Showing posts with label india. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Residents in India have no recourse from conflict with dogs in public spaces

State governments and the Centre continue to spend crores of rupees on post-bite treatment/vaccination, rabies deaths, man hours lost, and accidents. Local authorities spend taxpayer money on maintaining dog vans and pounds and manpower.

Citizens, especially the poor, continue to face dog attacks in public places, with children being attacked regularly.

Many citizens troubled by biting dogs and have approached courts in all parts of the country, filed petitions with corporations / other authorities, and given press interviews - with no impact on the ground, it seems. See here too.

In fact, hearing of such petitions came to a stand still because of an interim order dated November 18, 2015 passed by the Supreme Court of India in the case related to Animal Welfare Board of India Vs. People for Elimination of Stray Troubles and others. The order requested all high courts not to pass any order relating to 1960 Act and 2001 Rules, pertaining to the stray dogs.

Yogesh Bhardwaj, veterinarian at the Nainital zoo, said, “Dogs being territorial animals will attack any outsider entering their areas, including pets and its owners. Some dogs are also agitated as speeding vehicles pass by and tend to attack drivers. During mating season, high levels of testosterone in males also incite them to attack humans.”

Expert advice on aggressive dogs: Not all stray dogs are aggressive. Most do not bother any human around them. However, an aggressive dog can disturb harmony. One such dog can form a pack of two, three or more dogs as it becomes the alpha of a pack.

Dogs in his pack tend to become aggressive and become dangerous for humans and other animals, including pet dogs and stray bovines. If any dog feeder spots the first sign of aggression in any stray dog, it should be immediately reported to the civic agencies. If the dog's behaviour continues to be aggressive, it should be sent to a dog shelter for the safety of others.

"According to law, such dogs can only be sent back to their locality if they show a change in behaviour. Ignoring signs of aggression, defending aggressive dogs and preventing their removal from the area can lead to a disastrous situation," said Kaveri Rana Bhardwaj, an animal rights activist and rescuer.

Feeding dogs at places that are away from homes is important. Dogs have a territorial tendency and it's their nature to protect the human who is providing food. If a person is feeding the strays in front of her home, she is treating the dog like her pet and the stray dogs react like one despite being out on the street.

They will protect her house at any cost, and this leads to a dispute with other groups of dogs or even humans that are just passing by. Any suspicion can lead to a disaster if there is a pack of such dogs.

The People for Elimination of Stray Troubles blogspot makes an interesting point : Ensure that the citizens’ rights are upheld by clearing the streets of stray animals. Basically, this includes public areas free of stray animals as provided for by the municipal and panchayat acts - a demand that the existing law be implemented and enforced.

There is no focus in India on Rabies Vaccinations for dogs - the emphasis is on birth control

There is no rabies component in India’s only official rabies control programme. Prevention of human rabies deaths by post-bite vaccination of every person that is bitten, is not rabies control.

While WHO mandates that at least 80 per cent of dogs need to be vaccinated annually to break the cycle of transmission of Rabies, only 2.4 per cent have been vaccinated by the Animal Welfare Board of India from 2008-2017.

The ABC programme, however, mandates that ownerless dogs be left back on the streets under no supervision – how such dogs are to be identified and accurately re-immunised annually has neither been defined nor ever been attempted by the AWBI. Neither the AWBI nor the ABC programme has ever mentioned any methodology for rabies control.

There is no legal mandate in India for anti-rabies vaccinations, which would shield street dogs from contracting rabies. Instead, ‘animal birth control’ — the mass sterilization of street dogs to ensure their long-term population decline — is the status quo solution.

However, sterilized dogs can still bite people, passing on the virus to humans and other animals. The Union health ministry continues to subsidize extremely expensive post-bite treatment for patients. These expenses should instead be directed toward animal vaccination, which has proved to be around 100 times cheaper and more effective in Asia.

Delhi's first animal welfare policy does not refer to mass anti-rabies vaccination of street dogs.

However, the 2021 National Action Plan for Dog-mediated Rabies Elimination mentioned that the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying under the Government of India, is assisting State Governments for canine anti Rabies vaccination under ASCAD and RKVY Schemes.

The plan aims at systematic reduction of Rabies risk through sustained mass dog vaccinations, pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis and public education until the country is completely free of dog-mediated Rabies.

The Animal Birth Control Programme as a way of managing problems with Street Dogs is a Resounding Failure

The Animal Birth Control Programme (ABC) is being implemented in only 60 big cities of India. Only Tamilnadu and Goa have attempted the programme in the entire State.

Sterilization programmes for street dogs began in India around 2001, yet still cannot be called a success. In Coimbatore, for instance, around 43 % of the street dogs were sterilized till 2017.

A female-centric approach is the most efficient for dog population control. As even one unspayed female in the population can give birth to as many as 20 pups a year.

because of which homeless dogs exist in such numbers today.

The article goes on to say that WHO guidelines state that 'Control of reproduction of feral dogs is rarely worthwhile. If feral dogs are captured and unclaimed they should be humanely killed.'

The WHO and animal welfare organisations around the world promote and encourage free/low-cost neutering for PET dogs. A municipality in Taiwan offers $5 to owners to get their dog sterilised. That is how much cheaper and more practical it is for the government and animal organisations to neuter and vaccinate pets and prevent surplus animals from ending up on the streets in the first place.

The article adds that : 'The clueless AWBI’s ABC policy is the complete opposite of what needs to be done — ignore pets and randomly sterilise and vaccinate some homeless dogs. In fact, this policy has failed so spectacularly, that the AWBI has now changed its own goal post — invented ‘street/Indian/community’ dogs that are supposedly meant to live on the streets anyway !

Another article asks : Who are the beneficiaries of keeping the dogs on the streets?

