BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES An outbreak of dengue-like illness was reported from Wadi area within... more BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES An outbreak of dengue-like illness was reported from Wadi area within the Nagpur Municipal Corporation during September-October 2017 with five deaths. Major symptoms reported were high fever (103-106 oF), acute joint pains, myalgia, drowsiness, breathlessness, etc. An investigation was conducted to confirm the etiological agent, its characterization and the vectors involved in the outbreak. METHODS Serological analysis was conducted to detect dengue (DEN)/chikungunya IgM antibodies in 158 sera samples. Nested-PCR was carried out to serotype eight ELISA positive samples. Adult and larval mosquito collections were conducted in the affected areas to determine species composition and mosquito density. RESULTS Dengue IgM antibodies were detected in 44 sera samples. Molecular typing revealed involvement of DEN-2 and DEN-3 serotypes. Dengue hemorrhagic fever symptoms were observed in two patients. Aedes aegypti breeding was found rampant with Breteu index and house index ranging from 23 to 70 and 17 to 56, respectively. Major breeding habitats encountered were, used tyres, cement tanks and refrigerator trays. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION Clinical symptoms, detection of anti-DEN IgM antibodies in high number of samples and heavy breeding of Ae. aegypti confirmed it was a dengue outbreak.
Background Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics ... more Background Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics and vaccine development. India and its neighboring countries have a huge burden of arboviral diseases. Data mining for country-specific sequences from existing bioinformatics databases is cumbersome and time-consuming. This necessitated the development of a database of antigenic proteins from arboviruses isolated from the countries of the Indian subcontinent. Methods Arboviral antigenic protein sequences were obtained from the NCBI and other databases. In silico antigenic characterization was performed (Epitope predictions) and data was incorporated into the database. The front end was designed and developed using HTML, CSS, and PHP. For the backend of the database, we have used MySQL. Results A database, named ArVirInd, is created as a repository of information on curated antigenic proteins. This enlists sequences by country and year of outbreak or origin of the viral strain. For each e...
India is one of the worst affected countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We carried out compara... more India is one of the worst affected countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We carried out comparative analyses of the COVID-19 situation in the Maharashtra state, India for the first and second waves. Epidemiological and demographics data were obtained from open sources and the Government of Maharashtra. Mathematical modeling and analyses were conducted to estimate the epidemiological parameters like basic reproduction number (R0) for the first wave at different times. The districts with a higher percentage of the urban population recorded a higher attack rate during the first wave. However, during the second wave, the rural population was more affected. The effective reproduction number (Re) was estimated for the second wave at different times. The second wave affected more individuals than the first wave due to various factors such as strictness of restrictions or the lack of it and the emergence of new strains.
SUMMARYAn outbreak of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 was detected during the ongoing community-based surv... more SUMMARYAn outbreak of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 was detected during the ongoing community-based surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI). Among reported 119 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 cases (59 cases in the year 2012 and 60 cases in 2015) in summer months, common clinical features were fever (100%), cough (90·7%), sore throat (85·7%), nasal discharge (48·7%), headache (55·5%), fatigue (18·5%), breathlessness (3·4%), and ear discharge (1·7%). Rise in ILI cases were negatively correlated with the seasonal factors such as relative humidity (Karl Pearson's correlation coefficient, i.e. r = −0·71 in the year 2012 and r = −0·44 in the year 2015), while rise in ILI cases were positively correlated with the temperature difference (r = 0·44 in the year 2012 and r = 0·77 in the year 2015). The effective reproduction number R, was estimated to be 1·30 in 2012 and 1·64 in 2015. The study highlights the rise in unusual influenza activity in summer month with high attack rate of ILI among childr...
Human Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is known to have antiviral activity against many v... more Human Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is known to have antiviral activity against many viruses. In the present study, we investigated the in-vitro effect of LL-37 on dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) infection and replication in Vero E6 cells. To study the effect of pretreatment of virus or cells with LL-37, the virus was pretreated with different concentrations of LL-37 (2.5μM-15μM) or scrambled (Scr) LL-37(5μM-15μM) and used for infection or the cells were first treated with LL-37 and infected. To study the effect of LL-37 post infection (PI), the cells were infected first followed by addition of LL-37 to the culture medium 24h after infection. In all conditions, after the incubation, the culture supernatant was assessed for viral RNA copy number by real time RT-PCR, infectious virus particles by focus forming unit assay (FFU) and non structural protein 1 (NS1) antigen levels by ELISA. Percentage of infection was assessed using immunoflourescence assay (IFA). The results revea...
