Impact of Lockdown on Air Quality in the Most Polluted Cities of India.

Background: COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, prompting lockdowns in practically every country. To prevent the spread of the disease, India has enforced a rigorous nationwide lockdown that commenced in March 2020. The lockdown imposed amid the pandemic ensured that most commercial activities and vehicle transportation ceased, resulting in a significant reduction in air pollution levels. Material and Methods: The value of air pollutants PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 from January to May 2020 was obtained from the Indian Central Pollution Control Board. Before lockdown and during lockdown, relative fluctuations in ambient concentrations of four air contaminants were investigated. The Box-Jenkins approach was used to estimate future air pollution data points using time series data analysis. Results: The PM10 level reduced by 61%, 30%, 68%, 37%, and 43% in the selected cities, respectively. Comparison of other pollutant concentrations before and after the lockdown also found a reduction in ambient pollutant concentrations, resulting in improved air quality. Inference of predicted model values to observed values revealed a significant increase in the concentrations of all pollutants. The percentage increases in AQImean from predicted to observed values were 206% in Ghaziabad, 148% in Delhi, 59% in Hyderabad, and 160% in Cochin. Conclusion: The strict lockdown has resulted in a significant drop in air pollutant levels. Upgrading present technologies could help keep pollution to a minimum of 37% under control. The findings would prompt the government to consider how to strictly reduce vehicle and industrial pollution to improve air quality and maintain improved public health.

A meta-analysis of amnion membrane in gingival recession.

This systematic review was conducted to evaluate the effects of Amniotic Membrane (AM) as compared with other treatment modalities on the clinical outcomes, in gingival recession defects. Only Randomized controlled clinical trials published before 2020 were included. Studies were divided into 5 subgroups (1) Coronally advanced flap (CAF)+AM v/s Chorion membrane (CM) (2) CAF+AM v/s CAF+PRF (3) CAF+AM v/s CAF+Collagen membrane (4) CAF+AM v/s CAF (5) CAF+AM v/s CAF+ Subepithelial connective tissue graft (SCTG). Studies were evaluated for Recession Depth (RD) (Primary outcome); Clinical Attachment Level (CAL), Recession Width (RW) and Width of Keratinized Gingiva (WKG) (Secondary outcomes). The inverse variance approach was utilised in fixed or random effect models for the meta-analysis, which were chosen based on heterogeneity. Results suggested that the use of AM membrane showed comparable results in improving RD, RW, or CAL in the treatment of Miller Class-I and Class-II gingival recession compared to the other treatment modalities. However, CAF+AM resulted in statistically significant improvement in RD and RW than CAF+SCTG, though CAL gain was statistically more with CAF+SCTG. However, increase of WKG was found to be statistically significantly more in all the other treatment modalities as compared to CAF+AM. With properties like self-adherence, bioavailability and presence of growth factors AM with CAF can produce good aesthetic root coverage comparable to SCTG and PRF, where width of keratinized gingiva is adequate.

Growth Estimation of Under-Five Children Using Statistical Models in Central Region of India.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To determine the suitability of 11 basic statistical models for estimating child-growth of under-five children and to bring-forth estimated growth curves for mean height & mean weight by their selected birth-weight categories for Central Region of India. METHODS: The study used fourth round of National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) data of India, consisting of 75,645 under-five children, belonging to 3 Indian States - Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh & Uttar Pradesh. The children of the Region were first divided into 4 sub categories according to their birth-weight: (i) < 2000 gm, (ii) 2000-2499 gm, (iii) 2500-2999 gm (iv) 3000+gm, growth curve for mean height and mean weight were estimated for two sexes. RESULTS: The significant association of 7 socio-demographic factors studied, namely - age & sex of child, birth-order, BMI, mother's highest level of education, place of residence and wealth index. Further, Cubic Model and Power Model, demonstrated best-fit to height & weight data of under-five children, belonging to different birth-weight categories, for estimating growth of boys & girls separately. These models enabled us to estimate mean height and mean weight, with 95% CI, for boys and girls separately by different birth-weight categories. CONCLUSIONS: Study concluded that 7 socio-demographic factors were significantly associated with birth-weight. Further, Cubic Model and Power Model were most suitable for estimating child growth in terms of mean height & mean weight for boys and girls - considering specific birth-weight categories.

