Support services for HIV/AIDS infected persons to be scaled up

Clinics for sexually transmitted diseases to be established

— Photo: N. Bashkaran.

Awareness:Deputy Director, Health Services, N. Ayyanar addressing the media consultation meeting on HIV/AIDS at Dharmapuri Collectorate on Tuesday.

DHARMAPURI, India: All HIV infected persons are not AIDS patients, hence they should be considered as HIV patients. The appeal was made at the media consultation programme conducted on HIV/AIDS organised by the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS) here on Tuesday.

Speaking at the programme, Dr. Jegannathan, Joint Director, Health Services said the prevention, care and support services in the district for the HIV/AIDS affected persons would be scaled up soon. Clinics for the sexually transmitted diseases (STD) would be established at Pappireddipatti and Periyamapatti Public Health Centres.

According to Sentinel Surveillance Survey, the National Family Health Survey and Integrated Behavioural Biological Assessment, the prevalence of HIV in the State has reduced to 0.25 per cent in 2007 from 1.13 per cent in 2001. It is because of the sustained efforts by the authorities and NGOs to prevent HIV infection, Dr. Jegannathan added.

Dr. N. Ayyanar, Deputy Director, Health Services said as many as 34,561 pregnant women had undergone HIV test, of which 71 were identified as positive.

They were referred to the Anti Retroviral Therapy(ART) Centre at the Government Medical College Hospital during the last year.

As many as 56,771 people were tested for HIV at the 17 ICDC centres across the district during 2009.

Due to various awareness programmes conducted by the Tamil Nadu Aids Control Society in association with the National Aids Control Organisation, large number of people are voluntarily coming up for the HIV test in these centres.

With view to prevent the HIV transmission from parent to child, the Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission (PPTCT) programmes was put in place in all the PHCs.

As on March 2010, as many as 1,205 people were found living with HIV and they were provided ART treatment, to expand their life span through the Government Hospital in the district.

The stigma attached to the disease and the consequent isolation was a major source of concern, he added.

He also said that 29 cases were registered by the free Legal Aid Centre at the ART centre dealing with economic problem, dowry problem and it also includes two cases under the Protection of Civil Rights Act.

Dr. Vidya, District Programme Manager, District AIDS Prevention and Control Unit (DAPCU), M. Raja Mahendran, President, Dharmapuri District HIV Positive Welfare Society, C. Sudalaimuthu, District Manager, Red Ribbon Club, S.R. Shobhana from Sneha Sadan spoke.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/14/stories/2010041451610300.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Collector promises bus service for tribals

Between Badrakaliamman Temple and Tholampalayam

Coimbatore, India: District Collector, P. Umanath has promised that for the benefit of students and workers from tribal communities in Tholampalayam arrangements would be made for operating bus services by TNSTC between Badrakaliamman Temple and Tholampalayam.

Dr.Umanath made the assurance at District Forest Management Committee meeting held recently in the presence of District Forest Officer, I. Anwardeen.

The Collector said that TNSTC Managing Director would be requested to make arrangements for operating bus services in the morning and evening for the benefit of school, college going students and workers.

The Collector also directed the Block Development Officers concerned to initiate steps for providing street lights, roads and electricity for tribals living in Bhagavathy Amman Koil, Sirumugai, Sethumadai, Tholampalayam, Anaikatti, and Moolakadu.

Bus passes

He also said that as a special case bus passes would be provided to tribal students living in Gopanari areas.

As in the case of last year wherein community certificates was provided to 650 tribals, the Collector said that community certificates would be issued to the left out tribals during the current year.

Regarding a plea for electricity by tribals living near Karamadai, Collector said that works were over in respect of 90 per cent areas and the remaining would be completed soon.

Tribals living in blocks such as Periyanaickenpalayam and Karamadai are at present forced to cross a river and come via Kerala taking a detour for 11 km.

Hence, conceding their demand, Dr.Umanath said that the proposals are under consideration for laying a road for two-and-a-half km roads via Anaikatti, Vadakkalur, Singuli and Government would be soon approached for funds.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/14/stories/2010041464370800.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Hospital provides a lifeline for Cambodian child

Hourmoni Pitou

CHENNAI, India: It started with a small bottle of beer. If Papa Gary had not been thirsty that night in Preykuy Village in Kompongspeu province, Cambodia, where he was touring, Hourmoni Pitou might still be blue from his heart condition.

But Papa Gary, an Australian architect, based in Thailand, did walk into Pitou’s grandmother’s little shack and that is how one life came to be better. As Sidet, Pitou’s father spoke a little English, he was able to answer the visitor’s questions about why the two-and-a-half year old boy looked ill. Pitou’s mother had left him after he was born blue, his heart not quite the way it should have been.

Sidet had gone from place to place seeking a cure that would enable his son to live normally. “His face, lips, and nails were very blue. He could not walk around too much, was breathless; he could only drink milk and would sleep long hours. I tried to find doctors to treat him, but they said his problem was too serious,” he explains.

