Unhelpful Helplines: Inaccessibility for the Deaf

The COVID pandemic has unleashed several developments in the field of telemedicine including the emergence of several helplines. However, those who are D/deaf do not have accessibility to these services due to their disability. This letter focuses on this issue along with possible solutions for rendering these services to this community. &nbsp

Raising the Age of Purchase and Use of Tobacco Product in Bangladesh: Benefits and Challenges in Protecting Youth from the Tobacco Epidemic

Background: Tobacco use among young and adolescents is the biggest threat to public health globally. In Bangladesh, every one in 14 youth (13-15 years) uses tobacco in some form. While this problem is growing in the country, we estimate the underage initiation of tobacco use and present evidence that policy measures like increasing the age of purchase and use from the current 18 years to 21 years in the country backed with current tobacco control efforts and adopting vendor licensing will significantly reduce future tobacco burden. Method: We analysed the two rounds of nationally representative Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) data: GATS-1 (2009-10) and GATS-2 (2016-17) and segregated the data for two categories of tobacco consumption (smokers and smokeless tobacco users) based on the age of initiation (21 years). Consumption patterns were also analyaed by using the GATS-2 data. Projections from sub-national level analysis for youth initiating tobacco use before 21 years and change in the prevalence of overall underage tobacco users were calculated based on weighted value. Result: According to GATS-2, around 89% of current tobacco users initiated tobacco use into daily use before the age of 18 years in Bangladesh. Whereas, striking differences were observed (statistically significant) for the average age of initiation of smoking among smokers aged 20-34 increased from 17.4 in 2009 to 19.3 years; and 20.1 to 22 years for SLT. Moreover, more than 24% of them initiated into regular smoking before the age of 15 years. Conclusion: There is an increasing trends of tobacco initiation among the underage youth of Bangladesh. By increasing the age of access, sale, purchase, and use of tobacco from current 18 years to 21 years will significantly reduce youth initiation and taper down the overall adult tobacco use prevalence over the long run in Bangladesh.publishedVersio

Development of a Web-based calculator to estimate DALY and Productivity Losses due to COVID-19

Objectives: Ever since the emergence of COVID-19, health and the economy worldwide have witnessed a severe disruption, with infection spreading rapidly, covering 231 countries as of May 07, 2023. Policymakers and Governments have been working to offer tailored interventions to the most vulnerable cohorts. Given this background, the paper involves description towards developing a Web-based Calculator to compute various estimates that quantify health economic impacts as these are much helpful than just mortality and simpler measures. // Methods: The computations required to determine the estimates and the variables involved have been picked based on the observations and literature. The manuscript presents the significance of the estimates, a description of the Calculator developed, followed by validation. The values estimated using Calculator were validated against those computed using formulas for the state of West Bengal, India. // Results: The results indicated that the Calculator is able to produce near accurate results with the highest error percentage witnessed for Cost of Productivity Lost due to Absenteeism as 0.946%. Error percentages for Disability-Adjusted Life Years was 0.175, and less than 0.1 for all other estimates. // Conclusions: This could prove to be an effective tool for the policymakers and practitioners to identify the long-term impacts and the most vulnerable cohorts and devise targeted interventions. Additionally, these tools will allow the policymakers and governments to save time in compute these estimates in the future

How compliant is Kolkata Metro to prohibition of tobacco advertisement, promotion and sponsorship legislation? A case study from India

Background Indian youths aged 13-15 years, are exposed to cigarette advertisements on billboards, increased from 71.6% in 2006 to 74.4% in 2009 as revealed by GYTS 2006 and 2009. In West Bengal 28.6% of adults are exposed to cigarette advertising and while 31.1 and 36.2 percent are exposed to Bidi and smokeless tobacco advertisements respectively as showed by GATS 2010. However, COTPA, 2003 prohibits advertisement, promotion and sponsorship of all tobacco products under Section 5. Methods 4 Boroughs (cluster of 10-115 Municipal wards) out of total 15 have been selected randomly keeping in mind their location- i.e. South, North, Central and East for collecting samples. The sample size has been enumerated at the level of 95% confidence interval with 50% compliance rate while the design effect of the study was 1.0. The Epi-info 7 software has been used for the purpose. The data was collected with help of the checklist prepared by The Union. The focus was on the POS advertisements only. For documentary evidences to be produced before the Kolkata Municipal Corporation photographs of POSs were taken. Results 64.1% POSs in Kolkata display various kinds of advertisements. 39% POSs display board either with colour or brand name, but only 13.7% Boards are having health warnings on tobacco out of which only 19% is written in local language. 28.3% out of them promote tobacco product through attractive messages. 19.1% POSs have a full body tobacco advertisement. In 92.6% POSs, tobacco products are visible to the minors Conclusions The findings are justifying the immediate need of effective enforcement of Section 5 of COTPA 2003. he documentary evidences led to the writing of letter by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to 4 major tobacco companies to remove the POS boards