Statistical Model for COVID-19 in Different Waves of South Indian States.

Background: COVID-19 has resurfaced in India, where it is rapidly spreading and wreaking havoc in rural areas. An effort has been undertaken to assess the levels and patterns of COVID-19 active cases in the southern states of India. To trace and reason out anomalous trends in the COVID-19 curve so that particular actions such as lockdown, de-lockdown, and healthcare improvisation can be implemented at the appropriate time. Methods: The data has retrieved from the government websites through a platform called Kaggle. The entire duration of COVID - 19 were classified into three compartments: Phase one, Resting phase, and Phase two. The Case Fatality Rate in south Indian states was analysed corresponding to the phases, and a compartmental model for COVID-19 dynamics in the region was proposed. Results: The quadratic regression model was fitted and found to be the best model for the phases except for the resting phase. Phase one was comparatively less fitted when compared to phase two. In most of the south Indian states, the active cases in phase one were almost more than four times that of phase two. The average CFR value in phase one was lower than the subsequent phase in all of the southern Indian states. In phase one, Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu had the highest CFR (4.77,4.22, and 3.71, respectively), whereas Lakshadweep and Kerala had the lowest CFR (0.27 and 0.71, respectively). In the resting phase, the CFR stabilized in all states and reached a value between 0.2 to 2. The trend was similar in phase two also, CFR of Lakshadweep, Kerala, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh (0.143, 0.416,0.553, 0.803) were very low, while the CFR of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu (1.237, 1.306, 1.490) were very high. Conclusion: The first and second phases of the COVID-19 virus in south Indian states had different characteristics. A District-level working group with the autonomy to respond to rapidly changing local situations must be empowered to tackle the next phase. The upcoming phases could be more peaked in less time and could be a hectic situation for the health care system.

COVID-19 pandemic and its average recovery time in Indian states.

BACKGROUND: Many studies have been carried out in modelling COVID-19 pandemic. However, region-wise average duration of recovery from COVID-19 has not been attempted; hence, an effort has been made to estimate state-wise recovery duration of India's COVID-19 patients. Determining the recovery time in each region is intended to assist healthcare professionals in providing better care and planning of logistics. METHODS: This study used database provided by Kaggle, which takes data from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. The simple Linear Regression model between incidence, prevalence, and duration was used to assess the duration of COVID-19 disease in various Indian states. RESULTS: The fitted model suits ideal for most of the states, except for some union territories and northeastern states. The average time to recover from disease was ranging from 5 to 36 days in Indian states/union territories except for Madhya Pradesh. Tamil Nadu has an average recovery time of 7 days with an value of 0.96, followed by Odisha, Karnataka, West Bengal, Kerala and Chhattisgarh and the average recovery duration was estimated as 7, 13, 17, 11, 14 and 12 days respectively. CONCLUSION: The average recovery from COVID-19 was ten or less days in twenty percentage of states, whereas in forty-four percentage of states/union territories had an average recovery duration between ten to twenty days. However, around twentyfour percentage of states/union territory recovered between twenty to thirty days. In the rest of Indian states/union territories, the average duration of recovery was more than thirty days.

Prognostic Survival Factors in Acute Liver Failure Patients in India.

BACKGROUND: Acute liver failure (ALF) is characterized by severe and sudden liver cell dysfunction. Baseline demographic, clinical, and biochemical factors associated with the survival of ALF patients were identified in a few selected Western studies, but very few studies have been done in India. The aim of the current study is to provide an overview of the factors associated with the survival of ALF patients and to suggest an optimum cutoff value for clinically significant parameters. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The patients suffering from ALF were reviewed in this study. The factors studied were age, sex, total serum bilirubin, serum creatinine, serum albumin, urea, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and recent hepatitis E virus infection. RESULTS: Total n = 41; Male 73%; median age 43 years. The median survival time of patients in the age group of 18-40 years was 238 days. The median survival time of patients >40 years of age was 129.10 days. Elevated serum urea and serum ALT levels at the time of admission were found to be significant predictors of mortality in patients suffering from ALF in our study. In Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, the optimum cutoff value of urea was found to be 42 mg/dL, and ALT was found to be 400 IU/L. CONCLUSIONS: Elevated serum urea and serum ALT levels at the time of admission were found to be significant predictors of mortality in patients suffering from ALF in our study. The use of these two parameters, along with King's criteria for the prognosis of ALF, can be more useful in the management of such patients in India.

