An overview of corona virus disease 19 - COVID 19

A remerging infectious disease that has caught the entire world unaware. Coronavirus is an enveloped virus having non- segmented positive-sense RNA genome and belongs to the family Coronaviridae. Important modes of transmission are direct contact and respiratory droplets. Though the virus survives on environmental surfaces for varied period of time, it gets easily inactivated by chemical disinfectants .The major clinical features in uncomplicated cases include fever (88%), dry cough (67%), myalgia (14.9%) or fatigue (38%). In the absence of an effective treatment and vaccine, preventive measures like physical distancing, hand hygiene, following respiratory etiquettes & wearing mask assume great importance. Vigourous surveillance, contact tracing and containment can go a long way in controlling the spread of Covid 19

Evaluation of the Larvicidal Efficacy of Five Indigenous Weeds against an Indian Strain of Dengue Vector, Aedes aegypti

Background and Objectives. Aedes aegypti, dengue fever mosquito, is primarily associated with the transmission of dengue and chikungunya in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The present investigations were carried out to assess the larvicidal efficiency of five indigenous weeds against Ae. aegypti. Methods. The 1,000 ppm hexane and ethanol extracts prepared from the leaves and stem of five plants (Achyranthes aspera, Cassia occidentalis, Catharanthus roseus, Lantana camara, and Xanthium strumarium) were screened for their larvicidal activity against early fourth instars of dengue vector. The extracts which could cause 80–100% mortality were further investigated for their efficacy. Results. The preliminary screening established the efficacy of hexane extracts as compared to the ethanol extracts. Further investigations revealed the highest larvicidal potential of A. aspera extracts exhibiting LC50 value of 82.555 ppm and 68.133 ppm, respectively. Further, their leaf extracts showed 5–85.9% higher larvicidal activity and stem extracts exhibited 0.23- to 0.85-fold more efficiency than the other four extracts. Conclusion. The present investigations suggest the possible use of A. aspera as an ideal ecofriendly, larvicidal agent for the control of dengue vector, Ae. aegypti. Future studies are, however, required to explore and identify the bioactive component involved and its mode of action

Fresh frozen plasma utilization pattern in tertiary care hospital of North Western India

Background: Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP) is mainly used in treatment of coagulation derangements; trauma emergencies. It is the most inappropriately used blood component. Since the guidelines for FFP use in a clinical setting are not well defined, this study aims at defining the appropriateness of use of FFP in the light of its risks and adverse effect. Audit of institute FFP usage with specific aim of assessing appropriate use, based on clinical indications and laboratory parameters in requisition form.Methods: Retrospective analysis of 10,753 FFP supplied in 3072 patients from June 2016 to December 2016 in SMS Hospital, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India was done in Department of Immunohaematology and Transfusion Medicine, SMS Hospital, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Detailed analysis of clinical indication, INR value, specialty, age, gender of patient was done.Results: 10,753 FFP was supplied to 3072 Patients. 6990 FFP was supplied to 1995 males. 3763 FFP was supplied to 1077 females. Clinical use of FFP for medical and surgical conditions was highest seen in Blood Cancers (13%) and Cardiosurgery (22.3%). 15.2% was available from Emergency Department. 1.9% of FFP was returned back. Patients with Deranged Coagulation Profile (DCP) require maximum transfusion (49.3), Bleeding patients (37.6%), DIC (3.3%). FFP used for plasmapheresis (2.6%). No information available about diagnosis (7.2%) was available from Emergency Department.Conclusions: FFP is most inappropriately used blood component (39.57%) and should be used judiciously. Regular audit of blood components serves as tool for accomplishment of quality tools and to understand clinical transfusion practices

A perspective review of deadly viral diseases: An era of viruses

This review article overviewed briefly about the era of deadly viruses. Humans have been combating viruses since before our species had even evolved into its recent form. In some cases of viral infections, vaccines and antiviral drugs have allowed us to treat infections from spreading broadly, and have facilitated to patient recover. But it is far from over to fight the viruses. In recent decades, a number of viruses have sprung from animals to humans and have caused massive outbreaks, claiming thousands of lives such as the virus that led to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa kills up to 90% of the population, making it the deadliest member of the Ebola family. But there are some viruses that are equally deadly, and some are even more deadly. Some viruses, including the novel coronavirus currently undergoing global outbreaks, have a low mortality rate but still pose a serious health risk as we have no means of access to the health facilities and scarcity of resources and infrastructure. Here we are reporting such type of ten deadly viruses. those have infected humans within last 50 years

Synthesis, characterization and antitumor activity of 2-methyl-9-substituted acridines

AbstractIn the field of antitumor DNA-intercalating agents, 9-anilinoacridines play an important role due to their antiproliferative properties. Several cancer chemotherapeutics such as amascrine and nitracrine have been developed as anticancer agents. In the present study, several 2-methyl-9 substituted (AS 0–8) acridines were synthesized by nucleophilic substitution of 2-methyl-9-chloroacridine (AS) with aromatic amines. The structures of novel compounds were determined using spectroscopic methods. Three compounds were evaluated for antiproliferative activity against A-549 (Human, small cell lung carcinoma) and MCF-7 (Human, breast cancer) cell lines using the MTT assay. Compound AS-2 showed higher in vitro cytotoxic activity against A-549 and MCF-7 cancer cell lines with CTC50 187.5 and 212.5μg/ml respectively. The cancer cell cytotoxicity of acridines against A-549 cell line was found to be more active than MCF-7 cell line

