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Background: Dengue infection is a major challenge to public health, especially in South-East Asia. It present with a diverse clinical spectrum. Estimates suggest that annually over 50 million cases of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) occur in Asian countries with a case fatality rate of less than 5%. Of those with DHF, at least 90% are children younger than 15 years old. In humans, dengue infection causes a spectrum of illness ranging from relatively mild, non-specific viral syndrome known as Dengue fever (DF) to severe hemorrhagic disease and death. Definitive early Dengue diagnosis requires laboratory tests and those suitable for use at this stage of illness are either costly, such as RT-PCR for Dengue; not sufficiently rapid, such as virus isolation. Currently test available are NS1 antigen detection and ELISA for dengue, IgM and IgG antibodies. Objective of this study is to study clinico-epidemiological and haematological features of Dengue infection.Methods: Prospective observational study involving initial 100 registered cases who were serologically confirmed dengue infection for a period of one year.Results: DF, DHF and DSS were found in 41%, 53% and 6% patients respectively. Most common presenting complaint and bleeding manifestation were fever and petechiae. Uncommonly altered sensorium and icterus were found in severe dengue infection. 6% patients had coagulopathy, 37 patients had hepatic involvement and 2 patients had deranged renal function who had DSS. Fever was present in (100%) cases of DF, DHF and DSS. 26% patients had their platelet count <50000/mm3.Conclusions: Dengue is a common disease in the India with wide spectrum of clinical presentations, affecting 5-15 years age group children commonly. It is one of the dreaded fevers but early diagnosis and management according to recent WHO guidelines can decrease case fatality rate significantly.
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Background: Immunization remains an important public health intervention. On one side morbidity and mortality caused by vaccine-preventable diseases are still high in developing countries, on the other side immunization coverage is still low. Present study aims to assess immunization status of under-five children in relation to various demographic variables of their mothers.Methods: A total of 530 mothers with children under 5 years attending OPD, immunization clinic or admitted in paediatric ward were included in the study. Maternal demographic variables like age, religion, education, socio economic status, residence, parity and occupation were compared with immunization status of their children.Results: Most of mothers were housewives (73.77%), primary educated (33.58%), belonged to Hindu religion (47.54%), were of 21-30 years age group (52.64%), residing in urban areas (62.07%) and belonged to middle socio economic status (45.84%). Out of total 530 children 161 (30.37%) were completely immunized as compared to 21.32% who were unimmunized. Boys were marginally more unimmunized (37.32%) than girls (23.04%). Mothers' education, occupation, parity, religion, residence and socio-economic status significantly influenced immunization status of their children (p<0.05).Conclusions: Therefore, it is recommended that any strategy formulated to improve vaccination coverage in children of our country should focus to strengthen above mentioned weak links.
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Background: Thrombocytopenia (platelet count <1,50,000/'L) is one of the most common haematological problems in neonatal intensive care units. In contrast, only 2% of the normal neonates are thrombocytopenic at birth with severe thrombocytopenia (platelet count <50,000/'L) occurring in less than 3/1000 term infants. Multiple disease processes can cause thrombocytopenia in neonates. The important causes of thrombocytopenia in neonates are sepsis, birth asphyxia, prematurity, intra-uterine growth retardation, hyperbilirubinemia, respiratory distress syndrome, meconium aspiration syndrome and low birth weight. Apart from platelet count, bleeding manifestations depend on underlying ailments. The aims and objective were to study the clinical profile, etiology and outcome of neonatal thrombocytopenia in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: Prospective study involving 100 neonates with or developed neonatal thrombocytopenia in NICU.Results: In present study, 100 new-borns with thrombocytopenia 46% were mild, 35% were moderate and 19% were severe thrombocytopenia. 51 (51%) had early onset neonatal thrombocytopenia and 49 (49%) babies had late onset neonatal thrombocytopenia. Anaemia was the dominant maternal predisposing risk factor. Sepsis was the most common cause of neonatal thrombocytopenia. Most common symptom was apnoea. Sepsis, RDS and NEC had significantly contributed to mortality. Most common cause of death was sepsis followed by RDS and NEC.Conclusions: Neonatal thrombocytopenia is a treatable and reversible condition. Hence, it is important to identify neonates at risk and initiate transfusion therapy to prevent severe bleeding and potentially significant morbidity. Anaemia and PROM were the commonest maternal risk factors. Therefore, author recommended that babies born to mothers with these risk factors should be closely monitored for thrombocytopenia.
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Marigold is a commercially important flower crop popular for its multipurpose use as loose flower, ornamental pot plant, pharmaceutical and industrial crop for lutein pigment extraction. The genus Tagetes is considered as a recalcitrant in terms of in vitro morphogenesis and plant regeneration. In the present study, we propose an efficient protocol for direct differentiation of shoot buds from immature leaf segments of African (Tagetes erecta L.) and French marigold (Tagetes patula L.) genotypes viz., Pusa Basanti Gainda and Pusa Arpita, respectively. We developed this protocol as follows. Leaf segments were collected from in vitro proliferated shoots established in aseptic culture from shoot tips of doubled haploids and dihaploids. Rapid and direct shoot bud induction was observed on enriched MS (EMS) medium supplemented with coconut water, AgNO3, casein hydrolysate, polyvinylpyrrolidone and glutamine. Among the different treatments, the highest (89.7%) direct shoot bud induction, bud forming capacity index (BFC) (2.36) and rapid (14 days) organogenesis was observed from leaf segments of French marigold cv. Pusa Arpita cultured on EMS media supplemented with 2.0 mg L-1 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 0.5 mg L-1 1-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA). African marigold cv. Pusa Basanti Gainda exhibited maximum regeneration (66.6%), BFC index (2.11) and early (20 days) shoot bud induction on EMS media supplemented with 0.5 mg L-1 BAP and 0.25 mg L-1 NAA. In order to improve the regeneration capacity, different maturity groups of distal and proximal leaf ends were cultured on genotype specific medium. Among the different explant groups, immature leaf basal segments exhibited highest BFC index of 4.2 and 2.6 in Pusa Arpita and Pusa Basanti Gainda respectively. All the regenerated shoots were excised, rooted in 0.5 mg L-1 IBA and transplanted under polyhouse conditions, where they exhibit normal morphological growth similar to mother plant.
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Aims of study: The objective of our study is retrospective evaluation of the data to assess the effectiveness of MTC in providing medical and nutritional rehabilitation care for children with SAM in our MTC. Results: Out of the 1047 children of age 6-60 months with SAM, 72.21% had a weight -for-height/length (WH/L) Z score below -3SD, 64.85% had mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) < 11.5 cm, 12.03% had bipedal oedema and 53.75% had both WH/LZ score below -3SD and MUAC <11.5 cm. 76.40% were discharged from MTC, however recovered rate was 11.65%. Conclusions: Survival of children with SAM in our study was good (76.40%) however recovery rate was low (11.65%). The average weight gain of children with SAM was 8.06 gm/kg/day (±12.01gm) in our study and average duration of stay was 8.67 days (+_6.11).