In the cities, municipal authorities are blamed for the growing numbers and growls on the streets. While the authorities want to remove dogs from the streets, people representing animal welfare organisations insist on carrying on an “unworkable programme” to reduce the conflict between man and mongrel.

Victims are blamed for the attacks. The ABC programme legalises straying, puts dogs in direct conflict with people, and is a perversion of public policy.

The AWBI, the functioning of Animal Welfare Organizations (AWOs), and the implementation and efficacy of the ABC programme have been studied and reviewed by the Ministry of Environment & Forests multiple times, most notably in 1999, 2008, and 2015. It is not for no reason that the reviews and audits have never been made public.

The reviews expose corrupt practices by the AWBI, mismanagement and misappropriation of funds by AWOs in the name of “animal welfare”, and an appalling lack of even rudimentary knowledge of dog control and welfare on the part of the AWBI and NGOs.

The AWBI and AWOs carrying out the ABC programme must be disbanded and held culpable for criminal misconduct for this blatant and deliberate deception of the public and courts, deaths of hundreds of citizens, and cruelty to animals.

The threat from feral dogs is not restricted to human life. Feral dogs are posing a serious threat to Indian wildlife. Conservation India lists several instances of dogs attacking, hunting, and chasing away wildlife, including several endangered species, in different parts of India.

Livestock and wildlife are now increasingly under attack from hungry and homeless dogs, which also spread diseases to wild populations. Unwanted, homeless dogs suffer and die due to accidents, diseases, and starvation. They are now even subject to retaliatory attacks from people, who have no other recourse but to take matters into their own hands. The only beneficiaries of the ABC programme are the AWOs, which get taxpayer money to build private hospitals and boarding for pets and leave homeless animals on the streets.

The current policy is illegal and unconstitutional as it goes against its own parent Act – the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Article 21 – Right to Life, Municipal State Laws, the Police Act, and Public Nuisance Laws. While the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA), 1960, talks about culling street dogs, the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules of 2001 allows stray dog population.

“PCA clearly says stray dogs should be ‘destroyed’. But AWBI through its ABC rules insists that they live on the streets.

In 2015, AWBI issued a circular that blames the victim for a dog attack.

Developed nations do not allow dogs on the street. Those which are found are put up for adoption. When no one adopts them, they are euthanised. Only two Japanese have died of rabies in last 50 years, that too after being bitten in India and the Philippines. Japan does not allow dogs on the street. Those which are found are put up for adoption. When no one adopts them, they are euthanised. Same is done in the US and Ireland.

Goa has become the first state in India to eliminate rabies in humans

Goa has become the first state in India to eliminate rabies in humans, with no cases since 2018. The project, led by the NGO Mission Rabies, began in 2014.

The NGO's approach consists of remote teams of dog vaccinators, who systematically work their way through towns and villages vaccinating dogs.

Vaccination teams rotated through the talukas of Goa, re-starting the state campaign cycle on an approximately annual basis. A combination of door-to-door and capture-vaccinate-release (CVR) methods were used to access dogs for vaccination.

CVR involves catching street dogs in large nets, before vaccinating them and marking them in non-toxic green paint, and then releasing them again.

Their progress was recorded in a smartphone app, which collects data on dog sightings, geographical areas covered by the team, and the details of the vaccinated dogs.

The annual vaccination output increased, both in terms of geographic extent and a total number of dog vaccinations, through program refinement from 2013 to 2017. Intensive state-wide vaccination was achieved for the first time in 2017, vaccinating 97,277 dogs in an estimated total population of 137,353 dogs. Thus, a 70% dog vaccination coverage rate was achieved for the first time in 2017 using this method. This output was sustained through 2018 and 2019.

Both ownership and confinement data were available for over 90% of dog vaccination records. 52% were owned dogs and 48% were unowned dogs. Unowned dogs were inherently always roaming, while owned dogs were either always roaming (17.9%), allowed to roam for some of the time (50.3%) or always confined (never roaming) (31.7%). Consequently, most dogs vaccinated (83.5%) were among the roaming dog population for some or all of the time.

Smaller two-person vaccination teams were introduced in 2018 to more efficiently vaccinate dogs that could be restrained by hand, which was the case for 64.2% of all dogs vaccinated.

Nevertheless, specialist equipment was still needed to access a considerable proportion of dogs, with 16.3% of owned dogs and 56.5% of unowned dogs being restrained by a net.

Mission Rabies spends about $300,000 a year and has vaccinated 100,000 dogs a year since 2017, about 50,000 a year before that. Deaths of people from rabies in Goa fell to zero in 2018, from 15 in 2014, when the campaign started.

Mission Rabies estimates the vaccination cost per dog, including salaries and other costs, at $2.50, far lower than the cost of treating humans, which involves not only a more expensive vaccine, but also potential hospital stays. By that accounting, every dog in India could theoretically be vaccinated for under $90 million. India now spends $490 million a year on post-bite treatment.

The Goa program for human rabies elimination consisted of three core areas of activity: dog vaccination; rabies education; and intensified human and animal rabies surveillance.

The second pillar of the program was an education initiative whose primary focus was on teaching school children about rabies, how to avoid dog bites and what to do if bitten. The program also emphasized the importance and social value of ensuring as many dogs as possible were vaccinated against rabies each year.

In total, school-based rabies education classes were delivered to 694,271 school children and 31,251 teachers between 2014 and 2019.

Activities to distribute rabies educational messages throughout communities intensified with a similar timeframe which resulted in the delivery of rabies lessons to 155,079 people through community groups, local authorities, and public events.

Seventy-three canine rabies cases were confirmed in the first 6 months of surveillance in 2014. The mean state-wide occurrence of canine rabies cases decreased from 10.6 cases per month in 2014 to 0.8 in 2019, a decrease of 92%.

