Citizen News Service (CNS)

Children and TB: A Hidden Epidemic

Tuberculosis (TB) among children is rarely discussed. Because children, more often than not cannot speak for themselves, not much about how they're affected by the disease ever hits the headlines. This is despite the fact that TB remains among the top ten killers of children worldwide. In spite of this, virtually no public or political attention is paid to TB as a children’s health issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 176,000 children died, but the consensus among researchers says that actual figures are higher. In 2009 alone, at least 1 million children became sick with TB.

All of us know that there is a pool where TB bacilli that can flourish and can cause TB infection in children. We are the ones who together with our knowledge and experience aim to eliminate the pool, so that no more infections can occur. How does infection take place? Infection is caused by a TB patient excreting Acid Fast Bacilli (AFB) in sputum. While coughing he will disseminate sputum into the air. The smallest particles called the droplet nuclei will remain floating and when inhaled, can pass the mouth/nose/bronchi and bronchioli to end up at the alveoli of the healthy person. The bigger sputum particles will reach the ground and cannot cause infection (unable to form floating droplet nuclei).

Tuberculosis vaccine research gets a boost

Aeras announces the receipt of a grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of up to USD 220 million over five years, placing it at the forefront of a global scientific initiative aimed at developing safe, effective vaccines against tuberculosis, a disease that infects two billion people worldwide. One of the world’s largest not-for-profit biotechs, Aeras is developing modern vaccines to combat TB against the backdrop of a significant increase in drug-resistant strains.

In India, virtually every second person is defecating in the open, every third person is drinking unsafe water and at least 1,000 children are dying every day due to a preventable disease like diarrhoea. This grim picture of the world’s third fastest growing economy was unveiled through the country’s latest census report on drinking water and sanitation, which the Government of India released this month. Earlier on March 6, the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water and Sanitation (JMP) report, released by UNICEF and WHO, too confirmed that in India 59 per cent of people [626 million] defecate in the open. The report had pointed out that - “India is lagging behind 11 years to meet the Millennium Development Goal target, in which the government has resolved that the statistics of open defecation [base 1990] would be halved by 2015.

Muzzling the messenger?

Syed Mohammad Kazmi, a senior and respected journalist was arrested last week in New Delhi under a baseless suspicion of his connection with the attack on the Israel diplomat that occurred in the capital in February 2012. His knowledge of Persian and work for the Iranian News Agency, IRNA seem to have been among the ridiculous reasons for his incarceration.

Eminent citizens of India have issued this statement in support of Mr. Kazmi and demanded his immediate release. A protest was also organized in Delhi to condemn the high handedness of the government.

Lives before profits: India issues first compulsory license

GROUNDBREAKING MOVE SETS PRECEDENT FOR OVERCOMING DRUG PRICE BARRIERS

In a landmark case, the Indian Patent Office has issued the first-ever compulsory license in India to a generic drug manufacturer. This effectively ends German pharmaceutical company Bayer’s monopoly in India on the drug sorafenib tosylate used to treat kidney and liver cancer. The Patent Office acted on the basis that not only had Bayer failed to price the drug at a level that made it accessible and affordable, it also was unable to ensure that the medicine was available in sufficient and sustainable quantities within India.

dianuke.org

Admiral L Ramdas writes... Many Non Government Organizations and civil society groups are for ever struggling against Government and other official agencies, for their violation of ‘Human Rights’ ecological degradation and loss of livelihood of the people, for example in giant Hydro Electric projects, Nuclear power plants and so on. The National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) has therefore a great opportunity coming its way on March 11- a few days from now- when we will be observing the first anniversary of the disastrous accident and melt down of the Fukushima Nuclear power plant in Japan.

[हिंदी] The All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF)'s general secretary Shri Shailendra Dubey said that AIPEF will join hands with National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) and Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and mobilize over 12 lakh AIPEF members across the country to demand open and unrestricted dialogue on energy issue and push the mandate of no carbon and no nuclear energy in India.

Today is March 8, and across the world the International Women's Day is being commemorated. Coincidentally, March is the global tuberculosis (TB) awareness month. The disease, which is caused by a mycobacterium, has a major impact on women's sexual reproductive health and that of their children. For pregnant women living in areas with high TB infection rates, there are increased chances of transmission of TB to a child before, during delivery or after birth. The disease, especially if associated with HIV, also accounts for a high incidence of maternal and infant mortality. Unfortunately, there is little to no attention to women's vulnerability in the current discussion and media blitz of a resurgent TB internationally, and in particular, sub-Saharan Africa.

The Department of Podiatric Surgery at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center (AIMS), Kochi, Kerala, India, recently successfully replaced the destroyed foot and ankle bones in a 30-year-old patient with a novel prosthesis using polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The patient had developed a spinal cord injury, four years ago, due to a fall from height. This caused fracture of his spine which was operated in a hospital near his home town in Kerala.

Location: a typical urban semi slum area (in as much as the houses are not makeshift but permanent brick structures) of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, which boasts of the state of art medical facilities.

Place: A brick walled house in a very narrow by lane, carefully protected from the prying rays of the sun, and just broad enough to let a two wheeler pass through. There is a small open verandah, leading to two dark, dingy and damp rooms, with no access to sunlight, and hardly any ventilation. One of the rooms doubles up as a kitchen, which has a mud stove run on wood fuel. The smoke from the chulha and from the bidis smoked in the house, linger in the closed environment for long.

At the inaugural lecture of the 42nd Union World Conference on Lung Health, organised by the International Union Against Tuberculosis And Lung Disease (The Union), in October 2011, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, showed a poignant video clip of a 14 year old girl who had suffered and died of TB in her poor, smoke ridden home in a Kenyan village last year. The video was a telling but true commentary on the polluted and unhygienic environments that exist in most houses of urban slums and villages of the developing world, making them fertile grounds for TB germs, and exposing their children to this life threatening disease.

International TB experts and representatives from the TB programmes of 10 francophone African countries are meeting in Cameroon today, the 1st of March, 2012, for a daylong workshop to discuss “Short–course treatment for multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB”. Hosted by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) and the Cameroon Ministry of Health, the event will provide a forum for comparing and discussing the results of the WHO-recommended 20 months long treatment regimen for MDR-TB, versus a nine-month regimen.

A week back the door bell rang and two ladies stood with vaccine boxes at my doorstep asking if there were children five years and below in the house as they wanted to give polio drops. Hearing a 'no' from me they went to the next door and then continued knocking on doors. India just completed a year without a single case of Polio and this is a great achievement indeed. World over India's Polio control is being quoted as a huge success story and rightly so.