Silver-catalyzed carbon-selenium cross coupling using N-(phenylseleno)phthalimide: an alternate approach to the synthesis of organoselenides

Silver(I) catalyzed phenylselenylation of terminal alkynes and organoboronic acids has been demonstrated using N-(phenylseleno)phthalimide as electrophilic SePh donor. A wide variety of terminal alkynes and organoboronic acids are selenylated efficiently to produce the corresponding alkynyl and diaryl selenides respectively in good yields. Silver(I) acts as a Lewis acid in this process.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

How effective is gutka (a smokeless tobacco) ban in West Bengal, India? A case study

Background Under the India's food legislation, adding tobacco or nicotine to anything that is consumed is prohibited, following this in May 2014, the Ministry of Health announced a ban on the sale of gutka, a popular packaged mixture comprising betelnut, condiment, lime and tobacco mixture. We conducted a compliance of the ban on gutka in the state of West Bengal, which has a tobacco use prevalence of 15% adults using smokeless tobacco (or more than 9 million people). Methods Three districts were selected purposively for the study. In every district, district headquarter i.e. municipality selected purposively while two Blocks were selected randomly. Based on population dispersion model, 450 consumers were divided in three clusters in each district and for every 5 consumers 1 vendor i.e. 90 vendors were interviewed. The interview schedule was pre-tested in Kolkata and after feasibility assessment of the same it was finalized. The study was conducted during September - December 2016. Results Effect of ban on gutka has been limited and disappointing. Only 17.8% of vendors knew that selling of gutka is punishable offence while 68.5% vendors replied that gutka is easily available to them. 75.3% vendor have sold gutka to the minors and only 1.1% vendors were raided. However, almost 90% vendors felt that gutka ban is helpful in quitting the deadly habit. 16.9% vendors answered that they faced a loss in their business due to gutka ban and 15.7% vendors shifted to other businesses after the ban was enforced. It is also true that sale of gutka declined after ban as 53.5% consumers reported that they have shifted to other tobacco products. Conclusions Gutkha ban has been ineffective in the absence of stricter enforcement at producer, wholesaler and vendor level. To make the ban effective immediate attention is required on enforcement across the supply chain

Knowledge, practices and precaution regarding COVID-19 among the residents of Kolkata city, West Bengal, India

Background: Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been declared a global public health emergency affecting thousands of people across the world. The knowledge, attitude and practice related to the transmission and prevention of COVID-19 are regarded as the most critical and effective control measures. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge of, attitude to along with precautionary practices related to COVID-19 adopted by the people of the city of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted by the interview method through a telephone conversation-based study from July to October 2020. The responses (n=321) were collected using a non-random convenience sampling method. All data were analysed through SPSS software (Ver. 27).Results: A total of 321 participants were included in the present study. Gender, education, and occupation-wise, statistically significant mean knowledge, practices, and overall score differences were found (p<0.001 and <0.05). People without literacy were found to had lesser knowledge (35.1%) and adopted fewer preventive practices and precautionary measures (32.4%). This section also scored lower in overall scores (48.6%) than others. Males scored better in terms of knowledge and practices compared to females; statistically, the gender-wise association was found to be significant (p<0.001 and<0.05).Conclusions: The present study demonstrates a moderate level of knowledge and a significantly high practice (41.4% and 60.7%) about COVID-19 among the study participants. Males have higher knowledge and adopted more preventive practices and precautions than females, and the overall score is high in respect of males as compared to females

Reaction under Ball-Milling: Solvent‑, Ligand‑, and Metal-Free Synthesis of Unsymmetrical Diaryl Chalcogenides

A convenient, efficient, and general procedure for the synthesis of diaryl chalcogenides including sulfides, selenides and tellurides has been developed by the reaction of diazonium tetrafluoroborates and diaryl dichalcogenides on the surface of alumina under ball-milling without any solvent or metal. A wide range of functionalized diaryl chalcogenides are obtained in high purity by this procedure

Rearrangement of dithianylcyclobutachromanol derivatives to 1,2,2a,8,9,9a-hexahydrocyclobuta[b][1]benzoxepin-8,9-dione

A novel rearrangement of dithianylcyclobutachromanol derivative 3a on treatment with mercuric oxide and fluoroboric acid in aqueous tetrahydrofuran leads to 1,2,2a,8,9,9a-hexahydro-2a,9a-dimethylcyclobuta[b]-[1]benzoxepin-8,9-dione whose structure is established by X-ray analysis