Seroprevalence of anti HCV antibodies among blood donors: a retrospective study from Haryana, India

Background: HCV is known for its chronicity and leads to cirrhosis in about 10 to 20 per cent of patients and may further progress to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The global seroprevalence of HCV among blood donors varies from 0.4 to 19.2 per cent and the estimated risk for HCV transmission is between 0.10 to 2.33 per million units transfused. ELISA is the most commonly used initial assay for detecting HCV antibodies. The purpose of the present analysis was to monitor the seroprevalence of anti-HCV antibodies in the blood donor population in a hospital based blood bank in north India for a period of 10 years (2007-2016), and to evaluate the trends over the years.Methods: The purpose of the present analysis was to monitor the seroprevalence of anti-HCV antibodies in the blood donor population in a hospital based blood bank in north India for a period of 10 years (2007-2016), and to evaluate the trends over the years.Results: Of the total 340078, 298421 (87.75%) collections were voluntary and 41657 (12.25%) were replacement collections. A prevalence of 0.72% of hepatitis C virus infection was seen among the donors from the period 2007-2016. The trend of hepatitis C prevalence among donors has been fluctuating while ranging from 0.51% to 0.89%.Conclusions: For a safe blood service in our country, where comprehensive laboratory tests are neither possible nor pragmatic, it is best to switch over to 100% voluntary donations, as it is now established that only voluntary non-remunerated regular donation is the safest. Thus, one of our key strategies to enhance blood safety is to focus on motivating non-remunerated blood donors and phasing out even replacement donors. Since, no vaccine is presently available for immunization against HCV infection, transfusion transmitted HCV infection remains a potential threat to the safety of the blood supply

A retrospective analysis of trends of HIV and syphilis among blood donors in north India

Background: In India, it is mandatory to screen blood donors for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, syphilis and malaria. The donor screening strategies include taking the elaborate medical history, performing preliminary clinical examination and screening for infectious markers. The infectious markers include anti-HIV (1 and 2) antibodies, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-hepatitis C virus antibodies, and malaria antigens, such as histidine rich protein (HRP) and pan-aldolase. National adult (15-49 years) HIV prevalence is estimated at 0.26% (0.22%-0.32%) in 20155 (0.30% among males and 0.22% among females). The objective of this study was to be carried out with the aim to find out the seroprevalence of HIV infection and its trend among the blood donors a hospital based blood transfusion service set up in north India over a period of six years.Methods: It was record based retrospective study from 2010 to 2015. Before donation "blood donation form" had been filled by every donor and this form had particulars about age, gender, address, and occupation, date of previous donation, any illness and medical treatment taken. The donor blood samples were collected at the time of blood donation from the primary bag and tested for the presence of HIV using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). All donors were subjected to a pre-test counselling which was done by qualified staff trained to screen donors for blood donation.Results: A prevalence of 0.21% of HIV was seen among the donors from the period 2010-2015. The trend of HIV prevalence among donors has been fluctuating while ranging from 0.13% to 0.34%.Conclusions: HIV remains the major threat for transfusion transmitted infections in India. For a safe blood service in our country, where comprehensive laboratory tests are neither possible nor pragmatic, it is best to switch over to 100% voluntary donations, as it is now established that only voluntary non-remunerated regular donation is the safest. Thus, one of our key strategies to enhance blood safety is to focus on motivating non-remunerated blood donors and phasing out even replacement donors

Patterns of voluntary and replacement blood donors in a tertiary care center: a retrospective study

Background: Blood donor base is the foundation of any blood transfusion system. In India any able-bodied individual between the age of 18 and 60 years can donate blood. Blood donors are of two types: voluntary donors and replacement donors. Blood donation should be done by low risk population otherwise there is high risk of transfusion transmissible infections like HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and malaria. The present study was conceived to see the patterns of blood donation among voluntary and replacement blood donors in tertiary care centre.Methods: In this study 50 (27 male and 23 female) adult skulls were investigated to determine the type of asterion, its distance from important bony landmarks and also the nearby venous sinuses were measured.Results: Of the total 340078, 298421(87.75%) collections were voluntary and 41657(12.25%) were replacement collections. A total of 2810 camps were held to gather blood through voluntary donors. Number of blood camps held show an increasing pattern as we progress in time. Also, the trends in voluntary blood donations increased over the period and more donors donated blood whereas replacement donors decreased over the period and eventually vanished in time.Conclusions: For a safe blood service in our country, where comprehensive laboratory tests are neither possible nor pragmatic, it is best to switch over to 100% voluntary donations, as it is now established that only voluntary non-remunerated regular donation is the safest. Thus, one of our key strategies to enhance blood safety is to focus on motivating non-remunerated blood donors and phasing out even replacement donors

Hepatitis B sero-prevalence among blood donors in Haryana: a retrospective record based study

Background: In India, it is mandatory to screen blood donors for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, syphilis and malaria. Hepatitis B is a major public health problem worldwide. Approximately 30% of the world’s population or about 2 billion persons have serological evidence of either current or past infection with hepatitis B virus. The prevalence of chronic HBV infection in India ranges from 2% to 10% as shown by different studies. India therefore comes under the intermediate to high endemicity category. The objective of this study was to carry out with the aim to find out the sero-prevalence of hepatitis B infection and its trend among the blood donors a hospital based blood transfusion service set up in north India over a period of seven years.Methods: It was record based retrospective study from 2007 to 2013. Before donation "Blood Donation Form" had been filled by every donor and this form had particulars about age, gender, address, and occupation, date of previous donation, any illness and medical treatment taken. The donor blood samples were collected at the time of blood donation from the primary bag and HbsAg screening was done using rapid test kit based on the principle of a one-step immunoassay. Samples showing repeat test reactivity on both methods were considered positive and were included for calculation of seroprevalence.Results: A prevalence of 01.13% of hepatitis B infection was seen among the donors from the period 2007-2013. The trend of hepatitis B prevalence among donors has been fluctuating while ranging from 0.94% to 1.63%.Conclusions: Reduction in seroprevalence among voluntary donors requires an effective donor education and high quality selection programme especially during big blood donation camps. For a safe blood service in our country, where comprehensive laboratory tests are neither possible nor pragmatic, it is best to switch over to 100% voluntary donations, as it is now established that only voluntary non-remunerated regular donation is the safest. Thus, one of our key strategies to enhance blood safety is to focus on motivating non-remunerated blood donors and phasing out even replacement donors