Thus the Mission Rabies project in Goa was "very cost effective", not only saving the state government money on healthcare-associated costs, but also reducing economic loss from death.

As well as vaccinating dogs, the methodology emphasizes ramping up disease awareness in society, such as running education programs in schools across Goa.

Children are taught how to avoid dog bites, as well as what to do if bitten. Currently, many rabies deaths occur due to incorrect post-bite treatment.

The Kerala state government now plans to partner with Mission Rabies to replicate the Goa program.

Applying the Goa project’s methods on a larger scale would require at least one technical piece that is missing — an oral vaccine. Western Europe eradicated rabies in foxes by dropping baits with oral vaccines, beginning in 1990 when rabies was widespread and lasting more than 20 years.

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

DENGUE IS RISING AROUND THE WORLD

Dengue has been on the rise worldwide in recent decades, registering an eight-fold increase between 2000 and 2022, and more than half the world's population is at risk, according to the World Health Organization. That figure is only expected to increase.

A number of countries have seen a dramatic rise in dengue fever in 2023. Experts worry the situation could get out of control.

Bangladesh saw over 1000 people die of dengue this year, four times that of last year. The disease has spread to other areas outside of Dhaka as well. There are over 2 lakh cases of dengue in bangladesh this year.

In late September, both the Bangladeshi authorities and doctors in Sudan warned that hundreds had died and that health services were strained. Several other nations were on alert as well, including Argentina, Bolivia, Jamaica, Peru, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN PERU OVERWHELMED

The outbreak in Peru mirrors what is happening in several other nations. Through mid-September, there were more than 250,000 cases and 419 deaths in Peru this year, compared to 77 deaths during the previous outbreak in 2017.

As many as 90% of cases are mild or asymptomatic and can be handled at local health centres, according to Requena. But because of the poor coordination in Peru’s healthcare system, too many people sought care at hospitals, overloading facilities that should have been concentrating on high-risk or severe cases. This led to shortages of basic medication like rehydration salts and paracetamol.

INDIA IS A HOT-SPOT FOR DENGUE

Delhi had only a few hundred cases till September this year, but an estimated 33 million clinically apparent dengue cases occur in India each year, contributing to a third of the total global dengue burden.

National data on dengue collected by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme in India estimate a smaller number of cases, in part because of the lack of a systematic national surveillance system.

In India, as in many areas of the world, advancement in the field of dengue control has been impeded by a lack of financial and human resources, poor availability of point-of-care diagnostics, and ineffective mosquito control methods.

NO TREATMENT FOR DENGUE YET

In 2019, dengue was identified by WHO as one of the four main infections threatening global health.

The mortality rate can be 4% in dengue hemorrhagic fever. It has been compared to covid-19 in terms of its impact, and some of the symptoms and disease progression can have commonalities.

Most people with dengue have mild or no symptoms and will get better in 1–2 weeks. Most cases of dengue fever can be treated at home with pain medicine. Preventing mosquito bites is the best way to avoid getting dengue.

There is no specific treatment for dengue. The focus is on treating pain symptoms. Paracetamol is often used to control pain.

Rarely, dengue can be severe and lead to death. Severe dengue symptoms often come after the fever has gone away:

severe abdominal pain
persistent vomiting
rapid breathing
bleeding gums or nose
fatigue
restlessness
blood in vomit or stool
being very thirsty
pale and cold skin
feeling weak.

People with these severe symptoms should get care right away. Individuals who are infected for the second time are at greater risk of severe dengue.

After recovery, people who have had dengue may feel tired for several weeks.

PAPAYA LEAF JUICE SHOWN TO INCREASE PLATELETS

Studies in several countries have shown that papaya leaf juice helps raise platelets rapidly. Falling platelet count is one of the markers of worsening dengue cases.

"Clinical trials by the Institute for Medical Research on use of papaya leaf in dengue patients (both normal dengue and hemorrhagic dengue show that by taking a dosage of 30ml (two tablespoons) of juice from mature papaya leaves every day, platelet counts increase after three days."

Another study reported that a total of 229 patients were recruited (111 and 117 patients were from the interventional and control group respectively) whereby the experimental subject were given fresh juice from 50 grams of C. papaya leaves once daily, 15 minute after breakfast for 3 consecutive days. The findings showed a significant increase in platelet count in the intervention group after 40 hours and 48 hours of treatment.

Three human studies that included several hundred people with dengue found that papaya leaf extract significantly increased blood platelet levels.Trusted Sou Trusted S The papaya leaf therapy had very few associated side effects and was found to be much more cost effective than conventional treatments.

Administration of papaya leaf extract (1.1 g) to total five hundred patients suffering from thrombocytopenia three times daily for five days resulted in a significant increase in counts of platelets.

Another study found that giving papaya leaf juice improved platelet counts of five dengue patients in just 24 hours.

A large number of studies have found similar beneficial impact from giving papaya leaf extract to dengue patients.

Supplements containing New Zealand grown papaya leaf extract will soon be produced in Malaysia as a treatment for dengue fever and age-related illnesses like Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

"In the early stages of getting the dengue virus, you take the extract and it should increase the platelet count and within 24 hours you will get an effect and that will stop the virus getting worse and hopefully you will get better in about three days."

PAPAYA LEAF EXTRACT BENEFICIAL FOR OTHER CONDITIONS AS WELL

Abnormally low platelet count can occur not just in dengue, but also in malaria, leukemia, liver complications, hepatitis, and even covid-19.

Studies in mice with diabetes have found papaya leaf extract to have potent antioxidant and blood-sugar-lowering effects.

One study found that papaya leaf extract significantly reduced inflammation and swelling in the paws of rats with arthritis.

Papaya leaf extract has demonstrated a powerful ability to inhibit the growth of prostate and breast cancer cells in test-tube studies.

