Chlorine gas leak: A school incident in Andhra Pradesh.

A gas leak occurred affecting the teaching staff as well as 65 students of a school in Andhra Pradesh, of whom 9 became seriously ill. The students were shifted to the nearest hospital. Many were treated on an out-patient basis, while 9 students were admitted for 2 days, and then discharged. Since the parents were still apprehensive about long-term sequelae arising from the exposure, the district collector directed the district medical and health officer to investigate and take necessary steps. The latter arranged a medical camp involving several medical officers under the guidance of a team of clinical toxicologists and community medical care specialists from a major teaching hospital of the area. Detailed examination and investigations were done, and all the cases were followed up. None went into long-term complications

Hepatitis B surface antigen, hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis in south India--an autopsy study.

This study is aimed at finding the association of hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis with hepatitis B surface antigen in a particular geographical area, Andhra Pradesh State in South India. In total, 206 cases of autopsy livers were studied for the presence of hepatitis B surface antigen by orcein staining. Of the 114 cases of cirrhosis 67.54% were positive for the antigen. There were 13 cases of macronodular, 55 cases of mixed and 46 cases of micronodular cirrhosis. The antigen positivity was 100%, 98.7% and 21.74% respectively. The difference in positivity between micronodular and the other two types of cirrhosis was statistically significant (P less than 0.01). Of the 58 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma, 50 were associated with cirrhosis. In 80% of these cases, hepatitis B surface antigen was demonstrated, whereas 75% of cases of hepatocellular carcinoma not associated with cirrhosis, were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen. The geographical importance of these findings was discussed.