause of death was ascertained using the standard verbal autopsy procedure. ResultsIn the study period, 446 live births and 37 deaths in children under one year of age were reported. The neonatal and infant mortality rates were 49.4 and 83.0 per thousand live births respectively. The main causes of infant deaths were birth asphyxia, diarrhoea, pneumonia, prematurity (including Low birth weight and malnutrition). ConclusionMost of the death among infants are preventable, though promotion of institutional deliveries, strengthening of referral system, early recognition of danger signs and periodic retraining of health worker

Analysis of Substance Abuse in Male Adolescents

Objective: Substance abuse in adolescents may also be a marker to other harmful life styles. This study aims to find out the prevalence, pattern and sociodemographic risk factors of substance abuse in male adolescents. Methods: This study examined 390 male school children aged 10-19 yrs in the rural and urban areas of district Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. Data was analyzed by SPSS -10. Findings: Substance abuse was prevalent in 13.3% of adolescents of whom 96.1% were using various forms of tobacco and 3.8% were taking alcohol. While there was statistically significant association between the substance abuse and the age group of adolescents and size of their families, variables such as religion, socioeconomic status, place of residence were not associated with substance use. Most of the students reported initiation of substance use at 14 yrs of age due to peer pressure. Conclusion: Peer educators would be a useful strategy for communication with adolescents to counter peer pressure. The prevention and control measures should be started at primary education level

Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Infections and its Associated factors among women living with HIV/AIDS

Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are significant public health problem in India. Studies have shown a considerably higher prevalence of STIs among females as well as in high-risk groups. Thus, we conducted this study to estimate the prevalence of STIs and to find out its associated factors among women living with HIV/AIDS. Material &amp; Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the ART centre, Aligarh. A total of 170 HIV positive women were approached with study tools comprising of pre-structured proforma. NACO STIs Syndromes were used to estimate STIs. Data was analyzed using the SPSS version 20.0, keeping significance at p&lt;0.05. Results: We found the self-reported prevalence of STIs in HIV positive women to be 18.2% (31/170) at the time of interview and 49.4% (84/170) ever since the diagnosis of HIV. Most of the HIV women were presently having vaginal/cervical or urethral discharge syndrome (93.5%) and genital ulcer syndrome (16.1%). STIs were significantly associated with uneducated females and with irregular use of condoms. Conclusion: This study found the prevalence of STIs to be still higher among HIV positive women, in spite of years of targeted interventions reducing it. A proper action and further researches are required to explore and manage variables associating STIs for reducing its prevalenc