In one of the patents filed, it was declared that proliferation of cancer cells reduced while health improvement was noted when people having cancer (lung, stomach, colon, pancreatic, liver, neuroblastoma, ovarian, breast, solid, and blood cancer) were treated with brewed extract of papaya leaf.

Papaya leaf juice helps to increase white blood cells and platelets, normalizes clotting and also helps to repair the liver.

A 2014 animal study found that papaya leaf had no toxic effects even at very large doses, and human studies have reported very few negative side effects.
Trusted Source

Papaya seeds have an antibacterial property which helps to play affective role against infections of E.coli Salmonella and Staphylococcus.

Papaya seeds help to protect kidney from toxins and also detoxify the liver.

Folic acid in papaya fruit helps to avoid heart attack or stroke.

THE CHALLENGING BATTLE AGAINST DENGUE

Dengue receives less attention and less funding than malaria, which historically has killed 10 times more people in an average year. But that situation could be changing.

As temperatures rise, the Anopheles mosquitoes that cause malaria – and are less tolerant of high temperatures – are likely to decline. The Aedes species responsible for dengue will spread.

Mosquito-control programmes that treat potential breeding sites with larvicide generally focus on household water that residents keep in containers. But studies have found that problem areas at this breeding stage are more likely to be outdoors – in discarded items such as old tyres, in flower pots, or in other places where rainwater collects and which often go untreated.

When dengue cases spike, government health workers often go house to house to fumigate indoors and outdoors, but experts say those later response efforts are often unproductive.

Once they breed, Aedes mosquitoes generally live indoors, so spraying outdoors is ineffective, and doing it on indoor walls often misses the insects, which tend to settle on clothing.

Spraying targeted places, where the mosquitoes do in fact settle, would be more effective.

Spatial repellents — chemically impregnated squares of cloth the size of a sheet of printing paper that can be hung in homes — appear to be an effective alternative to spraying.

Friday, September 08, 2023

WHY HAS THE WEST PROGRESSED SO MUCH MORE THAN INDIA SINCE THE 1940s ?

By 2014 I had spent decades trying to improve the circumstances i found around me in India, for the public good. Both professionally and in my own time / resources. Including giving an entire year, 20 hours a day work for a new political party that we all hoped would address the corruption and low level of governance in our country.

But I could see we were not able to make the change we wanted to. Sure, India has improved in so many ways (including now touching base with the South pole of the moon !) but we still have enormous poverty, hunger, lack of medical care, natural environment that is not cared for, and a low level of governance in most areas of life : urban planning, support to small farmers, job creation, and so on.

At the same time, I had read intensively on what happened in Europe during WW2 and realized how devastated were most european countries at the end of the war. Yet, they had picked themselves up from their bootstraps and their success of most of the countries was for everyone to see.

So my family and I decided to tour the english speaking countries first (except the US and Canada where friends and family had lived for long and we had more feedback). So we went in 2014 to the UK and Singapore (as a South-East Asian inspiration, closer to home), and in 2015 to New Zealand and Australia, to find answers to some questions. Ofcourse this was impressionistic, not a study per se, but surely that counts too. From 2017 onwards we visited Europe too.

We found that farmers were under stress in the UK and Europe too. Many committed suicide because of business failures. But we could see farmers had more support from their governments than in India.

Everyone we met performed some civic duties - their kept their neighbourhoods clean, helped the poor, volunteered at church. We would imagine the percentage of those we knew back home helping others, to be lower.

It was not true that family bonds were weaker in the west we felt.. Everywhere we saw, parents doted on children.. we saw them playing for long periods in public gardens with their children.. north indian parents (whom i have lived amidst) do not seem to spend that much direct time with their children. We saw children and grandchildren supporting grandparents in going to church, or assisting them at farm or with various tasks.

Ofcourse there were gory pieces in UK tabloids of some parent leaving young children locked at home alone, and so on.. but there are plenty of fathers in north india who beat children violently under influence of liquor and so on...

Everywhere we visited in the developed world we saw the rule of law, cleanliness, orderliness, a predictability to life, which was very relaxing.. one could breathe deeper. Indian cities in contrast cause tension when you step out.. because of the noise, disorderly traffic, and lack of normal conveniences of sufficient public transport, smooth pavements to walk on, and so on.

Ofcourse there may still be big-ticket corruption in the West, but it does not always affect residents in an everyday sort of way.

So we felt that there were cultural factors at play here that we needed to know more about.

Friday, October 08, 2021

The founding of the fossil fuel infrastructure in India

The longest fuel pipeline is being built from Kandla to Gorakhpur across 2805 kms, that saves transportation costs. That is great.

The commentary in the video is bombastic, implying ‘this is being done for the first time’. Obviously, this is not the first time.

The longest cross-country pipeline in India before this one was the Mundra-Delhi pipeline running 1055 kms, commissioned in 2009.

Oil production started in India in 1889 in Assam. Oil in colonial India was mostly exploited by a number of British companies to support British troops and industries in the United Kingdom.

After independence, the foreign companies continued to play a key role in the oil industry. This changed in 1956 when the government adopted an industrial policy that placed oil as a “schedule A industry” and put its future development in the hands of the state. The Oil and Natural Gas Commission was established for this purpose.

In order to find the expertise necessary to reach these goals, foreign experts from West Germany, Romania, the US, and the Soviet Union were brought in. The increased focus on exploration resulted in the discovery of several new oil fields most notably the off-shore Bombay High field, which remains by a long margin, India's most productive well.

The Indian Oil Corporation which owns most of the refineries putting it within the top 20 oil companies in the world, was also established in the 1950s.

Thursday, October 07, 2021

Cutting back on energy will help the lights stay on longer

From recent reading it became clear that there is an energy crisis not only in Europe, but also in China – and in India !

