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SARS
(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome):
SARS is a new severe respiratory infection recognized in March, 2003, in
persons who reside in or who had traveled
to Hong Kong, Gaungdong Province of China, or Hanoi, VietNam.
Transmission has since been seen within other countries, including the
US, although"community-based transmission"
is still limited to only a few countries. The causative agent is a newly
identified strain of Coronavirus. Two previously recognized strains of
Coronavirus are responsible for ~30% of "common colds." SARS
is characterized by fever, usually above 101 degree F, accompanied by
progressing lower respiratory symptoms. Transmission to close contacts
and health care providers has been identified. Nosocomial transmission
occurred in several countries that transmission may have been
facilitated by nebulized treatments given to the initial patients.
Fatality rates average ~3%. Those at greatest risk for mortality are
persons with other underlying conditions which affect the individual's
ability to fight a severe viral respiratory illness. The US case
definition as of April 2003 is: 1) documented fever >38 C; AND 2) one
or more or the following - cough, shortness of breath, difficulty
breathing, hypoxia, CXR showing pneumonia or ARDS;
3)AND one or more of the following - history of travel to endemic
countries within 10 days of illness or close contact with someone having
respiratory illness and travel to endemic countries.
Mode of Transmission: Large Droplets; direct and indirect contact
with respiratory secretions. Aerosols or
airborne transmission appear to be less likely.
Infection Control: Use
both BSP Plus and AFB Precautions. Specifications for SARS include: 1)
Private room having negative pressure. 2) Health care workers to wear
N95 respirators while in the room; if N95 is unavailable, use a
well-fitted surgical mask. Respirators/masks can only be used once and
then must be discarded since the outside of the mask could be a
potential fomite for disease transmission. 3) Wear gowns, gloves and
goggles for all patient contact. 4) The patient should wear a surgical
(ear-loop) mask during transport and while in ambulatory settings. 5)
Use standard hand hygiene (HH) recommendations, e.g., HH before and
after contact with the patient or environment using soap/water when
hands are soiled and alcohol-based gel when hands are visibly clean. (6)
Patients with fever and respiratory symptoms must wear a surgical
(ear-loop) mask while being evaluated for SARS.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars
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Bright
Sparks plot to extinguish light bulb
The
new light-emitting diodes (LED) burns for 100,000 hours
----100 times longer than an ordinary domestic light bulb. Most
will last a lifetime without burning out.
LEDs were invented in 1960s by computer company Hewlett-Packard
and have been used in calculators and video recorders for 30 years.
Light bulb manufacturers such as Phillips and Osram Sylvania are now
spending millions of pounds on research and development to prepare the
technology for the domestic use. At stake is wordwide market estimated
to be valued at nine billion pounds a year.
Economists have calculated that if half the bulbs now used in
America were replaced with LEDs, 24 power stations could be shut, saving
billions of dollars and slashing carbon dioxide emissions.
Oct 16,2002, TOI
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Cancer-causing
genes identified
A ‘faulty’ gene that causes a rare type of stomach cancer
has been identified, bringing hope to families affected by the inherited
ailment of a cure through genetic screening. A research team at Cambridge
University, the United Kingdom, found that a rare type of stomach cancer
affecting 200 people in the country each year is often caused by a
particular faulty gene. The team discovered that it is possible to detect
the damaged gene in a third of families with a history of the disease.
Scientists scrutinized 39 families with a history of stomach cancer from
nine countries. Eleven of the families were affected by a type of disease
called hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC). In four of these,
patients had faulty versions of the E-cadherin gene, which helps cells
bind together in tissue.
According to Dr. Carios Caldas, people with a faulty E-cadherin
gene have a 60 to 80 per cent chance of developing stomach cancer at some
stage of their life, with many getting it very young. It is not an easily
treated disease and survival is very poor. However, by screening the
damaged gene, those affected could undergo surgery to prevent the disease.
