Microbicides for the Prevention of HPV, HIV-1, and HSV-2: Sexually Transmitted Viral Infections

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) can be transmitted through genital-genital, orogenital, or anogenital contacts and remain to be a public health concern worldwide. Approximately one million people around the world are believed to be newly infected with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) each day. Numerous causative agents including bacteria, viruses, protozoa, yeast, and fungi are responsible for STIs; however, viruses exhibit more serious risks, probabilities and outcomes of STDs than other organisms. The most lethal viral STIs are human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV), herpes simplex viruses 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2), and human papillomavirus (HPV), which are responsible for major sexually transmitted viral infections including AIDS, herpes simplex, and genital warts, respectively. Despite the fact that several prevention strategies such as vaccination, abstinence from sex, limiting sex partners, the use of condoms and a range of therapeutic drugs have drastically reduced the risk of contracting STIs, these three infections continue to spread at an alarming rate. The high incidence and lack of effective vaccine, instigated scientists to look for alternate, cheap, and efficient strategies for controlling these deadly viruses. Microbicide are relatively new approach that may be helpful in preventing STIs transmission when applied inside the genitals before intercourse. Like other interventions, microbicides are used as prophylactic measures against STIs. Therefore, an excellent safety and efficacy profile analysis is mandatory before their approval for human use. Although no safe and efficacious microbicide is yet available, many candidates including nonoxynol-9, Savvy, cellulose sulfate, Carraguard, VivaGel, tenofovir gel, and PRO 2000 have shown promising in vitro activity and many more are under development. However, very few of them have moved to large-scale phase III trials. This chapter aims to provide a brief overview of various microbicides along with their mechanism of actions and recent updates on safety and effectiveness trials

Role of FDI and Foreign Remittances in Boosting and Economic Growth: Evidence from Brazil

The paper has two main objectives; (i) Firstly, to investigate the relationship between economic growth and economic indicators of Brazil economy, (ii) Secondly, to examine the impact of FDI on Gross domestic product of Brazil economy. The study employed time series data from 1986 to 2014 of the remittance, FDI, capital formation and domestic savings to know the impact on Gross domestic product of Brazil. The paper analyzed the growth and economy nexus by applying econometric models such as; Granger causality test, OLS methods and unit root test (both ADF and PP). According to empirical estimations, foreign remittances and capital formation has significant and positive contribution towards economic growth for Brazil. However, foreign direct investment and savings show insignificant response towards gross domestic product of Brazil economy. The Brazil economy needs massive reforms to properly utilize the foreign and domestic investments on industrial, agriculture, and technology sector. In addition, the capital formation is playing an important role in the economic development due to positive impact on economic growth. The study proposed some fruitful policy implication for Brazil to boost the economic growth and living standard of people

Preventive Strategies against Human Papillomaviruses

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is among the most common viral infections of the reproductive tract. Out of more than 100 different types of HPV identified so far, only a few (termed as “high-risk” subtypes) are associated with cervical cancer. On the other hand, “low-risk” subtypes are associated with genital warts and other benign changes in cervical and oral mucosa. Majority of the HPV infections usually clear up without any intervention within a few months. However, a fraction of HPV infections, such as those with types 16 and 18, can become persistent which may lead to the development of anogenital or cervical cancers. HPV subtypes 16 and 18 together are responsible for approximately 70% of all cervical cancer cases, the fourth major cause of cancer-related deaths in women. In the absence of any specific treatment options, preventive measures are considered as cornerstone of strategies aimed at curbing the burden of this disease. This chapter presents a comprehensive review of strategies that can be employed to prevent and eradicate HPV infection. Minimizing the exposure to HPV risk factors such as unprotected sex, multiple sex partners, early age sex, and not being circumcised, can reduce the chances of getting HPV infection to a significant level. Mass screening programs have also been effective in HPV eradication. Nevertheless, immunization against HPV has proven to be the most promising strategy in fight against HPV. Virus-like particles based on bivalent, quadrivalent, and nonavalent anti-HPV vaccines have been licensed and are available in market under the trade names of Cervarix®, Gardasil®, and Gardasil9®, respectively. Various clinical trials and population-based studies have demonstrated high levels of efficacy for all the three vaccines in preventing type-specific malignancies