Here is Shekhar Gupta explaining why we may suffer blackouts / power cuts over the coming months in parts of India – hopefully planned and announced ones, rather than sudden.

There are many reasons for what is happening and I will share them as I read – but cutting back on our energy consumption will help the lights stay on a bit longer for everyone.

25 IDEAS FOR BRINGING DOWN ELECTRICITY USE WITHOUT LOSING COMFORT

Home Lighting

1. In the early 90s, we moved to using 60 W filament bulbs instead of 100 W. In mid-90s, we replaced nearly all our filament bulbs with CFLs, thus reducing per light load to 18 and 36 W from 60 W.

2. For the last few years, we buy only LEDs and are gradually replacing all bulbs as the past ones die out. All heavy use lights already have LEDs – 3 / 6 / 9 watts each usually.

3. We find our selves becoming more economical in the use of lighting. One light suffices where two were put on habitually earlier.

4. Natural light is utilized to the maximum by hanging transparent plastic curtain on the doors which get a lot of light. This plastic curtain keeps out the cold air in winter and hot air in summer, while letting in light.

5. Window glasses are curtained off for the night only at sleep time as until then they continue letting in outside light.

6. In consultation with our neighbours, we keep less of the lights of our common corridor on.

7. Our torches are solar.

Cooling home in summers

8. Our mini honeycomb pad cooler uses just 90 W instead of the 350 W and above, for mid-sized woodwool coolers.

9. We have just learnt that slower speeds in fans use much less electricity than full speed, so we will now use them at more optimum levels.

10. We have started replacing old induction motor 90 W fans with new electronic motor 28 W fans – whenever old fans go out of order and cannot be repaired.

11. Our AC use is 10 % compared to our neighbours and only on the hottest days for short durations. The coolers carry on cooling after the AC is shut off. Coolers even circulate the cool air to a second room if both are occupied.

12. All sun receiving areas of the house are shaded during summer with green nursery cloth. Tirpals / roller blinds / plastic curtains are used, preferably outside the sun receiving windows, so the glass does not heat up.

Heating Home in Winters

13. We have maximized sun use when it is comfortable to be outside. Our balcony / garden are equipped with electric point for laptop, table and chair, so one can spend long hours outside.

14. All sun receiving areas of the flat have conveniently placed furniture so one can spend the maximum time in direct heat from the sun.

15. Blowers and Oil Radiators use 1000 or 2000 W at a time. In contrast halogen rod heaters use 125-400 W rods for heating and one can use multiple rods for faster heating.

16. But as we have become more conscious of what global warming implies, we find ourselves dressing up even more warmly at home – as a result, in recent winters we have not needed to use heaters at all.

17. Hot water is used only for bathing, not for washing of hands or washing utensils. Ofcourse, someone unwell would use the hot water stored in the geyser for washing hands, or an especially dirty utensil would be washed in hot water.

18. Small carpets on the floor at crucial places (like by your bed) keep you warmer and make you step back from using heaters a bit. Ditto by using blankets as ground covers on ALL SLEEPING AND SEATING SURFACES – beds and sofas.

Electronics

19. All computers are now switched off for the night as are spike busters connecting them to power sources.

20. When we are getting up from our computers, we are more conscious to immediately put them to sleep while we are away.

Use of Appliances

21. Having become more economical in our use of electricity, we now use the full capacity of an oven while baking rather than partially. For example, all shakarkandi (sweet potato) is baked together in larger quantitiy at a go.

22. Washing Machines are ofcourse used only at full load.

23. Hot things are not put inside the Fridge but allowed to come to room temperature before putting them in the fridge.

24. In summer, water from the fridge is mixed with normal temperature water in thermoses to get the right temperature for drinking water. The fridge does not have to be opened day long for drinking water then, thus conserving on electricity use.

25. We are away from our home now and then, like most people. In the past, the fridge was left on when we were away. Now we plan in such a way that we try to consume the perishables, or take them with us to our home in another city. Milk packets are packed with ice in an ice box for travel to another city, and so on. However this cant be done for every trip.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

The Highest Temperatures on Earth

In 2010, the most-common value of near-surface air temperature was near 25 °C and a thin tail reached to 50 °C (albeit with very few points above 40 °C). Confirmed temperatures over 50 C had not occurred till then.

Only five days ago, one of the top-three highest temperatures ever measured on the planet at any time has been recorded at California - 54.4 C. Some climatologists consider 53.88 C readings recorded in California on June 30, 2013, and in Kuwait and Pakistan in 2016 and 2017, respectively, as the highest ever reliably measured on the planet.

A study projects that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at a high rate, temperatures in parts of northeastern India and most of Bangladesh will exceed a deadly threshold during seasonal heat waves. Extreme heat waves that now happen once every 25 years will become annual events with temperatures close to the threshold for several weeks each year, which could lead to famine and mass migration.

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Solar Power in India Since 2014

By Feb 2020, India had installed 35 GW of solar power generation capacity. Solar power tariffs in India are among the lowest in the world.

As of 2019, a third of the world’s total installed solar capacity was in China, and 7 % in India.

The NDA government chose a strategy that prioritised retaining a low minimum tariff on projects while increasing protection against imported panels, thereby forcing developers to buy panels at a higher cost. Since then, bidding processes have slowed down, highlighting the incompatibility of these goals.

In Jul 2020 Modi said that as part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat, the country’s aim is to end its dependence on import of all equipment, including solar panels.

