Combined administration of taurine and monoisoamyl DMSA protects arsenic induced oxidative injury in rats

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element that is ubiquitously present in the environment. High concentration of naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water is a major health problem in different parts of the world. Despite arsenic being a health hazard and a well documented carcinogen, no safe, effective and specific preventive or therapeutic measures are available. Among various recent strategies adopted, administration of an antioxidant has been reported to be the most effective. The present study was designed to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of monoisoamyl dimercaptosuccinic acid (MiADMSA), administered either individually or in combination with taurine post chronic arsenic exposure in rats. Arsenic exposed male rats (25 ppm, sodium arsenite in drinking water for 24 weeks) were treated with taurine (100 mg/kg, i.p., once daily), monoisoamyl dimercaptosuccinic acid (MiADMSA) (50 mg/kg, oral, once daily) either individually or in combination for 5 consecutive days. Biochemical variables indicative of oxidative stress along-with arsenic concentration in blood, liver and kidney were measured. Arsenic exposure significantly reduced blood δ-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) activity, a key enzyme involved in the heme biosynthesis and enhanced zinc protoporphyrin (ZPP) level. Clinical hematological variables like white blood cells (WBC), mean cell hemoglobin (MCH), and mean cell hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) showed significant decrease with a significant elevation in platelet (PLT) count. These changes were accompanied by significant decrease in superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and increased catalase activity. Arsenic exposure caused a significant decrease in hepatic and renal glutathione (GSH) level and an increase in oxidized glutathione (GSSG). These biochemical changes were correlated with an increased uptake of arsenic in blood, liver and kidney. Administration of taurine significantly reduced hepatic oxidative stress however co-administration of a higher dose of taurine (100 mg/kg) and MiADMSA provided more pronounced effects in improving the antioxidant status of liver and kidney and reducing body arsenic burden compared to the individual treatment of MiADMSA or taurine. The results suggest that in order to achieve better effects of chelation therapy, co-administration of taurine with MiADMSA might be preferred

Impact of the child-to-child approach on knowledge and practices of Covid care

Child-to-Child(CtC) instruction is an instructional approach that promotes active child participation by having elder children mentor younger ones, frequently with regard to matters of sanitation and health. Although the CtC approach has historically been applied to a range of health and development concerns, its precise influence on knowledge and practices pertaining to COVID-19 care would be contingent upon the particular implementation and context.In the context of COVID-19, the concept of child-to-child care refers to children actively fostering health and averting the transmission of the virus among their peers.Personal hygiene is the practice of sustaining the purity of one's body.As early as feasible, children should be taught the importance of cleanliness in COVID 19.Consequently, carers (or older children) can instruct children on personal hygiene practices such as dental care, eye care, hand care, and skin care.The child-to-child approach is a recently introduced concept with significant health implications.The purpose of the study is to assess the efficacy of a child-to-child approach on children's knowledge and practice of Covid care. The secondary source of data like websites, Google Scholar and various internet sources)were gathered on the structured observational checklist on procedure of maintaining personal hygiene.This paper illustrates about some potential impacts such as knowledge dissemination, behavioural change, community engagement, cultural sensitivity, empowerment and emphasised thatthat children can be effective change agents in advocating safe behaviors such as hand washing, social distance, and mask use in Covid care

Arsenic and fluoride: Two major ground water pollutants

666-678Increasing human activities have modified the global cycle of heavy metals, non metals and metalloids. Both arsenic and fluoride are ubiquitous in the environment. Thousands of people are suffering from the toxic effects of arsenicals and fluorides in many countries all over the world. These two elements are recognized worldwide as the most serious inorganic contaminants in drinking water. Many studies have reported as regards to simple fluorosis and arsenicosis, but the knowledge of the joint action of these two elements is lacking and the results derived from previous studies were inconclusive. Contradictory results were reported in experimental studies in which different joint actions such as independent, synergistic and antagonistic effects were observed. This indicates that interaction mechanism of these two elements is considerable complicated and requires extensive studies. When two different types of toxicants are simultaneously going inside a human body they may function independently or can act as synergistic or antagonistic to one another. Thus there is an urge to resolve the question that how arsenic and fluoride act in condition of concomitant exposure. Although there have been reports in literature of individual toxicity of arsenic and fluoride however, there is very little known about the effects following the combined exposure to these toxicants. This review focused on recent developments in the research on the condition of individual exposure to arsenic and fluoride along with the recent updates of their combined exposure to better understand the joint action of these two toxicants

Tattoo reactions-An epidemic on the surge: A report of 3 cases

Tattooing has been practiced in India since ancient era. It has tremendous religious and spiritual significance. In addition, tattooing for cosmetic purposes has become quite popular in recent times. With this increasing trend, there is also an increased risk of adverse effects. Here, we have described two cases of lichenoid reaction developing to red ink in double- colored tattoos and a case of sarcoidal reaction to green tattoo

AN EFFICIENT THREE STEP ALGORITHM FOR FAST MOTION ESTIMATION IN MOBILE DOMAIN

The goal of this work is to find a fast method for motion estimation and motion segmentation using proposed model. Recent day Communication between ends is facilitated by the development in the area of wired and wireless networks. Block matching algorithms are very useful in achieving the efficient and acceptable compression. Block matching algorithm defines the total computation cost and effective bit budget. Recently fast search algorithm for video coding using Orthogonal Logarithmic Search Algorithm (OSA) has been proposed. Motion estimation is the most time consuming operation in a typical video encoder. This paper presents a novel method using three step algorithm with modified search pattern based on dead cell for the block based motion estimation. It has been found that from the original Three step Search (3SS/TSS ) method, the PSNR value has increased and the computations and thus computation time (faster) has been reduced significantly .The experimental results based on the number of video sequences were presented to demonstrate the advantages of proposed motion estimation technique

A Review on Potential Electrochemical Point-of-Care Tests Targeting Pandemic Infectious Disease Detection: COVID-19 as a Reference

Fast and accurate point-of-care testing (POCT) of infectious diseases is crucial for diminishing the pandemic miseries. To fight the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), numerous interesting electrochemical point-of-care (POC) tests have been evolved to rapidly identify the causal organism SARS-CoV-2 virus, its nucleic acid and antigens, and antibodies of the patients. Many of those electrochemical biosensors are impressive in terms of miniaturization, mass production, ease of use, and speed of test, and they could be recommended for future applications in pandemic-like circumstances. On the other hand, self-diagnosis, sensitivity, specificity, surface chemistry, electrochemical components, device configuration, portability, small analyzers, and other features of the tests can yet be improved. Therefore, this report reviews the developmental trend of electrochemical POC tests (i.e., test platforms and features) reported for the rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 and correlates any significant advancements with relevant references. POCTs incorporating microfluidic/plastic chips, paper devices, nanomaterial-aided platforms, smartphone integration, self-diagnosis, and epidemiological reporting attributes are also surfed to help with future pandemic preparedness. This review especially screens the low-cost and easily affordable setups so that management of pandemic disease becomes faster and easier. Overall, the review is a wide-ranging package for finding appropriate strategies of electrochemical POCT targeting pandemic infectious disease detection