BACKGROUND The economic burden on households affected by tuberculosis through costs to patients can be catastrophic. WHO's End TB Strategy recognises and aims to eliminate these potentially devastating economic effects. We assessed whether aggressive expansion of tuberculosis services might reduce catastrophic costs. METHODS We estimated the reduction in tuberculosis-related catastrophic cost...

We define as South Asian countries those countries that start with Iran and end with Bangladesh in Asia. Wethen use export statistics in terms of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) for 14 industrial sectors tomeasure distances of export capabilities for these countries in relation to the “Western” developed and EastAsian countries. Statistical methods such as multidimensional scaling and ...

Much research attention has been devoted to community context and health. Communities are often defined as residential spaces, such as neighborhoods, or as social groupings, such as caste in India. Using data from a group of tea estates in South India, we attempt to address important methodological challenges in the identification of neighborhood effects on child health. We find significant nei...

The Dravidians had their own tradition of writing. It would appear that they introduced writing to the Indus Valley. They continued to use this writing on their pottery in South India and later punch-marked coins. This is supported by the discovery of writing in South India dating back to before 600 BC. In a recent paper Srinivasan et al. argue that the Indus Valley writing was a syllabic multi...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study of maternal deaths through FOGSI members is to see its current STATUS. METHOD A three-year retrospective observational study from January 2005 to December 2007 formed the basis for collection of the data for analysis. RESULTS A wide variation of maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in the five zones (West-342; South-229; East-709; North East-709 and North-814) was ...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of malnutrition among free-living elderly in a rural population of south India. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. Nutritional status was assessed using the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) questionnaire, which is an eighteen-item nutritional screening instrument used in the elderly. SETTING Kaniyambadi block, a rural development block in the state of Tamil ...

Interaction of silver nanoparticles with serum proteins affects their antimicrobial activity 1 in vivo 2 Divya Prakash Gnanadhas, Midhun Ben Thomas, Rony Thomas, Ashok M Raichur, 3 Dipshikha Chakravortty 4 Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. 5 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. 6 Department ...

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the world. Identifying the genes underlying stroke risk may help us to improve our understanding of the mechanisms that cause stroke and also identify novel therapeutic targets. To have sufficient power to disentangle the genetic component of stroke, large-scale highly phenotyped DNA repositories are necessary. The BRAINS (Bio-repository of D...

The DAZ-like (DAZL) gene located on the short arm of autosomal chromosome 3 (3p24), an essential master gene for the premeiotic development of male and female germ cells, is the father of the Y-chromosome DAZ gene cluster and encodes for RNA-binding proteins. Reported instances of positive association of DAZL gene mutations with infertility in men have been found in a Taiwanese population but n...

The so-called emerging powers, including the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), typically present themselves as natural leaders of their regions. Although physical size confers them the status of regional powers, their role as leaders depends on the consensual acceptance of their would-be followers. Can it be affirmed then that the countries under the influence of th...