International experts said in March 2020 that India has seen too much policy inconsistency and change, as well as state-centre conflicts, plus the drag of national policy objective contradictions to be on track to achieve the goal of creating 175 GW renewables capacity by 2020.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Rabies in India - a Shocking Overview

Introduction

Rabies negatively affects the poor living in remote rural areas and slum-dwellers of developing countries.
Rabies is the deadliest virus-caused disease, where nearly 100 % of the patients die after developing symptoms - but it isnt even notifiable in India.
An estimated 17.4 million animal bites occur in India annually.
Dogs are the source of the vast majority of human rabies deaths, contributing up to 99% of all rabies transmissions to humans.
By 2010 India had vaccinated just 15% of its dogs.
A large number of reported rabies cases and deaths in India occur in children under the age of 15 years.
Rabies immunoglobulin is undergoing a critical shortage worldwide. It is also prohibitively expensive for many victims in a country where 60% of the population lives on under US$2 a day: In India it costs about US$7, for each vial. Only three companies produce it, with relatively high manufacturing costs.
Less than a third of the animal bite cases in India recieve post-exposure rabies prophylaxis.
A mere 0.33 % of the dog population of India is sterilized every year. An unsterilized female dog can result in 67,000 pups in seven years.
In fact, India has not implemented any of the rabies-prevention strategies successfully, be it vaccination, sterilisation of dogs, or providing free medicines to all rabies victims.
If the level of vaccination in the dog population can be kept at 70 percent over a period of seven years, the variant of the rabies virus that thrives in dog populations will disappear.

The 2020 New Year did not start on a good note for young Praveen and his family at Ballari : The twenty-six-year-old’s eyes are feverish and wild as he hyperventilates on a hospital bed. As his words tumble out in a breathless babble, he explains to a doctor that months earlier, a three-month-old puppy had bitten his leg. Showing the scars, the youth says he was given injections at that time by a local doctor.

He tries hard to drink water, but screams at the very sight of it. Tormented by thirst, he brings it to his lips again and again, only to convulse and gag at the last moment. Lying alone in a dark room of Isolation Hospital in Bengaluru, Praveen pleads for the lights to be switched off, as they hurt his eyes. It’s a horrible sight for his family, as they watch him suffer. The hospital staff knows there is nothing they can do now. A few hours later, Praveen passes away.

Many countries have gained an efficacious governmental control over rabies, mainly by vaccinating a wide number of human and dog populations, and by implementing other interventions and policies. Only a few countries have managed to completely eradicate the disease. Unfortunately, this is not the case with India. Here the situation has not changed for a decade.

Rabies is a neglected disease, which is insufficiently addressed by the national and international community. Rabies negatively affects the poor living in remote rural areas and slum-dwellers of developing countries.

Once clinical symptoms appear, rabies is virtually 100% fatal. It spreads to people and animals via saliva, usually through bites, scratches or direct contact with mucosa (e.g. eyes, mouth or open wounds).

Managing a rabies exposure, where the average cost of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis is currently estimated at an average of US$ 108 (along with travel costs and loss of income) can be a catastrophic financial burden on affected families whose average daily income may be as low as US$ 1–2 per person.

Vaccinating dogs, including puppies, is the most cost-effective strategy for preventing rabies in people because it stops the transmission at its source.

India has more than 30 million stray dogs (this figure mentioned in this article also). By 2010 India had vaccinated just 15% of its dogs. The Animal Welfare Board of India was quoted in 2016 as stating that 'Over one lakh stray dogs are sterilized and vaccinated against rabies every year.' - that would be a mere 0.33 % of the dog population of India.

An article states : 'If a female dog is sterilized, effectively it prevents 67,000 births over seven years.' But since the effort at sterilization is so small, we are adding these dog numbers endlessly to india.

Once given a vaccination shot, a dog should be safe from catching or spreading Rabies for at least a year. The consensus among rabies experts is that if the level of vaccination in the dog population can be kept at 70 percent over a period of seven years, the variant of the rabies virus that thrives in dog populations will disappear.

In fact, India has not implemented any of the rabies-prevention strategies successfully, be it vaccination, sterilisation of dogs, or providing free medicines to all rabies victims.

An estimated 17.4 million animal bites occur annually (the figure in 2012 was 15 million annual bites a year), and about 5 million post-exposure rabies prophylaxis (PEP) are provided.

Over the years, India’s stray dog population has grown.

For example, stray dog population has gone up by 65% within seven years in Chandigarh. This was revealed in the 2019 animal census conducted by the UT animal husbandry and fisheries department.

Between January and March 2015, Chandigarh registered 1,200 cases of dog bite.

On an average, nearly 6,000 cases of dog bites are being reported in Ahmedabad every month. This means roughly 200 people are bitten by dogs every day in the city.

A study showed that dog sterilizations in Ahmedabad reduced bites by only 8.5 %.

Statistics from Pune Municipal Corporation reveal that, “at least 28 citizens were bitten every day by stray dogs making for an average of 10,000 dog bite cases in 2017.

Nearly 50 per cent of those bitten by a dog in India do not receive rabies vaccine.

INDIA'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM HAS BEEN FAILING US FOR RABIES

Cases of Rabies are invariably fatal once symptoms manifest. More than 20,000 people die of rabies every year in India, three-quarters of them in rural areas.

Incidence of rabies in India has been constant for the last few years, without any declining trend.

Every animal bite is potentially suspected as rabid exposure as rabies is endemic in India. The exposed individuals should seek early health care and prophylaxis (PEP) should be started immediately at the healthcare facility as it is lifesaving.

Unfortunately, availability, accessibility, and usage of PEP are limited in India.

There are many primary healthcare centres in Karnataka where the staff lacks knowledge on how to administer the vaccine, even if it is available, say doctors.

A study in 2019 showed that in over half of the anti-rabies clinics surveyed in Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Manipur, even facilities for washing wounds and antiseptics -- a critical first step in treating animal bites -- were inadequate.

