Suspected brain disease kills 51 kids in Bihar

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Suspected brain disease kills 51 kids in Bihar Posted: 03 Oct 2011 07:02 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Suspected encephalitis, a brain fever, has killed 51 children in Bihar's Gaya district in the last seven weeks, with three more kids succumbing to the disease Friday, an official said Saturday. 'Three more children died on Friday,' an official said. Most of the children belong to Mahadalit families, among the poorest of the poor. According to district health officials, all children have died at Anugrah Narain Medical College and Hospital - in Gaya, about 100 km from Patna. The children reported high fever, followed by bouts of unconsciousness and convulsions. An official of the hospital said that till date, more than 220 children with suspected encephalitis were admitted for treatment. 'Most of the children were from rural areas of Gaya and neighbouring districts,' he said. 'Over two dozen children are still battling for life,' he said. Bihar Health Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey told IANS that the government has alerted health officials to provide medical treatment to all the affected. 'After I visited the hospital last month, I had directed the officials to take measures to check the spread of the disease,' Choubey said. He added that the government had already carried out intensive spraying of insecticide DDT to kill mosquitoes, which are responsible for the suspected disease. However, an official of the hospital said that lack of doctors and medicines was proving costly. 'Inadequate doctors and non-availability of medicines are the real problems,' he said. ANMCH superintendent Sitaram Prasad said the government has employed several medical teams to control the disease. 'We are doing our best to treat and save the children,' he said. A district administration official said that suspected encephalitis hit Gaya in 2009, 2007 and 2005 and killed dozens of children. Two months ago, 55 children died in Muzaffarpur district but the state government is yet to confirm these as encephalitis deaths. Last month, union Health... http://www.rxpgnews.com

New insight into plant immune defenses Posted: 02 Oct 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), among others, have identified an important cog in the molecular machinery of plant immunity - a discovery that could help crop breeders produce disease-resistant varieties to help ensure future food security. There may also be implications for treating human immune-related disorders. The research, led by Professor Gary Loake at the University of Edinburgh with colleagues from Syngenta is published this evening (02 October 2011) in the journal Nature. Plants are under constant attack from disease-causing organisms and to protect themselves they have developed a simple immune system. One defence mechanism is to trigger threatened cells to die and so remove the food source from the invading pathogen. Professor Loake and his team have uncovered what is happening inside the cells to control this process and in doing so have put an enzyme called NADPH oxidase in the spotlight. Professor Loake said Plants generate a short, sharp shock that kills off the cells around where the pathogen is trying to invade and essentially starves it out. But we recognised that something must be going on to make sure that the plant doesn't go into complete meltdown. When a plant is attacked by a bacterium or a fungus, for example, there are various ways in which they perceive this attack. One of the common responses is to trigger the production of a chemical called nitric oxide (NO) and a class of molecules known as 'reactive oxygen intermediates' (ROI's), which includes things like hydrogen peroxide and 'free radicals'. As well as being very toxic to the invading organism, NO and ROI's are key to encouraging cells to die if they are threatened. NADPH oxidase comes into the picture because it is critical for the production of ROI's. The team has found that there is a feedback loop where as the levels of NO go up, NADPH oxidase is altered by the addition of an NO... http://www.rxpgnews.com

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