RESUMO
The world is embarking on a fast-track strategy to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. UNAIDS is targeted towards achieving the 95-95-95 strategy by 2025. Scaling up prevention, testing and treatment services towards HIV/AIDS is paramount in achieving these targets. To understand the status of India in achieving these targets, review of trials registered in the CTRI registry was done and found that among the 155 included trials, most (n=45, 29%) of the trials were drug trails, few were vaccine trials (n=6, 3.8%). Out of 155 studies, forty-one (20%) were in line to reach UNAIDS’ targets. The primary focus of those studies was improving CD4 counts and suppression of viral load (third target of UNAIDS’) (n=12, 7.7%), and the minimal focus was on promoting treatment adherence (second target of UNAIDS’) (n=11, 7%) and promotion of HIV testing (first target of UNAIDS’) (n=4, 2.5%). As prevention is always better than care, research should be encouraged towards prevention of HIV, which in turn facilitates achieving UNAIDS’ 2025 and 2030 targets.
RESUMO
Background: Clinical studies have correlated severe deterioration of COVID-19 patients due to excessive and uncontrolled production of cytokines. There is a pressing need to explore therapies, which could prevent the cytokine storm rather than terminating it. Aims and objectives: The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of itolizumab on clinical outcomes of patients with moderate-severe COVID-19 disease admitted to ICU. The primary aim of the current study is to find out any mortality benefit in 14 days. The secondary aim is to assess the morbidity outcomes in terms of reduction in inflammatory markers and also the duration of hospital stays to assess the prognostication. Materials and methods: It is a retrospective case-control study in which laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted to ICU were taken. A total of 62 patients were recruited, 31 patients received itolizumab (cases/treatment group) and 31 patients didn’t receive itolizumab (designated as controls). Results: Among the total patients recruited, 68% of the study population was male and 32% were female. A total of 12 patients expired among cases and 13 expired among controls. Overall mortality in both groups was noted to be almost similar. The control group showed mortality at lower computed tomography (CT) scores compared to the cases. There is a significant reduction in inflammatory markers, like interleukins-6 (IL-6) and D-dimer in cases compared to the control group. Conclusion: In conclusion, treating patients with cytokine storms before they require intubation/mechanical ventilation is crucial to preventing deaths. Itolizumab has shown no clinical benefit in critically ill COVID-19 patients, however, timely initiation of itolizumab therapy may serve as a key therapeutic option in preventing the mortality and morbidity outcomes in moderate-severe COVID-19 patients.
RESUMO
Adolescent students of a rural block were studied to find out variation in blood pressure in relation to sex, caste and socioeconomic status. Females had significantly higher mean values of blood pressure; both systolic and diastolic. There was significant variation in systolic blood pressure amongst adolescents of various socio- economic classes. Prevalence of systolic hypertension (95 percentile) was higher in adolescents of upper middle social class and diastolic hypertension in Prestige castes. It is suggested that screening for hypertension should be done at school leaving age and high risk adolescents should be advised about periodic check-up, proper diet, salt restrictions and exercise so that frank hypertension could be prevented in adulthood.