The gene is damaged in about a third of HDGC families but apparently
in none with other forms of inherited stomach cancer. Many of the genes
responsible for inherited cancers also go wrong in tumors in nonhereditary
forms of the disease, which means that the new development could have
wide-ranging implications. The faulty CHK2 gene is one of a number of
genes that together increase breast cancer risk. Scientists believe that a
high risk of suffering the inherited form of breast cancer is more often
caused by a combination of genes.
Jan-Feb
2003, Vatis Update: Biotechnology
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Health diet helps
arteries
Eating
fish and oranges may help offset some of the blood vessel damage caused by
smoking, a study suggests. A single portion of fish could be enough to
stop arteries from hardening, Irish researchers found. Vitamins C and
allopurinol, a drug used to treat gout, has a similar effect. They tested
the effects of taurine, an amino acid found in fish, on 15 smokers.
Professor David Bouchier Hayers, of the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin,
said: “When blood vessels are exposed to cigarette smoke, the vessels
behave like a rigid pipe rather than a flexible tube. Thus they can’t
dilate in response to increased blood flow.” The condition, known as
endothelial dysfunction, is an earliest sign of hardening of the arteries,
a major cause of stroke and heart disease. The scientist, who published
their finding in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, were
cautious not to recommend eating fish as an antidote to smoking A separate
study from America found that drug allopurinol, used to treat gout,
improved smokers’ endothelial function. Dr. William Haynes, from lowa
college of Medicine, who led the study, said the results were the first to
show that allopurinol could have “rapid and substantial endothelial
effects in smokers.”
March 2003 Health Action
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Human kidneys grown in mice
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, have
successfully grown the world’s first functioning human kidneys in a
breakthrough that holds potential benefits for thousands of people. A team
headed by Prof. Yair Reisner transformed cells taken from embryonic tissue
into new, functioning organs. The kidneys produce urine just like normal
organs. Presently, scientists have grown ‘spare part’ kidneys
only in laboratory mice.
Scientists took stem cells from areas of both human and pig embryos
they believed would be rich in precursor kidney cells and implanted them
into mice. They found that the cells grew to form perfect human or pig
kidneys. The fully functional kidneys sprouted new blood vessels, thereby lowering the chances of rejection significantly. This
result suggests that human or pig foetal tissue can take on the shape and
function of a healthy kidney if transplanted into humans. Furthermore,
scientists have also identified the time during embryonic development when
stem cells are suitable to form functioning kidneys. Their experiments with
human immune cells also indicated that
correct timing of the process can stop the body from rejecting the organ.
Jan-Feb 2003, Vatis Update:
Biotechnology
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A
Medical Compound Derived from Herbs
The “MINIMAL TRACK RECORD” OF MEDICINAL compounds derived from
Chinese Herbal remedies reported in D. Normile’s News Focus article
“The new face of traditional Chinese Medicine” can be augmented by one
used in veterinary medicine, namely, halofuginone. A halogenated derivative
of febrifugine, an alkaloid isolated from the ancient Chinese antimalarial
herb Chang Shan, halofuginone was synthesized by American Cyanamid
chemists. It has been sold for many years by Roussel-Uclaf and successor
companies for use in poultry against coccidiosis, a parasitic disease
closely related to malaria. It is currently being investigated for use in
humans, including use as a possible anticancer drug.
March 28, 2003, Science vol 299
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What
are environmental risk to the children?
For many children, their personal world is often small, limited
to their home, school, the street outside play areas, and the homes of
their extended family. But these places can also put children, from an
early age, at risk from environmental dangers –and these risks are
increasing.
Generations of children have suffered from certain 'basic' risks exiting
in their environments. These are unsafe drinking water, inadequate
sanitation, indoor air pollution, insufficient food hygiene, poor housing
and inadequate waste disposal.
Today’s ‘modern’ risks result from the unsafe use of
dangerous chemicals, the inadequate disposal of toxic waste and other
environmental hazards, noise and industrial pollution. Unsafe chemical in
toys and household products may also harm children.
‘Emerging’ potential environmental threat to health include
global climate change, ozone depletion, contamination by persistent
organic pollutants and chemicals and other hazards, and emerging diseases.