Parton distribution functions and quark orbital motion

Covariant version of the quark-parton model is studied. Dependence of the structure functions and parton distributions on the 3D quark intrinsic motion is discussed. The important role of the quark orbital momentum, which is a particular case of intrinsic motion, appears as a direct consequence of the covariant description. Effect of orbital motion is substantial especially for polarized structure functions. At the same time, the procedure for obtaining the quark momentum distributions of polarized quarks from the combination of polarized and unpolarized structure functions is suggested.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Paper is accepted for publication in Eur.Phys.J.

Lamin A/C Haploinsufficiency Modulates the Differentiation Potential of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells

BACKGROUND: Lamins are structural proteins that are the major determinants of nuclear architecture and play important roles in various nuclear functions including gene regulation and cell differentiation. Mutations in the human lamin A gene cause a spectrum of genetic diseases that affect specific tissues. Most available mouse models for laminopathies recapitulate disease symptoms for muscle diseases and progerias. However, loss of human lamin A/C also has highly deleterious effects on fetal development. Hence it is important to understand the impact of lamin A/C expression levels on embryonic differentiation pathways. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have investigated the differentiation potential of mouse embryonic stem cells containing reduced levels of lamin A/C by detailed lineage analysis of embryoid bodies derived from these cells by culture. We initially carried out a targeted disruption of one allele of the mouse lamin A/C gene (). Undifferentiated wild-type and embryonic stem cells showed similar expression of pluripotency markers and cell cycle profiles. Upon spontaneous differentiation into embryoid bodies, markers for visceral endoderm such as α-fetoprotein were highly upregulated in haploinsufficient cells. However, neuronal markers such as β-III tubulin and nestin were downregulated. Furthermore, we observed a reduction in the commitment of cells into the myogenic lineage, but no discernible effects on cardiac, adipocyte or osteocyte lineages. In the next series of experiments, we derived embryonic stem cell clones expressing lamin A/C short hairpin RNA and examined their differentiation potential. These cells expressed pluripotency markers and, upon differentiation, the expression of lineage-specific markers was altered as observed with embryonic stem cells. CONCLUSIONS: We have observed significant effects on embryonic stem cell differentiation to visceral endoderm, neuronal and myogenic lineages upon depletion of lamin A/C. Hence our results implicate lamin A/C level as an important determinant of lineage-specific differentiation during embryonic development

Physicochemical Studies of La(III), Ce(III), Pr(III), Nd(III), Sm(III) & Gd(III) Chelates of o-(2-Pyrrolideneimino)benzoic Acid & 3-(2-pyrrolideneimino)propionic Acid

1104-110

The CP-violating asymmetry in \eta\to\pi^+ \pi^- e^+e^-

We study the CP-violating asymmetry {\cal A}_{\rm CP}, which arises, in \eta\to\pi^+\pi^- e^+e^-, from the angular correlation of the e^+ e^- and \pi^+\pi^- planes due to the interference between the magnetic and electric decay amplitudes. With the phenomenologically determined magnetic amplitude and branching ratio as input, the asymmetry, induced by the electric bremsstrahlung amplitude through the CP-violating decay \eta\to\pi^+\pi^-, and by an unconventional tensor type operator, has been estimated respectively. The upper bound of {\cal A}_{\rm CP} from the former is about 10^{-3}, and the asymmetry from the latter might be up to O(10^{-2}). One can therefore expect that this CP asymmetry would be an interesting CP-violating observable for the future precise measurements in the \eta factories.Comment: LaTeX, 6 pages. One reference corrected, and some new references adde

Background measurements and detector response studies for ISMRAN experiment

We report the measurement of the non-reactor environmental backgrounds and the detector response with the Indian Scintillator Matrix for Reactor Anti-Neutrinos (ISMRAN), which is $\sim$1 ton detector setup by volume, consisting of 10$\times$9 (10 rows and 9 columns) Plastic Scintillator Bars (PSBs) array at BARC, Mumbai, India. ISMRAN is an above-ground anti-neutrino ($\mathrm{\overline\nu_{e}}$) experiment at very short baseline located at Dhruva research reactor facility. It is enclosed by a shielding made of 10 cm thick lead and 10 cm thick borated polyethylene to minimize the backgrounds and is mounted on a movable base structure, situated at $\sim$ 13 m away from the reactor core. These measurements are useful in the context of the ISMRAN detector setup that will be used to detect the reactor $\mathrm{\overline\nu_{e}}$ and measure its energy spectrum through the inverse beta decay (IBD) process. In this paper, we present the energy resolution model and energy non-linearity model of PSB and the cosmogenic muon-induced background, based on the sum of their energy depositions and number of hit bars. Reconstructed sum energy spectrum and number of hit bars distribution for $\mathrm{{}^{22}Na}$ radioactive source has been compared with Geant4 based Monte Carlo simulations. These experimentally measured results will be useful for discriminating the correlated and uncorrelated background events from the true IBD events in reactor ON and OFF conditions inside the reactor hall.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.0349