A pre and post comparison study was carried out in the field practice area of M.S. Ramaiah Medical College Bangalore, Karnataka to assess the impact of educational intervention on the knowledge of mothers of under five children on home management of diarrhoeal diseases. Sample of 225 mothers were included in the study. The study was conducted in 3 stages. Stage I--initial knowledge, attitude and practice of mothers was assessed. Stage II--one to one educational intervention was conducted and supported by audiovisual aids and live demonstration. Stage III--included post intervention knowledge, attitude and practice after 2 months and 2 years. After the educational intervention, there was significant improvement on knowledge of mothers regarding definition of diarrhoea (P < 0.001), signs of dehydration (P < 0.001), awareness of ORS solution (P < 0.001), correct preparation of ORS solution (P < 0.001), shelf-life of ORS solution (P < 0.001), seeking health care (P < 0.001) and rational drug therapy during diarrhoea (P < 0.001). McNemar test was used to find out the change in knowledge before and after the educational intervention. The overall knowledge scores improved significantly after 2 months (P < 0.001) as well as 2 years (P < 0.001) of the educational intervention. Though the proportion of mothers retaining the knowledge at the end of 2 years dropped, yet there was significant improvement (P < 0.001) when compared to the baseline study.

New diagnostics technologies for the efficient detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies is very crucial to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the context of emerging vaccination paradigms. Herein, we report on a novel point-of-care Electrochemical ELISA platform with disposable screen printed electrodes functionalized with SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein S1, to enable fast and accurate quantitative estimation of total antibody concentration (IgG and IgM) in clinical samples. The quantification is performed with a comparison of electrochemical redox current against the current produced by the spiked monoclonal antibodies with known concentration. The assay is validated through multicentric evaluation against 3 different FDA authorized Laboratory standard techniques, using both EDTA whole blood and serum samples. We demonstrate that the proposed assay has excellent sensitivity and specificity, making it a suitable candidate for epidemiological surveys and quantification of antibodies in COVID-19 vaccination programs.

Background and Objectives Red cell antibody screening as a part of pretransfusion testing is not a routine practice in many developing countries. This study, was done to determine the incidence of allo-and auto-antibodies, assess their clinical significance and deliver antigen negative blood where warranted.Materials and Methods Red cell antibody screening was done as a part of pretransfusion testing at a tertiary care multispecialty hospital in India on 60 518 patients between August 2007 and July 2014 using column agglutination technology by gel.Results Red cell antibodies were detected in 0Á95% (n = 579). Of these, 0Á54% (n = 332) were alloantibodies and 0Á4% (n = 247) were auto-antibodies. Rh and Kell antibodies detected were anti-D(n = 140), anti-C(n = 10), anti-c(n = 12), anti-E(n = 21), anti-e(n = 4), anti-K(n = 10), anti-k(n = 2). Anti-M (n = 30), anti-N(n = 1), anti-S(n = 7), anti-Le(a)( n = 23), anti-Le(b)( n = 6) and anti-Fy(a) (n = 7) were found. Dual antibodies anti-D&C(n = 36), anti-C&E(n = 1), anti-c&E (n = 2), anti-K&C(n = 1), anti-Jka&E(n = 1) and anti-Jka&D(n = 1) were also detected. Of the 332 alloantibodies detected only 9 could not be typed. Additionally, our study detected 247 auto-antibodies.Conclusion Implementation of red cell antibody screening routinely helped us understand the prevalence of antibodies in our region and showed that wider implementation at the national level is feasible and adds to blood safety.

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The stem-loop III (SLIII) structure within the 5' untranslated region has been shown to be critical for internal initiation of translation of Hepatitis C virus (HCV). Using 'Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP)' of the SLIII region we have investigated for natural mutations and demonstrated presence of some non-covariant changes in certain sub-domains. However, overall SLIII-RNA structure was found to be phylogenetically conserved. Additionally, by SSCP analysis we have determined the genotype of 50 HCV isolates collected from Southern India, 25 random samples were confirmed by DNA sequencing. Results showed the prevalence of genotype 1 in this part of India.