They frequently live in unsafe and crowded settlements, in
undeserved rural areas or in slums on the edges of cities which lack
access to basic services such as water and sanitation, electricity, or
health care. They are likely to be exposed to industrial and vehicle
pollution as well as to indoor air pollution and to unsafe chemicals.
Children are also likely to suffer from unintentional injuries (accidents)
and poisonings associated with unsafe housing and consumer products. They
are more likely to be undernourished, causing them to be more vulnerable
to environmental threats.
At home: many children are born at home and spend a major part of
their young lives there. But from conception, their health may be
adversely affected by hazards in the home such as lack of sufficient
water, indoor air pollution, inadequate hygiene, contaminated food and
water, and many others.
April 2003, Health Action
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Moderate drinking cuts risk of stroke
Two alcoholic drinks a day may reduce the risk of the most common
kind of stroke by nearly 30%, but downing five drinks or more daily raises
the risk by about 70%, according to a study published.
The findings, from Tulane University School of Public Health and
Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, were based on an analysis of 35
previously published studies which appeared between 1966 and 2002.
“Our study strongly suggests that reducing alcohol consumption in
heavy drinkers should be an important approach to prevention of stroke in
the general population,” said the report published in this week’s
Journal of American Medical
Association.
It also suggests that moderate alcohol consumption reduces risk of
ischemic stroke. Any advice regarding the consumption of alcohol should be
tailored to the individual patient’s risk and potential benefits.
April 2003, Health Action
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Expressing anger can be healthy for men
Outward expressions of anger may help protect some men from heart
disease and stroke, a new study shows. The risk of a non-fatal heart
attack was cut by more than 50 per cent in men with moderate levels of
anger expression, compared to men who rarely expressed anger, according to
the study published in Psychosomatic
Medicine. Men with moderate levels of anger expression were also less
likely to have a stroke than those who rarely expressed anger. The study
may appear to contradict previous research showing that chronic anger
raises the risk of heart disease. But those studies looked at levels of
anger, not at styles of coping with anger, says the study’s lead author
Patricia Mona Eng.
Also, Eng adds, the social professional status of the men in the
study may help explain the results. This was a population of high status
men. It may be that when these men scream, they are heard.
The study followed 23,522 men aged 50 to 85 for two years as part
of the Health Professionals follow-up study. Included in the group were
dentists, veterinarians, pharmacists and optometrists. Then men in the
study for the most part, weren’t door slammers. They were more likely to
say they often expressed their anger.
What Eng and her colleagues don’t know is why anger expression
appears to protect health. It’s possible that the men who rarely
expressed anger were simply suppressing the emotion and that may have lead
to a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. “But we didn’t measure
for anger suppression,” she said. “And that’s certainly something
that should be done in future studies.”
April 2003, Health Action
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Over-boiling
the tea leaves is harmful
Tea
is the most widely consumed beverage in the world, and India is the
largest producer as well as consumer of tea. Tea represents a significant
potential source of human exposure to pesticide residues by virtue of high
application of pesticides to tea crop. Pesticides used on tea plants
during cultivation such as ethion, quinalphos, malathion, and dimethoate,
are sufficient to formulate firm residue levels in tea, and a hot tea brew
may act as a solvent for many of these chemicals.
In recent years, there is an increasing public concern over the presence
of pesticide residues in food products because of the known toxicity of
pesticides, and tea is not an exception. It has become important to
reassess the impact of pesticide residues in tea as per the recommended
maximum residual limits (MRLs). Jaggi and others at Institute of Himalayan
Bio resource Technology, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh studied the transfer
of pesticides from made tea to infusion. They further evaluated the
difference in pesticide transfer to infusion between traditional and
international methods of tea preparation. In the traditional method
people, especially the rural population of India, enjoy the much-brewed
tea.
It was observed that phosphamidon translocation to the tea infusion was
highest (33.3%), followed by dimethoate (25.8%)and monocrotophos (19.78%).
