ABSTRACT
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a leading cause of viral encephalitis in Southeast Asia. It is a serious public health issue in India, and cases have been emerging in newer areas of the country. Although vaccination efforts have already been initiated in the country since 2006 and later through the Universal Immunization Programme in 2011, still a significant reduction in the number of cases has to be achieved since an escalating trend of JE incidence has been reported in certain States such as Assam, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Moreover, fresh cases of JE have been reported from certain pockets in Odisha as well. Despite the mass JE vaccination programme implemented in prioritized endemic zones in the country in 2011, a shift in the age group of JE virus (JEV) infection was noticed affecting the adult population in West Bengal. The recent detection of the circulation of genotype I (GI) in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh and the co-circulation of GI and genotype III (GIII) in West Bengal are probably a warning signal for the public health personnel to strengthen the surveillance system in all endemic hotspots in the country. The abrupt emergence of JEV genotype V (GV) in China and Korea in 2009, after its first detection in Malaya in 1952, endemic countries have been cautioned to strengthen their surveillance, because GV has been suspected of getting dispersed efficiently in other parts of Asia. Moreover, the reduced protection efficiency of the JEV GIII-based vaccine against the JEV genotype V further warrants careful evaluation of the ongoing vaccination strategies in the endemic countries, anticipating the possible incursion of GV and its impact on future control strategies. In view of the above facts, the present communication reviews the current knowledge on the molecular epidemiology of JEV in India vis-a-vis the global scenario and discusses the future priorities in JEV research in India for effectively designing control strategies.
ABSTRACT
The use of cotton plug as closure of a bacterial culture flask had been reported to have many disadvantages such as inhibitory nature of cotton to certain microbes, chances of contamination during handling and accumulation of used cotton as biological waste. To overcome the disadvantages of cotton plugs, we have developed a new method of capping bacterial culture flasks. In the present study, three sets of experiments were conducted, one was to find out the efficiency of bacterial growth in culture flasks closed by either glass caps or cotton plugs and the second set was to find out the chances of getting contamination of sterile broth closed by either glass caps or cotton plugs and the third set was to find out the evaporation of water in conical flasks closed by glass caps or cotton plug. The results showed that the bacterial cultures closed by glass caps showed better growth with less chance of contamination and evaporation of the culture media. By this method, the bacterial culture work is made very simpler than using cotton plug.