Users’ Sentiment Analysis toward National Digital Library of India: a Quantitative Approach for Understanding User perception

Sentiment analysis is also known as opinion mining. Sentiment analysis is contextual mining of text which identifies and extracts subjective information in textual data. It is extremely used by business, educational organizations, and social media monitoring to gain the general outlook of the wide public regarding their product and policy. The current study looks for gaining insights into user reviews on the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) mobile app (android and iOS). For this purpose, sentiment analysis will be used. It yields an average of 3.64/5 ratings based on 11,861 reviews. The dataset includes a total of 4560 user reviews in which iOS and the android app have received 33 and 4527 reviews respectively as on 7th Sept 2021. AppBot and AppFollow analytics software is used to extract and collect user review information as raw data. The study shows the reviews of the NDLI mobile app as 2130 positive and 1808 negative sentiments for android & 6 positive and 22 negative sentiments for iOS. The overall sentiment score is found to be 66%. The results of the sentiment analysis show that Android users are more satisfied as compared to iOS users. The most frequent complaints made by the users are functional errors, feature requests and app crashes. Some of the major issues that users have complained about are books that need to be downloaded before reading and some pdfs are blank once opened. The value of this research is getting an insight into the behaviour of users towards using apps on different platforms (Android vs iOS) and provides valuable results for the app developers in monitoring usage and enhancing features for the satisfaction of users. The findings reveal that stakeholders/developers need to pay more attention to make the app more user-friendly

Study of anaemia in type 2 diabetes mellitus and its correlation with albuminuria and eGFR

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common metabolic disease. Anaemia is a common accompaniment to diabetes, particularly in patients with albuminuria or reduced renal function. Anaemia is more frequent and more severe at any level of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in diabetics compared to nondiabetic patients. Methods: One hundred patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were included in the study. Complete blood count, serum iron profile, ferritin, vitamin B12 and folate, kidney function tests and urine albumin creatinine ratio were assessed for these patients. Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was calculated with MDRD-4 variable formula. Results: Fifty-four patients (54%) were found to be anaemic.  Serum ferritin <50 µg/l was taken as cut off for defining iron deficiency anaemia. 21 patients had iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) and 33 had anaemia of chronic disease (ACD). Serum vitamin B12 and folate levels were within normal limits in all the patients. There was a rise in the prevalence of anaemia from 25.9% in patients with a normal ACR to 59.2% in those with microalbuminuria and to 75% in macroalbuminuria. Conclusions: Any degree of renal impairment and albuminuria are the risk factors for anaemia in these patients. Hence screening, characterization and treatment of aneamia in type 2 DM may be helpful in management of these patients

Utilization of Fruit Peel Wastes for the Management of Chikungunya Vector, Aedes aegypti

Chikungunya, a widely spread viral disease transmitted to human beings by Aedes aegypti, is on rise in India, Africa and Asian subcontinent since last decade. Although chemical insecticides are used at a large scale for the control of Chikungunya vector, their applications have led to several undesirable effects including insecticide resistance, revival of pests species, appearance of secondary pests, environmental pollution, noxious hazards to human beings and non-target organisms forcing investigators to explore unconventional alternate strategies. As an environment-friendly approach, there is increased attention to devise and adopt suitable methods to utilize wastes as value-added products to reduce the problem of environmental pollution. Consequently, the larvicidal and adult irritant potential of hexane and petroleum ether peel extracts of three different Citrus species, C. limetta, C. sinensis and C. Limon, were assessed against Ae. aegypti. The results showed the larvicidal potential of all the three peels, C. limetta peel extracts exhibiting the least activity. Furthermore, hexane extracts were more effective than petroleum ether extracts, C. sinensis peels hexane extract being most effectual (LC50, 39.51 ppm) while petroleum ether peels extract of C. limon was the most effective larvicide with LC50 value of 51.25 ppm. All the extracts also exhibited significant elicit response and irritant potential against adults signifying their potential role in reduced mosquito bites and disease transmission. The qualitative phytochemical analysis of the extracts showed presence of certain components suggesting their probable role in bioefficacy of extracts. Further studies are needed to isolate and identify the active ingredient to formulate strategies for mosquito control

Aggressive vertebral hemangioma in early adolescent age group: Atypical presentation with computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging appearance

Vertebral hemangiomas (VH) are vertebral vascular malformations, which may remain asymptomatic until adulthood. Sometimes,young individuals present with unexplained backache, which poses the diagnostic dilemma. We present a case of 15-year-old femalewho presented with prolonged unexplained intermittent upper back pain in the dorsal region. She was diagnosed as a case of aggressiveVH after ruling out other infective and malignant pathologies and treated with decompressive therapy. The present case highlights therole of imaging studies such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in such conditions