Background: Knowing the wastage rate helps in assessing vaccine wastage and relative magnitude of its various causes helps to target efforts in reduce this wastage. Area specific wastage rate is useful in tailoring the vaccine vial size. Research question: What is the vaccine wastage in a primary care setting in rural India? Methods: A record based descriptive study was carried out in an immunization clinic of rural health centre in South India. All childhood vaccinations between 1 st April 2012 and 31 st March 2013 were included in the study. Number of doses issued and number of children vaccinated were obtained from the registers maintained at the rural health centre. Vaccine wastage rates and wastage factor were calculated. Results: A total of 5013 vaccinations (DPT, OPV, measles, MMR, and pentavalent, hep B, TT) were provided. Wastage rate for liquid vaccines was 3.4% and for lyophilized vaccines 28.2% among vaccines provided under national immunization schedule, wastage was highest for measles (46.5%). Conclusions: All vaccines except measles had wastage within the limits proposed by World Health Organization. Wastage rates have to be calculated routinely and considered during vaccine procurement.
Background: Use of Internet has drastically increased in the last decades. Despite of the advantages, use of it can lead to addictive behaviours that can affect various domains of a person's life like physical, social, mental and financial wellbeing. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the prevalence of Internet use and its correlates among 150 urban school students in 13-15 years age group in a selected school in Tirunelveli district, Tamilnadu, South India. Study was conducted using apredesigned, pretested questionnaire part of the questions were retrieved from Young's 20 item Internet Addiction Test. Results: Among the 150 study participants, 53 (35.4%) are not addicted to use of internet, 63 (42%) are in mild addiction level, 29(19.3%) are in moderate addiction level and 5(3.3%) comes under severe addiction level, 43.4% were using internet for social networking and with regard to duration of use of internet, 17% were using internet for duration of 1-2 hours a day and 6% use it for more than 2 hours a day. Conclusion: The current study shows a higher level of internet use and addiction to it among students. Need to enhance the awareness regarding the consequences of these technologies to students.
Background: The novel corona virus has made the world standstill. In India COVID first and second wave has created dramatic fear among the pregnant mothers and the treating obstetricians. Objectives: To study the impact of COVID-19 in pregnancy, newborn and to compare the maternal and neonatal outcome among COVID-19 negative and COVID-19 positive pregnant women during the first and second COVID wave. Materials and Method: This was a prospective study done over one year from July 2020 to July 2021 in a tertiary care hospital in South India. 400 pregnant women attending antenatal outpatient department during COVID willing to participate in the study were included. Nasopharyngeal RT-PCR was done. Socio-demographic profile, maternal and neonatal outcome were compared between non COVID and COVID positive pregnant women. Results: A total of 400 pregnant women were screened for corona virus. 75 pregnant mothers turned positive for COVID-19 and 325 were negative. Among them, 10 were positive during first wave and 65 during second wave. Of them, 20 (26.7%) were asymptomatic and 55 (73.3%) were symptomatic. During the second COVID wave, there was a rise in missed miscarriage (21.5%), intrauterine growth restriction (46.15%), oligohydramnios (53.8%) and intrauterine demise (4.6%). The rate of caesarean and neonatal intensive care unit admission also increased to 70.3% and 59.5% respectively. Conclusion: This study has found increased maternal and neonatal adverse effects associated with COVID second wave. Hence vaccine should be recommended for all pregnant women.
Background: COVID-19 crisis leads to significant changes in routine life, loss of employment, financial crisis, living in isolation, and death of loved ones etc. that can create worry and stress among the people infected with COVID-19. The aim of the study is to estimate the burden of psycho-social problems among COVID-19 patients admitted in a tertiary care institute. A hospital-based cross-sectional study carried out among stable 450 RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted in the COVID ward of Tertiary Care Institute, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India between August and September 2020. Materials and Methods: Participants with self-reported pre-existing mental illnesses were excluded. Psycho-social issues of the participants were studied through telephonic conversation using a predesigned questionnaire including DASS 21 scale. Chi-square test was used to test the association between categorical variables. Variables significant in univariate analysis were included for multivariate analysis. P-value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Based on DASS21 Scoring, 89 (20%) had depression, 190 (42%) were anxious and 53 (12%) were under stress. Patients aged more than 60 years, literate, with risk factors like diabetes mellitus and hypertension were more likely to have one or more psychological conditions. Conclusion: There is an increased prevalence of psychological morbidities among COVID-19 patients. It warrants the need for a combined action from health care professionals in the early identification of these psychological issues to prevent long term mental health issues among survivors.
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