Over half the clinics did not have Immunoglobulin which could be critical in preventing rabies if there was blood from the bite wounds, especially on the neck, face or head.

Two studies carried out in New Delhi and Jodhpur showed many disparities in the knowledge and practices of doctors in regard to rabies. Less than half of them were unaware of the intradermal rabies prophylaxis schedule, and only 45% of them knew about HRIG (immunoglobulin). 81% of them knew of the prophylaxis in unimmunized patients, but only 40% were familiar with the guidelines for previously immunized patients.

More importantly, public doctors had markedly better knowledge than private doctors in regards to the prophylaxis. This is very concerning, when taken into account that India has the biggest private sector of doctors in the world, accounting for 93% of the hospitals and 85% of doctors.

Post-exposure treatment (HRIG) is simply unaffordable, costing around 30,000 rupees ($447) for an average person.

Moreover, India notoriously experiences local and national shortages of HRIG, causing the patients who are willing to pay, to wait for it, for weeks or even months, which can eventually lead to death.

A 2018 WHO report said that dog-mediated rabies has been eliminated from western Europe, Canada, the USA, and Japan. 28 of the 35 Latin American countries report no human deaths from dog transmitted rabies.

Great strides have been made in reducing rabies deaths in countries such as Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Vietnam, and South Africa.

Bangladesh, with almost 10.000 deaths per year and less than six % dog vaccination coverage, has adopted a very successful national strategic plan for the elimination of rabies by 2020. Through the establishment of the District Rabies Prevention Control Centres in almost every district, they provided facilities for mass dog vaccination, dog population management, care of bitten patients, all of whom receive anti-rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin for free.

Furthermore, local champions were appointed to convince political leaders, policymakers and stakeholders for political commitment and technical leadership and partnership for this assignment. As a result, rabies deaths have reduced by 50% between 2010 and 2013.

Such an outcome contrasts with the slow progress made in India.

It has been demonstrated in multiple research studies that India’s poor position in rabies elimination is rooted in a lack of knowledge about the disease, uncontrolled canine population, the insufficient vaccination programme, irregular supply of vaccines and inadequate training of healthcare professionals.

The WHO estimates that investing in rabies elimination globally will eventually free up an estimated US$8.6 billion in economic resources each year. Since over a third of the rabies burden is in India, it should save about US$3 Billion a year by eliminating rabies.

The Question of Availability of Rabies Biologicals

Most of the available rabies vaccines are indigenously produced in the country. The rabies vaccines are procured by the state governments - the scenario of their availability varies from 24 × 7 availability in Gujarat and Kerala, to occasional supplies in Manipur and Bihar. In fact, there is a 20-80 per cent shortage in anti-rabies vaccines across all States, barring Kerala and Gujarat. However, this is contradicted in an article in 2019, that stated that rabies vaccines had been in short supply in Ahmedabad for nine months.

A 2018 article said that India sees 1.75 million dog bites every year, yet we face up to 80% shortage of anti-rabies vaccines. The government is dragging its feet over controlling dog population, vaccinating them or even making enough shots available for victims.

There was no immunoglobulin for almost a month in Panaji in March 2015.

Manufacturers remained cold to three tenders floated by Karnataka in 2019 and the State Government had to seek help from neighbouring States. Kerala government responded by providing 10,000 shots of anti-rabies injection and 2,000 vials of immunoglobulin injection.

Recent reports suggest that human rabies vaccine shortage is a common problem also in Punjab (it is a problem even in Delhi Government hospitals, as this report of 2019 shows).

Rabies biologicals, i.e., vaccines and immunoglobulins are life saving for humans in all rabid animal exposures. These biologicals should be continuously available throughout the year, in the entire country to prevent human rabies.

A 2018 article said that while on the one hand the production is low, states are not procuring enough either due to shortage of funds or maladministration. There is an urgent need for central procurement of rabies vaccines.

In Sep 2019, manufacturers and marketers informed that lack of firm orders by State governments and late payments led to the shortage. The Health Ministry advised State governments to issue quantity based tenders and place long-term firm orders with specific quantity and supply schedule.

A welcome news late in 2019 was that a Gujarat-based plant of Rabies vaccines, shut for a few years, was re-starting production. It had commanded the lion's share of the vaccines market previously.

Shortages were also caused from Aug 2018 onwards when a major rabies vaccine maker based in China was caught out for fraudulent practices in their manufacture. He had to withdraw vaccines from the market (including those exported to India) and subsequently shut down.

Looking at reports further back, even in 2008, it was said that the post treatment immunoglobulin was almost impossible to obtain in most of India.

The Animal Birth Control Programme as a way of managing problems with Street Dogs is a Resounding Failure

The Animal Birth Control Programme (ABC) is being implemented in only 60 big cities of India. Only Tamilnadu and Goa have attempted the programme in the entire State.

Sterilization programmes for street dogs began in India around 2001, yet still cannot be called a success. In Coimbatore, for instance, around 43 % of the street dogs were sterilized till 2017.

A female-centric approach is the most efficient for dog population control. As even one unspayed female in the population can give birth to as many as 20 pups a year.

There are many who disagree with India's failed policy on street dogs - A Jul 2019 article says : It is wholly and completely the Animal Welfare Board of India’s (AWBI) cruel and illegal ABC (Animal Birth Control ) policy because of which homeless dogs exist in such numbers today.

Livestock and wildlife are now increasingly under attack from hungry and homeless dogs, which also spread diseases to wild populations.

Unwanted, homeless dogs suffer and die due to accidents, diseases, and starvation. They are now even subject to retaliatory attacks from people, who have no other recourse but to take matters into their own hands. The only beneficiaries of the ABC programme are the AWOs, which get taxpayer money to build private hospitals and boarding for pets and leave homeless animals on the streets.