Whereas the transfer rates of malathion (12.14%), methyl parathion
(9.96%), quinalphos (8.04%), and chlorpyrifos (3.14%) were comparatively
less. Extractabilities of ethion, dicotol, endosulfan, deltamethrin,
cypermetrin, and permethrin in infusion were almost negligible or below
the detection limits. The results substantiate a satisfactory relationship
between the pesticide transfer to brewed tea and water solubility and
partition coefficient. Increasing the brewing time and continuous heating
may aid in releasing the pesticides from plant tissue. Thus, the
traditional practice of over boiling the tea leaves should be discouraged.
January- February2003,
Natural Product Radiance Vol2(1)
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Soft drinks bad for kids
Children
who drink a large amount of aerated soft drinks that contain caffeine are
prone to develop disturbed sleep patterns as compared to those who take
fresh fruit juices. A study in the US amongst children and teenagers who
consume larger amounts of fizzy soft drinks. Were found to cause increased
tiredness and intermittent sleep at nights.
March 2003, Health Action
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Relation of Yogic Therapy with naturopathy
Yogic Therapy and Naturopathy are akin to each other. Both of them are
drugless therapies and have holistic approach. Both of them believe in
power of Panchamahabhutas and ‘Chaitanya’ behind them and
insist on the purity of body, mind and spirit. Their synergic
effects will prove very beneficial to the sufferers. The healing will be
very fast, smooth and complete.
November 2002, Nisargopchar Varta
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Walking for intellectual
gains
Walking
confers emotional and intellectual gains that match its undoubted physical
benefits. It is man’s favourite way of withdrawing into himself to chew
over a problem.
Walking
assist thought by increasing the blood flow to the brain. Slow leisurely
walks are especially effective as a mood stabiliser.
Some oriental
schools practice exquisitely slow, deliberate, focussed walking, similar
to the purposeful gait of a stork, as meditation. Walking barefoot on dew
-
soaked grass is a wonderful way of connecting with nature; it is also good
for the arches and ligaments of the feet. A slow ramble through the
countryside beyond the suburbs offers a glimpse of nature that the
concrete of the cities tends to obscure.
Walking among the ruins of an archaeological site, hiking through
the woods or a nature reserve for a sight of rare bird, weaving one’s
way on foot through tiny villages or tourist destinations. All can enrich
the mind while building physical stamina.
March 2003, Health Action
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Popularity of
yogic Therapy
The
Yogic Therapy is gaining more and more popularity everyday. Persons who
claim to cure diseases by yogic methods and most of them seem to carry on
very well. Not all of them may be able to prove their ‘bonafides’ in
the field. But this is quite natural so long as there is no official
standardisation, which for a young therapy like Yoga therapy will
necessarily take enough time to attain. Mere numerical strength of its
parctioners may not prove the efficacy but it does go a long way to show
that, to attain such popularity, it must have some value of its own. It
should be noted that many persons in the medical field who were initially
inclined to look upon this therapy with scepticism and suspicion have come
to recognise its merits after gaining experience.
November 2002, Nisargopchar Varta
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Childhood delinquency
Lead
in water, food and paint can help turn children into teenage delinquents
according to a study published recently. Researchers found that children
appearing in youth courts had significantly higher concentration of the
toxic metal in their bones than typical teenagers. The study in the
journal Neurotoxicology and Technology, by Dr. Herbert Needleman, a child
psychiatrist at the university of Pittsburg, compared 194 children
convicted an a Pennsylvania juvenile court with 146 children without
criminal records. The convicted youths had significantly higher
concentration of lead in their bone- 11 parts per millions compared with
1.5 parts per millions in the children with non criminal records.
March 2003, Health Action
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We and Our
Defence Mechanism
All
of us have a defence mechanism to protect ourselves from the pathogens
that exist along with us in the environment. This mechanism functions both
at a macro level and at the micro level. The macro level comprises the
skin and the various mucous membranes found throughout the body and at
micro level it consist of various cells, which are found in our blood.
