The Week gone by

• Varun surrenders amid high drama in Pilibhit, U.P.

• Remanded to Judicial Custody and lodged in district jail.

• Ms. Mayaben Kodnani, Gujarat Minister for Women Welfare Affairs and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Jaideep Patel surrendered before Special Investigation Team (SIT) who are accused in the case of Narroda massacre during 2002 post-Godhra communal riots

• Mr.Ratan Tata unveiled world’s cheapest car TATA NANO. And claims that it emits 101 gm/km of CO2 and costs about 1.13 lakh rupees.

• Educated Individuals like Ms. Meera Sanyal, Ms. Mallika Sarabai, Mona Shah are contesting Loksabha elections.
• London prepares for the most crucial G-20 Summit this week.
• Earth Hour, a Big Success: Ecologists
  

Let's fight the T.B. Menace

Tuberculosis – an overview

Tuberculosis commonly referred to as TB, is an infectious disease of great significance all over the world. It is currently one of the important life threatening infections in AIDS patients with dual infection (HIV and TB). Current statistics suggest that about one third of the world’s population (about two billion people) carry the bacterium, even though they may not always manifest disease symptoms. With Asia and Africa having the highest number of TB patients, the need for improving awareness about this infection has never been as urgent.

Infectious agent & disease process

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is the bacterium responsible for this deadly scourge. Discovered by Robert Koch (1882) its tough lipid rich cell walls enable it grow and multiply steadily within the body while evading antibiotic action. This also aids survival of the bacterium for prolonged periods of time sometimes leading to development of drug resistant forms. Various combinations of drugs (Multi drug regimens) have been developed to combat drug resistant forms.

The most commonly affected organs (in decreasing order of incidence) are the lungs, tonsils, lymph nodes of the neck, intestines, bones, joints, kidneys and meninges (layers covering the brain).

High risk groups

Groups that are more susceptible to tubercle infection include children and young adults, contacts of patients with active tuberculosis and patients with low immunity (AIDS patients, patients taking anti cancer drugs, diabetics, etc). Since the main route of spread is via respiratory droplets (during coughing) people living in overcrowded conditions (military recruits, underprivileged indigent populations) have an increased risk of contracting the infection.

Prevention

Bacille Calmette –Guerin (BCG) vaccine is usually administered in developing countries to all new born children. This is an extremely useful preventive measure in areas with high incidence of TB.


Diagnosis and treatment

Mass miniature radiography (MMR) commonly known as the X-Ray of the chest is performed as a screening test along with sputum smear test (using saliva) and the tuberculin skin test (Mantoux test) in suspicious cases. A combination of these three tests is recommended in high risk cases to identify and start treatment in positive cases.

Directly observed treatment, short course (DOTS) is currently an international strategy to enable thorough treatment of infected cases. Here, a health care worker personally supervises drug intake by the patient, to prevent skipping or partial drug dosage which could eventually lead to drug resistance and ultimately death of the patient.

Some warning signs of tubercular infection

Unexplained weight loss, low grade fever during evening, loss of appetite, excessive sweating and coughing are some of the warning signs of infection. If any of these symptoms persist for more than a few days it would be wise to consult a physician for evaluation.

In view of the recent ‘TB day’ on March 24th, marked especially for creating global awareness about tuberculosis, it is the responsibility of each one of us to contribute in our own way to the eradication of this killer disease. Community health education and dissemination of information about the disease can be used by everyone as cheap, cost effective tools to add impetus to the global movement against tuberculosis.

- Dr.Sarika

Small Revolution

Ratan Tata’s dream has finally become a reality.The much awaited 1-lakh car,
what could be termed as a revolutionary new product and touted has the world’s cheapest and peoples car is now ready to hit the Indian roads and see the light of the day after much deliberation.

What fascinated me is not just the launch of a small, affordable car, but the Journey it went through. The promises, the process, efforts and the challenges faced in launching it and also the time of launching. Ever since Ratan Tata conceived the idea of making a 1 lakh car for Indian commuters way back in 2003, he and his group had to face many hurdles - Political, Technical and Economical.

Keeping the cost of production well within the bracket even after six years of its conception, at a time when the input costs were soaring and critics skeptical about the car meeting the safety and emissions norm and fuel efficiency and ridiculing the very idea of making a car run at that price – was a challenge in itself. It took a great bunch of brilliant engineers and smart engineering to bring out the machine that meets the Bharat stage III emissions norm and could also meet the stringent Euro 4 norms and return a fuel efficiency of 23kmpl.After this comes the political hurdle, where in they were forced to move out of the Singur West Bengal, and had to shift their manufacturing base to Sanand in Gujarat. This combined with challenge of making it look like a “real” car, presentable to the public was no easy task. They even ended up with 37 patents.

Now there’s also other side to this, many argue that the affordable nature of this car can choke up the cities and add to the already high traffic congestion and increase the pollution.They may be right. But by global standards, number of cars per thousand persons or square kilometer is very less in India and prohibiting the cars and not producing them is not the kind of solution we can be looking at and is not conducive. Rather, building new roads and stepping up the infrastructure can be the way ahead.

Critics said it couldn’t be done. It couldn’t run. It couldn’t even be a proper car. But now after its launch, over the next several months it can dramatically expand the size of the Indian car market, boosting economic activity during a downturn. Tata also plans to export number of cars to other developing nations and launch a version of it in Europe and US in 2011 or 2012. It fulfills the dream of many families who wouldn’t have afforded a car otherwise. In many ways it’s more than just a car and the name is Nano.

-Vikranth