Cardiovascular Risk Prediction using JBS3 Tool: A Kerala based Study.

BACKGROUND: Accuracy of Joint British Society calculator3 (JBS3) cardiovascular (CV) risk assessment tool may vary across the Indian states, which is not verified in south Indian, Kerala based population. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the traditional risk factors (TRFs) based CV risk estimation done in Kerala based population. METHODS: This cross-sectional study uses details of 977 subjects aged between 30 and 80 years, recorded from the medical archives of clinical locations at Ernakulum district, in Kerala. The risk categories used are Low (<7.5%), Intermediate (≥7.5% and <20%), and High (≥20%) 10-year risk classifications. The lifetime classifications are Low lifetime (≤39%) and High lifetime (≥40%) are used. The study evaluated using statistical analysis; the Chi-square test was used for dependent and categorical CV risk variable comparisons. A multivariate ordinal logistic regression analysis for the 10-year risk and odds logistic regression analysis for the lifetime risk model identified the significant risk variables. RESULTS: The mean age of the study population is 52.56±11.43 years. With 39.1% in low, 25.0% in intermediate, and 35.9% has high 10-year risk. Low lifetime risk with 41.1%, the high lifetime risk has 58.9% subjects. The intermediate 10-year risk category shows the highest reclassifications to High lifetime risk. The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit statistics indicates a good model fit. CONCLUSION: Timely interventions using risk predictions can aid in appropriate therapeutic and lifestyle modifications useful for primary prevention. Precaution to avoid short-term incidences and reclassifications to a high lifetime risk can reduce the CVD related mortality rates.

Relative Estimate of Revised Cardiovascular Risk Combining Traditional and Non-traditional Image-based CV Markers: A Kerala Based Study.

BACKGROUND: Non-traditional image markers can improve the traditional cardiovascular risk estimation, is untested in Kerala based participants. OBJECTIVE: To identify the relationship between the 'Modified CV risk' categories with traditional and non-traditional image-based risk markers. The correlation and improvement in reclassification, achieved by pooling atherosclerotic non-traditional markers with Intermediate (≥7.5% and <20%) and High (≥20%) 10-year participants is evaluated. METHODS: The cross-sectional study with 594 participants has the ultrasound measurements recorded from the medical archives of clinical locations at Ernakulum district, Kerala. With carotid Intima-Media Thickness (cIMT) measurement, the Plaque (cP) complexity was computed using selected plaque characteristics to compute the carotid Total Plaque Risk Score (cTPRS) for superior risk tagging. Statistical analysis was done using RStudio, the classification accuracy was verified using the decision tree algorithm. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was (58.14±10.05) years. The mean cIMT was (0.956±0.302) mm, with 65.6% plaque incidence. With 94.90% variability around its mean, the Multinomial Logistic Regression model identifies cIMT and cTPRS, age, diabetics, Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH), Hypertension treatment, the presence of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) as significant (p<0.05). cIMT and cP were found significant for 'Intermediate High', 'High' and 'Very High' 'Modified CV risk' categories. However, age, diabetes, gender and use of hypertension treatment are significant for the 'Intermediate' 'Modified CV risk' category. The overall performance of the MLR model was 80.5%. The classification accuracy verified using the decision tree algorithm has 78.7% accuracy. CONCLUSION: The use of atherosclerotic markers shows a significant correlation suitable for a nextlevel reclassification of the traditional CV risk.