When a pathogen is able to cross the macro defences and enters the body,
our bodies offer a tough resistance to it and apply their all might to
kill it. In this internal war both our own cells and the pathogenic
microorganisms are killed and the debris is found in the form of pus. It
is seen that some of the individuals get frequent infections of various
kind while the others though living in the same environment are seldom
effected, the reasons is that those who are seldom affected have powerful
immune system and are therefore able to ward off the diseases by
destroying the pathogens, while those who have a weak immune system
succumb to it. Our immune system also makes mistake in recognizing the
pathogens and friendly micro organism and our own defence system becomes
our own enemy and gives rise to diseases such as cancer, AIDS,
arteriosclerosis, SLE, rheumatoid disease etc. such diseases are called
auto immune diseases. Naturopathy and Yoga is useful both in strengthening
our immune system as well as in making it wise to properly differentiate
in the friends and the enemy microbes.
November 2002, Nisargopchar
Varta
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Grape fruit to
treat Alzheime’s disease
Inhibitors of cholinesterases are used for treatment
of Alzheimer’s disease. Anticholinesterase may interact with central
cholinergic system to improve memory and cognitive deficits of the
patients by diminishing the breakdown of acetylcholine at the synaptic
site in the brain.
In these cholinesterases, acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors have
often been much used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Some of
these have been found naturally occurring on plants. Miyazawa and others
from Japan studied the inhibition of AChE activity from grape fruit, Citrus paradisi Macfad oil.
Inhibition of AChE was measured by the colorimetric method. Nootkatone and
auraptene were isolated from grape fruit essential oil and showed 17-24%
of inhibition of AChE activity at the concentration of 1.62 mg/ml. The fraction of oil, which contains 31.4%
nootkatone, 52.2% auraptene and other minor compound, showed stronger
inhibition (54.2%) than compound nootkatone and auraptene.
January- February2003,
Natural Product Radiance Vol2(1)
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Green tea to reduce obesity
Obesity
is caused by chronic imbalance between energy intake and energy
expenditure. Primary obesity may be caused by genetic predisposition
environment factors, metabolic and endocrine abnormalities, or
combinations of these factors. Weight reduction can be achieved by
decreasing energy intake and increasing energy expenditure. Compliance of
classical weight loss programmers as low fat diets, behavioural
modification and exercise often fail to achieve long-term maintenance of
weight loss.
Tea one of the most ancient and, the most widely consumed beverage in the
world is made from the leaves of Camellia sinensis Linn. The leaves are
processed as green, oolong or black tea. Green tea is the non-oxidised/
non-fermented product and contains high quantities of several polyphenolic
components such as epicatechin, epicatechin gallate, epigallocatechin and
epigallocatechin gallate.
Chantre and
Lairon from France investigated effect of green tea extract on obesity.
The green tea extract AR25 is an 80% ethanolic dry extract standardized at
25% catechins expressed as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). In vitro,
green tea extract AR25 exerts a direct inhibition of gastric and
pancreatic lipases and a stimulation of thermogenesis. In an open study,
the effects of extract AR25 were evaluated in moderately obese patients.
After 3 months, body weight was decreased by 4.6% and waist circumference
by 4.48%. These results suggest the green tea extract AR25 to be a natural
product for the treatment of obesity, which exerts its activity by several
ways: inhibition of lipases and stimulation of thermo genesis.
January- February2003,
Natural Product Radiance Vol2(1)
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Animal Shield
The
US military has resorted to using dolphins to clear mines in the war
against Iraq. The marine mammals are trained not to make contact with the
mines but to place floats near them. The US Navy contends that dolphins do
not face any “significant” risk since they possess biological
sonar’s far superior to any electronic system designed by humans.
The dolphins are aided by a number of trained sea lions from the Navy
Mammals Maritime Unit in San Diego. Sea lions are known to possess
sensitive underwater hearing, and the ability to see in dim light. “The
Navy will continue to use these systems as long as they are more effective
than existing hardware” a spokespersons said. Hundreds of pigeons have
also been despatched to the US army and marine regiments. The birds are
used to indicate the presence of nerve agents, as they are known to die
twice as fast as humans when exposed to gas and nerve agents.