On his lap is perched the little Pitou, post-surgery, pink as he can be, playing with large red, heart-shaped balloons and babbling to himself as the adults discussed him.

Sidet says Papa Gary helped connect with Child First International, an Australian organisation that has funded the medical treatment of at least 250 children across the world. The organisation contacted Dr. Cherian’s Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai, which had taken care of two other children sponsored by them.

The hospital was willing but there another hurdle sprung up – airlines were unwilling to let the blue baby travel without medical supervision. The hospital then decided to send paediatric cardiologist Yogesh C. Sathe to accompany the baby to India, providing medical support on the flight from Pnom Penh to Chennai via Bangkok.

“On investigation, we found that the child had a condition called pulmonary atresia, wherein his pulmonary artery that leads from the heart to the lung is completely blocked,” explains Prem Sekar, Consultant – Interventional Paediatric Cardiologist. Also, there was only one valve separating the chambers of the heart, and the left chamber was smaller.

“It cannot be corrected at one go,” Raghavan Subramanyan, Head of Cardiology, adds. The first procedure to separate oxygenated blood from impure blood was done as the vein carrying blood from the upper part of the body was bypassed to the lung. The surgery was performed by Ravi Agarwal, consultant cardiac surgeon, and his team.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/14/stories/2010041463970500.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Karur Collector brings dropouts back to school

Enumeration of dropouts to end tomorrow, she says

SHOWING THE WAY FORWARD:Collector J. Uma Maheswari bringing dropouts in her official car for readmission on Monday.

KARUR, India: It is imperative that parents understand the need to educate their wards, especially the girl children.

All the educated should impart the value of education to all others, especially to the parents of the school dropouts, according to Collector J. Uma Maheswari.

To drive home the importance of school dropout prevention and bringing the unfortunate children back to school, Dr. Maheswari herself visited the houses of three such children and brought them back to the educational institutions and strongly sent out a message to all the officers that the district administration gave priority to education.

On Monday, Dr. Maheswari went to the houses of Lakshmi (11), Priya (13) and Maha (6), who all had dropped out of schools for various reasons, and convinced their parents of the need to educate their children to face the highly competitive world in the future and leaving no stone unturned brought the children along to the school in her official car and got them enrolled again.

Better life

She told the children that education alone gave them the passport to a better life and that they should continue to learn at all cost. The happy children thanked the Collector for the gesture.

Stint in Education department

Incidentally, Dr. Maheswari served in the Department of School Education before her elevation as an Indian Administrative Service Officer. Her stint in the department and the importance she has been attaching to school education had made her reach out to the dropouts.

Stating that enumeration of school dropouts has been going on in the district since April 5 and would end on Thursday, Dr. Maheswari said so far it has been detected that a total of 561 children had dropped out of school during the past academic year. Of them efforts have been made to bring 332 boys and girls back into the education fold. Efforts were under way to re-enroll the remaining children shortly, she said.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/14/stories/2010041460650300.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

'Tweets' could warn of future epidemics

Twitter can be a help and a hinderance when it comes to tracking diseases, say experts (Source: Giulio Saggin, file photo/ABC News)

Twitter could act as an early warning system for epidemics, according a new study, which tracked the micro-blogging site during the ‘swine flu’ pandemic of 2009.

According to a team of interdisciplinary experts, around three million messages – or so-called ‘tweets’ – posted in English on Twitter between May and December 2009 contained the word “flu”.

Their study was presented to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) being held in Vienna this week.

“The numbers of tweets we collected by searching by keywords such as ‘flu’ or ‘influenza’ has been astronomical,” says one of the study’s co-authors, Dr Patty Kostkova of London’s City University.

“What we’re looking at now is, what is the potential of this enormous data set for early warning systems. Because it’s a real time media, it can call for an immediate response if required.”

Among the so-called tweets, the experts counted 12,954 messages containing the phrase “I have swine flu” and 12,651 saying “I’ve got flu”.

They also counted the frequency of other terms, such as “H1N1” and “vaccine”.

Kostkova’s team is working together with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) in the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Twitter would enable the NHS, for example, to better assess resources and provide visitors with information such as the nearest doctor, dentist or emergency services.

Source of rumour

A report released yesterday by the World Health Organization found that the Internet had a disruptive impact on the handling of the flu pandemic by fanning speculation and rumour.

WHO influenza chief Dr Keiji Fukuda told 29 health experts reviewing the international response to the pandemic that the Internet had added a new dimension to flu alerts over the past year.

While it meant information about swine flu became more widely available, it also produced “news, rumours, a great deal of speculation and criticism in multiple outlets,” including blogs, social networking and websites, he said.

“Anti-vaccine messaging was very active, made it very difficult for public health services in many countries,” Fukuda said as a nine-month review of the A(H1N1) flu pandemic got under way.

Kostkova counters that monitoring Twitter messages would help recognise the population’s worries and could be useful in detecting the start of an epidemic.

But she insists that existing disease surveillance systems were still better for monitoring the subsequent spread of an epidemic.

Reference Link
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/04/14/2872304.htm

Courtesy
ABC