-The Hindu Antibody prevalence data derived from serosurveys must be interpreted with caution and correction factors The theory behind population-based serological surveys (seroprevalence surveys or serosurveys) to detect the prevalence of antibodies against COVID-19 is robust. Their purpose is to measure the proportion of a population already infected, as evidenced by antibody positivity. When applied on a national scale, a random sample of the entire population is tested. Then, the data are...
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What went wrong with India’s TB control-T Jacob John
-The Hindu The story today is a far cry from the 1960s, when we led the developing countries' fight against the disease Tuberculosis is very much in the news, but for all the wrong reasons - a shortage of drugs; increasing multi-drug and extensive drug resistance (MDR, XDR), making treatment both cumbersome and expensive; total drug resistance (TDR) as a veritable death warrant; popularly used Serological Tests for diagnosis being declared worse...
More »India’s tuberculosis challenge -R Prasad
-The Hindu The epidemic is running amok. And the government is finally waking up to the reality. Tuberculosis was declared a global health emergency in 1993, but it has been growing unchecked. Today, TB is causing millions of deaths every year globally. Like any infectious disease, TB is prevalent even in developed countries. But it is a more serious problem in the developing and populous countries. India and China together account for nearly...
More »Stepping up pace on the long road to TB control -Virander S Chauhan
-The Hindu Tuberculosis (TB) has remained a major infectious disease in developing and poor countries despite all efforts from health agencies to manage and control it. In fact, even an easy and effective way to diagnose the disease has remained a challenge. Emergence of drug resistant strains has made its management more complex. The steps It makes the situation in countries like India, with the highest TB burden in the world, even more...
More »Virulent comeback -Lyla Bavadam
Tuberculosis re-emerges as a major threat as new drug-resistant strains develop because of mismanagement of the disease. At the beginning of the year, doctors at Mumbai’s P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre reported that they had 12 patients infected with TDR-TB, or totally drug-resistant tuberculosis, a condition in which the TB bacilli is resistant to all first- and second-line drugs used in the conventional treatment of the disease. Panic...
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