Reinvestigating the Role of Coal Consumption in Indian Economy: An ARDL and Causality analysis

The present study investigates the role of coal consumption on the economic growth in India from 1980-2016. We use panel data estimation techniques for long run and VECM Granger causality for short run analysis to find the direction of causality between coal consumption and economic growth. The model specification also incorporates the urbanization, labor, fiscal deficit and service sector value added. In long-run analysis, the results confirm the unidirectional relationship from economic growth to coal consumption. On contrary, in short-run, bidirectional causal relationship between coal consumption and Indian economic growth confirms that higher coal consumption supports the Indian economy through energy. Furthermore, bidirectional causality is confirmed between economic growth and population; besides, the results show the unidirectional causality from service sector to economic growth

Role of FDI and Foreign Remittances in Boosting and Economic Growth: Evidence from Brazil

The paper has two main objectives; (i) Firstly, to investigate the relationship between economic growth and economic indicators of Brazil economy, (ii) Secondly, to examine the impact of FDI on Gross domestic product of Brazil economy. The study employed time series data from 1986 to 2014 of the remittance, FDI, capital formation and domestic savings to know the impact on Gross domestic product of Brazil. The paper analyzed the growth and economy nexus by applying econometric models such as; Granger causality test, OLS methods and unit root test (both ADF and PP). According to empirical estimations, foreign remittances and capital formation has significant and positive contribution towards economic growth for Brazil. However, foreign direct investment and savings show insignificant response towards gross domestic product of Brazil economy. The Brazil economy needs massive reforms to properly utilize the foreign and domestic investments on industrial, agriculture, and technology sector. In addition, the capital formation is playing an important role in the economic development due to positive impact on economic growth. The study proposed some fruitful policy implication for Brazil to boost the economic growth and living standard of people

Does Export product diversification help to reduce energy demand: Exploring the contextual evidences from the newly industrialized countries

This article investigates the impact of export product diversification, extensive margin and intensive margin on emerging economies energy demand covering the period from 1971 to 2014. The study contributes to energy economics by unveiling the interaction between export diversification and energy demand of 10 newly industries countries (NICs). Owing to the growth prospect and trade volume of these nations, it is necessary to assess the various facades of export growth on the energy demand. In this pursuit, we have considered the export product diversification index in its aggregate and disaggregated forms (i.e. extensive margin and intensive margin) in this study. The empirical estimation has been carried out based on GMM, FGLS, FMOLS, and DOLS techniques. The empirical results demonstrate that export diversification, extensive margin, and intensive margin help to reduce the overall energy demand in NICs. Further, the empirical outcomes identify that economic growth, urbanization, and natural resources increase energy consumption. The study discusses fruitful policy implications regarding the exports diversification and energy demand nexus for emerging economies

Reinvestigating the Role of Coal Consumption in Indian Economy: An ARDL and Causality analysis

The present study investigates the role of coal consumption on the economic growth in India from 1980-2016. We use panel data estimation techniques for long run and VECM Granger causality for short run analysis to find the direction of causality between coal consumption and economic growth. The model specification also incorporates the urbanization, labor, fiscal deficit and service sector value added. In long-run analysis, the results confirm the unidirectional relationship from economic growth to coal consumption. On contrary, in short-run, bidirectional causal relationship between coal consumption and Indian economic growth confirms that higher coal consumption supports the Indian economy through energy. Furthermore, bidirectional causality is confirmed between economic growth and population; besides, the results show the unidirectional causality from service sector to economic growth

Terrorism and capital flows: the missed impact of terrorism in big cities

This study investigates the effects of four types of terrorist attacks on three types of capital flow. We extend the literature by introducing a new measure of terrorist attacks, namely 'attacks in big cities' and empirically investigate its impact on capital flow. Drawing from a sample of seven South Asian countries over a time period of 27 years spanning 1990-2016, we found that terrorist attacks in big cities and capital flows are negatively related. In particular, the results show that terrorist attacks in big cities, in comparison to the other terrorist attacks forms, have the highest negative impact on the three types of capital flow. 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers' for their valuable input and helpful suggestions.Scopu