La pérdida de la cinestesia: impacto de las amputaciones en la adolescencia / The loss of kynesthesia: impact of amputations on adolescents

Objetivos: conocer el impacto que para los jóvenes conlleva asumir la pérdida de una extremidad en mayor o menor medida, incluyendo los efectos físicos y psicosociales. Métodos: se hizo un estudio multisectorial de tipo observacional descriptivo en 37 pacientes que sufrieron amputaciones en miembros, tratados en el servicio de cirugía pediátrica del Hospital Pediátrico Docente Provincial José Martí y el Hospital Universitario Camilo Cienfuegos de Sancti Spíritus, entre los años 1997 y 2007. Resultados: el sexo masculino y las edades superiores a los 16 años fueron los que más frecuentemente se vieron involucrados en este tipo de intervención quirúrgica. El sobrecrecimiento, la aparición de sensaciones fantasmas en el miembro, y el rechazo a las distintas prótesis, fueron los principales problemas a la recuperación física de la lesión. Los aspectos psicológicos más frecuentemente encontrados fueron la ansiedad, la depresión, la recurrencia al uso de psicofármacos, así como los trastornos psicológicos postraumáticos, que fueron detectados en un 15 por ciento de los adolescentes, con mayor afectación en el sexo femenino. Conclusiones: la dificultad en la readaptación social y la disminución de su calidad de vida son las dificultades principales que tienen que afrontar los adolescentes que sufren amputaciones.

Objectives: to know how the young people assume the loss of an extremity in a greater o lesser extent, including the physical and psychosocial effects. Methods: a multisectorial, observational and descriptive study was conducted in 37 patients that underwent amputations of their limbs at the pediatric surgery service of José Martí Pediatric Teaching Hospital and Camilo Cienfuegos University Hospital of Sancti Spiritus from 1997 to 2007. Results: males and ages over 16 were the most involved in this type of surgery. Overgrowth, the appearance of ghost sensations and the rejection to different prostheses were the main problems in the physical recovery of the lesion. The most frequent psychological aspects observed were anxiety, depression, recurrence to the use of psychotropic drugs, as well as posttraumatic psychological disorders that were detected in 15 percent of the adolescents. Females were the most affected. Conclusions: the difficulty in the social readaptation and the decrease of the quality of life are the major difficulties faced by the adolescents with amputations.

La pérdida de la cinestesia: impacto de las amputaciones en la adolescencia / The loss of kynesthesia: impact of amputations on adolescents

Objetivos: conocer el impacto que para los jóvenes conlleva asumir la pérdida de una extremidad en mayor o menor medida, incluyendo los efectos físicos y psicosociales. Métodos: se hizo un estudio multisectorial de tipo observacional descriptivo en 37 pacientes que sufrieron amputaciones en miembros, tratados en el servicio de cirugía pediátrica del Hospital Pediátrico Docente Provincial José Martí y el Hospital Universitario Camilo Cienfuegos de Sancti Spíritus, entre los años 1997 y 2007. Resultados: el sexo masculino y las edades superiores a los 16 años fueron los que más frecuentemente se vieron involucrados en este tipo de intervención quirúrgica. El sobrecrecimiento, la aparición de sensaciones fantasmas en el miembro, y el rechazo a las distintas prótesis, fueron los principales problemas a la recuperación física de la lesión. Los aspectos psicológicos más frecuentemente encontrados fueron la ansiedad, la depresión, la recurrencia al uso de psicofármacos, así como los trastornos psicológicos postraumáticos, que fueron detectados en un 15 por ciento de los adolescentes, con mayor afectación en el sexo femenino. Conclusiones: la dificultad en la readaptación social y la disminución de su calidad de vida son las dificultades principales que tienen que afrontar los adolescentes que sufren amputaciones(AU)

Objectives: to know how the young people assume the loss of an extremity in a greater o lesser extent, including the physical and psychosocial effects. Methods: a multisectorial, observational and descriptive study was conducted in 37 patients that underwent amputations of their limbs at the pediatric surgery service of José Martí Pediatric Teaching Hospital and Camilo Cienfuegos University Hospital of Sancti Spiritus from 1997 to 2007. Results: males and ages over 16 were the most involved in this type of surgery. Overgrowth, the appearance of ghost sensations and the rejection to different prostheses were the main problems in the physical recovery of the lesion. The most frequent psychological aspects observed were anxiety, depression, recurrence to the use of psychotropic drugs, as well as posttraumatic psychological disorders that were detected in 15 percent of the adolescents. Females were the most affected. Conclusions: the difficulty in the social readaptation and the decrease of the quality of life are the major difficulties faced by the adolescents with amputations(AU)