Pulse of Gujarat during Lockdown

Background: Coronavirus pandemic has dealt a severe blow to India’s poor and socioeconomically disadvantaged group. Among a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the infection. This study assessed the availability of food and access to healthcare among the vulnerable population of Gujarat– pregnant women and severe acute malnourished children. Specifically, we assessed events of starvation or skipped meal, availability of healthcare services, and self-reported psychological distress during the lock down. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study across 252 talukas and 33 districts of Gujarat was undertaken using a structured questionnaire. A telephonic survey was carried out and positive responses were received from 161 households (HHs) with severe acute malnourished children, 328 pregnant women with severe maternal anemia, and 402 lactating women. Results: We found 79.7% of surveyed HHs received ration where major reliance was on public distribution system (51.7%). Less than half of the beneficiaries (48.6%) received take-home ration under the ICDS program. Despite efforts of the State as well as voluntary agencies, 7.3% of HHs experienced episode of hunger, mostly from Devbhumi Dwarka, and Navsari district. A third of the respondents showed signs of psychological distress associated with lockdown. Conclusion: Food insecurity may lead to malnutrition impairing the immunity of the individuals to cope with the disease. Thus, given the uncertainty around the emergency situation, preparedness measures should not only focus on the availability of healthcare commodities but also to ensure the availability of other essentials, especially to the socioeconomic disadvantaged group. © 2022 Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. All rights reserved.

Behaviour Analysis of Open-Source Firewalls Under Security Crisis

Nowadays, in this COVID era, work from home is quietly more preferred than work from the office. Due to this, the need for a firewall has been increased day by day. Every organization uses the firewall to secure their network and create VPN servers to allow their employees to work from home. Due to this, the security of the firewall plays a crucial role. In this paper, we have compared the two most popular open-source firewalls named pfSense and OPNSense. We have examined the security they provide by default without any other attachment. To do this, we performed four different attacks on the firewalls and compared the results. As a result, we have observed that both provide the same security still pfSense has a slight edge when an attacker tries to perform a Brute force attack over OPNSense. © 2022 IEEE.

Adjuvant tocilizumab in the treatment of patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 pneumonia: an observational study

Importance: As there is no definitive treatment available for covid-19 pneumonia, with timed administration of tocilizumab as an adjuvant therapy in moderate to severe covid-19 pneumonia, we can reduce mortality due to cytokine storm.