The current policy is illegal and unconstitutional as it goes against its own parent Act – the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Article 21 – Right to Life, Municipal State Laws, the Police Act, and Public Nuisance Laws. While the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA), 1960, talks about culling street dogs, the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules of 2001 allows stray dog population.

“PCA clearly says stray dogs should be ‘destroyed’. But AWBI through its ABC rules insists that they live on the streets.

There is no focus in India on Rabies Vaccinations for dogs - the emphasis is on birth control

There is no rabies component in India’s only official rabies control programme. Prevention of human rabies deaths by post-bite vaccination of every person that is bitten, is not rabies control.

Delhi's first animal welfare policy does not refer to mass anti-rabies vaccination of street dogs.

There is no attempt to compile an Accurate National Data on Rabies

In India, the deadliest virus-caused disease - Rabies, where nearly 100 % of the patients die after developing symptoms - has not been notifiable until recently. In 2021, India declared rabies a notifiable disease.

The national figures from a study in 2005 showed 12,700 cases of the furious rabies type. The numbers of paralytic and atypical rabies were not estimated but the authors refer to a total rabies estimate by other studies of 20,000.

91% of the rabies deaths were in rural areas and only 16% of the deaths occurred in health facilities. 62 % of thsoe who died were males and 50 % were children under 15 years.

The median time from bite to death was 8 weeks.

Two-thirds of the deceased rabies patients had not sought hospital treatment. The third who did, received one or more vaccines after their most recent bite. However, only one patient completed the then recommended course of 14 injections.

“The true burden of rabies in India is not known. The reported incidence (in Government data) is probably an underestimation because in India rabies is still not a notifiable disease,” said the WHO representative to India in 2018. “The government figures are way lower than the actual figures,” says M K Sudarshan, founder member of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India.

The compilation of national data on rabies cases has been so poor as to be laughable. According to the National Health Profile 2017 of the health ministry, there were 86 rabies cases in the country and no survivors, so the fatality rate was 100 per cent.

In a single Infectious Disease Hospital in Delhi however, in January 2017, of the nine patients admitted, seven were categorised under 'Left Against Medical Advice (LAMA)' and the other two were reported dead. The situation was identical every month. This implies that the LAMA patients too would have died for sure, but were not categorised as such.

So the Rabies patients in just one hospital were 25 % more than the claimed national total !

Just one state - Karnataka, saw 789 cases of rabies between 2016 and 2018.

In 2021, India created a One Health network that will not only serve rabies but will also strengthen surveillance and health systems for multiple health risks at the human-animal-environment interface.

The aim of the network is to study the prevalence of ten selected zoonotic diseases (throughout the country) and five trans-boundary animal diseases (mainly from northeast boundary states) and analyse risks so as to provide forewarning.

Residents in India have no recourse from conflict with dogs in public spaces

Health is a state subject and it is the statutory, civic duty of local authorities as defined by Municipal Acts across the country to keep the streets free of straying animals, check the spread of diseases, and prevent public nuisance. The ABC programme transfers this responsibility of the government to voluntary organisations with no liability.

State governments and the Centre continue to spend crores of rupees on post-bite treatment/vaccination, rabies deaths, man hours lost, and accidents. Local authorities spend taxpayer money on maintaining dog vans and pounds and manpower.

Citizens, especially the poor, continue to face dog attacks in public places, with children being attacked regularly.

WHO AND CDC Guidelines for Bites

WHO Document

Postexposure prophylaxis consists of a dose of human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) and rabies vaccine given on the day of the rabies exposure, and then a dose of vaccine given again on days 3, 7, and 14. For people who have never been vaccinated against rabies previously, postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) should always include administration of both HRIG and rabies vaccine. The combination of HRIG and vaccine is recommended for both bite and non-bite exposures, regardless of the interval between exposure and initiation of treatment.

People who have been previously vaccinated or are receiving pre-exposure vaccination for rabies should receive only vaccine.

For many types of bite wounds, immediate gentle irrigation with water or a dilute water povidone-iodine solution has been shown to markedly decrease the risk of bacterial infection.

Wound cleansing is especially important in rabies prevention since, in animal studies, thorough wound cleansing alone without other postexposure prophylaxis has been shown to markedly reduce the likelihood of rabies.

You should receive a tetanus shot if you have not been immunized in ten years.

Some pointers by the National Centre for Disease Control

A history of rabies vaccination in an animal is not always a guarantee that the biting animal is not rabid. Animal vaccine failures may occur because of improper administration or poor quality of the vaccine, poor health status of the animal, and the fact that one vaccine dose does not always provide long-lasting protection against rabies infection in dogs/cats. Hence, appropriate documentation of vaccination status of dog/cat and proper history should be elicited before deciding to defer post-exposure prophylaxis after bite by vaccinated dog/cat.

National Centre for Disease Control, 2015

A provoked dog bite should also be managed as an exposure and PEP started immediately. A provoked bite does not mean that the biting animal is not rabid. Washing of wound(s) should be carried out as soon as possible with soap and water (for a minimum of 15 min). Since the rabies virus can persist and even multiply at the site of bite for a long time, wound(s) must be washed even if the patient reports late.

After thorough washing and drying the wound(s), any one of the available chemical viricidal agents should be applied, such as povidone iodine, alcohol, etc.

In category III exposures (which result in drawing blood through the skin) rabies immunoglobulin should be infiltrated in the depth and around the wound(s) to neutralize the locally present virus. Suturing of wound(s) should be avoided as far as possible.

Rabies Immunoglobulin should never be administered in the same syringe or at the same anatomical site as vaccine.

A Times of India article mentions that the Rabies Vaccine, administered after a dog bite to prevent infection, works only 14-15 days later. Immunoglobulin, meanwhile, is administered in cases where the victim has grievous injuries accompanied by bleeding.