April 30, 2024, Down To Earth
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Ebola
virus confirmed as cause of outbreak
As of Tuesday 18 February 80 cases of haemorrhagic fever had been
reported in the north-west of the Republic of the Congo, with 64 deaths.
Laboratory tests have confirmed that the Ebola virus was the cause.
Ebola haemorrhagic fever kills 50-90% of those who become
clinically ill with it. The virus is transmitted by contact with the
blood, body fluids and tissues of infected people. Case management express
from the WHO Global Alert and Response Network will be assisting health
care workers with learning and using barrier nursing practices such as
masks, gloves, suits and visors.
Tests on blood samples from cases in the district of kelle, where
most of the Ebola virus. In December, tests on dead gorillas north of
Mbomo, the second focus of the outbreak, were also positive for Ebola.
Bulletin
of
the WHO,
2003
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Avian
influenza virus reappears in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
On 19 February, two laboratories confirmed the presence of the
A(H5N1) influenza virus in a nine-year-old boy admitted to a hospital in
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China on 12 February.
The boy has recovered, but his father and sister, who had similar
symptoms, have died. On 20 February the Hong Kong SAR Government Virus
Unit confirmed that the father, aged 33, had been infected with the
A(H5N1) virus. Both the boy and his father had traveled to Fujian Province
(China) in January.
A(H5N1) was the first seen in humans in 1997 when
an outbreak of 18 cases caused six deaths in Hong Kong SAR. Until
then, this virus had been seen only in birds, including ducks and
chickens, causing high mortality in the latter. In December 1997, all
chickens in Hong Kong SAR were slaughtered, as they were thought to be the
cause of this outbreak in humans. No further cases of this disease were
reported in humans.
WHO is in close contact with the health authorities contact with
the health authorities in Beijing, and in Hong Kong SAR. The WHO Global
Influenza Surveillance Network has been alerted and additional reagents
for laboratory diagnosis are being made available to National Influenza
Centres and other member of the Global Influenza Network.
2003,
Bulletin of the World Health Organization
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Unique
vaccine ready for trials
Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore,
India, have developed and readied for trials the world’s first
combination DNA veterinary vaccine against rabies, a serious public health
problem. A virus of the family Rhabdoviridae
causes rabies. DNA vaccination, more precisely DNA-medicated immunization,
refers to the direct introduction of the DNA’s plasmid (by injection or
particle bombardment) into the host organism’s tissues. This plasmid
causes expression of antigens (antibodies-producing substances) directly
within the infected cells. In this same, DNA vaccination resembles a viral
infection.
The IISc team first developed the DNA vaccine by taking a gene from
the rabies virus and introducing it into bacteria. But the vaccine thus
produced was effective only 50 to 70 per cent of the times. However, the
cost of production was lesser than that for cell culture vaccine enhances
the potency of the DNA vaccine, giving 100 per cent result while keeping
the price of the vaccine low. This principle works for both human and
veterinary vaccines and has shown positive results in mice and cattle.
Scientists from IISc, led by Mr. M. N. Rangarajan, collaborated with the
Indian Innunologicals Ltd. to design the vaccine.
Jan-Feb
2003, Vatis Update: Biotechnology
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Sapping
structures
The sick
building syndrome (SBS) is ill –ventilated and badly planned workplaces
are causing office-workers physical problems such as headaches, nausea,
fatigue and respiratory disorders to name just a few.
Recent energy audits by the Tata Energy Research Institute in seven
software companies in Bangalore have identified centralised air
conditioning as one of the main causes of SBS. The study has found that in
the closed environment of the modern office, oxygen levels decrease as the
day progresses, with a corresponding rise in the level of carbon dioxide.
Surveys reveal that many offices accord low priority to
maintenance. A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
documentary some years ago identified dirty or damp carpeting and
upholstery, faulty ventilation and the growth of bacteria and viruses in
ventilation ducts as some of the major causes of indoor pollution. In
confined office space, employees easily contract infectious diseases from
their co-workers. The BBC documentary also revealed that improved
sanitation in workplaces led to increase productivity besides better
health of employees.
April 15, 2003, Down To Earth
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