ABSTRACT
In India, rice is the staple food for most people and many people are employed in rice mills. With lack of specific guidelines for rice mills’ establishment and operation, workers face a lot of problems especially from respiratory illness. We wanted to determine the pattern of respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function disorders among rice mill workers and provide health education to reduce respiratory morbidity. METHODSA cross-sectional study was conducted during the period October 2016 – 2018. A total of 50 rice mill workers and 50 normal individuals were assigned to the exposure and control groups respectively. Each individual was interviewed using the British Medical Research Council questionnaire and was later subjected to physical examination, routine laboratory investigations, and pulmonary function tests (PFT). Data was statistically analysed and presented. RESULTSThere was a higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms among the rice mill workers when compared to their control counterparts. Cough (28 %) was the predominant symptom and was high in those involved in sweeping and cleaning activities (80 %). There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) among all the spirometric parameters tested like FEV1, FVC, FEV1 / FVC and PEFR except for FEF. About 74 % had respiratory morbidity and obstructive lung diseases (36 %) were predominant as compared to restrictive lung diseases (26 %) and mixed lung disorders (12 %) in the exposure group. Obstructive pattern was predominantly seen in those with a working history of < 10 years and restrictive and mixed patterns were predominantly seen in those with a working history of >10 years. With increase in duration of work, prevalence of respiratory symptoms as well as the severity increased. CONCLUSIONSIt can be concluded that rice mill workers are at a higher risk of acquiring respiratory symptoms and lung impairments. Therefore, it is necessary to implement preventive measures by means of controlling dust emission, educating the workers, etc. Workers should also have periodical clinical and spirometric evaluation and those showing significant impairment should be readjusted in other sections of the industry.
ABSTRACT
Leptospirosis is one of the emerging and re-emerging neglected tropical bacterial infections, greater attention from the public health and medical communities. Due to increase in urbanization and conversion of rural setup to urban, poor sanitation and unawareness of the risk sources, there is an increase in the new cases every year. Methods: The present investigation is aimed to assess the presence of leptospirosis among rice mill workers by socio-demographic data, information related to disease, symptoms, animal contact, cleaning procedures and determine the presence of leptospires seroprints by genus specific enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and serovar specific microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Results & Conclusion: The Genus specific IgG ELISA was performed for all the serum samples (n=107) and the results were compared with serovar specific MAT by using serial doubling dilutions of serum samples. The results of ELISA showed reactive to 44 samples whereas, MAT showed positive to 32. In MAT, the highest titer value was 1:320 for L. australis and L. grippotyphosa followed by 1:160 for L. autumnalis, L. canicola, L. icterohaemorrhagiae, L. javanica, L. pomona and L. patoc. Screening of this occupational risk group was carried out for the presence of leptospiral seroprints in order to provide appropriate medical check-up and early treatment. Significantly higher prevalence rates in rice mill workers compared to control group is identified, indicating that working in the rice mill is a significant risk factor for leptospiral infection.