Electroporation or electropermeabilization is a biophysical process involving enhanced permeabili... more Electroporation or electropermeabilization is a biophysical process involving enhanced permeability of biological cell membrane due to the application of an electric field of very short duration. Since its inception in the early 1970’s, the technique has been utilized widely in biomedical research and applications including gene transfection and electrochemotherapy of cancer. Past theoretical models of cell electroporation considered approximations which made the predicted results very different from the experimental descriptions of poration, especially for electrochemotherapy applications. Present work is a theoretical formulation and numerical implementation of small molecule (Doxorubicin) uptake during electroporation of a mammalian cell with cholesterol-containing membrane. Here, we explore the effects of changes in membrane cholesterol content on electroporation pore dynamics and uptake of small molecules.
Climate change is manifest globally through extreme weather events, altered rainfall patterns and... more Climate change is manifest globally through extreme weather events, altered rainfall patterns and spread of viral diseases. The emergence and re-emergence of arthropod-borne viral diseases viz. dengue, chikungunya, West Nile, Japanese encephalitis and Zika are of global public health concern. Over the last decade India has faced a huge burden of Dengue and chikungunya with more than ten million individuals affected. This not only necessitates studies on the role of environmental effects on disease, but also requires policy-framing towards effective prevention or control of epidemics. In this chapter we are presenting the initiative taken by the Government of Maharashtra state, Republic of India to establish a pilot project to record and document disease outbreaks in the different districts of the state and to develop a predictive model that can analyse the effect of meteorological parameters on disease occurrences. A web portal has been developed for recording of data and online display and efforts are on to develop mathematical models for analyses and estimation disease occurrences. As a first, we have successfully developed a Poisson regression model to describe the effects of meteorological parameters on dengue occurrences in the Nagpur region of the Maharashtra state.
The re-emergence of vector-borne viral diseases in an emerging climate change scenario has raised... more The re-emergence of vector-borne viral diseases in an emerging climate change scenario has raised considerable public health concern in rapidly expanding cities of India where altered land-use and environmental factors have resulted in increased mosquito breeding and occurrences of dengue and chikungunya in the recent years. The present year-round study was undertaken to investigate the seasonal variability and demographic diversity of mosquito population in the Pune urban-zone, western India, (18.52°N / 73.85°E), which is located on the eastern slope of the Western Ghats mountain range with considerable green cover. Mosquitoes were trapped from different localities (fixed trapping sites) representative of the urban-zone throughout the year covering all the four seasons. Specimens were identified, determined the demographic diversity, mosquito abundance and the association of the latter to meteorological parameters. Meteorological parameters were recorded daily and analyzed mathemat...
Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics and vaccine... more Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics and vaccine development. India and its neighbouring countries have huge burden of arboviral diseases. Data mining for country-specific sequences from existing databases is cumbersome and time-consuming. This necessitated the development of a database of antigenic proteins from arbo-viruses isolated from the countries of the Indian subcontinent. Arboviral antigenic protein sequences were obtained from the NCBI and other databases. In silico antigenic characterization was performed (Epitope predictions) and data incorporated in the database. The front end is designed and developed using HTML, CSS and PHP. For the backend of the database, we have used MySQL. A database, named ArVirInd, is created as a repository of information on antigenic proteins. This enlists sequences by country and year of outbreak or origin of the viral strain. For each entry antigenic information is provided along with function...
The resurgence of vector borne diseases over the last decade has raised concerns about the role o... more The resurgence of vector borne diseases over the last decade has raised concerns about the role of climatic factors. Rapid urbanization due to expansion of Indian cities like Pune over the last decade has altered local land-use and environment. The present study was undertaken to investigate the composition and seasonal abundance of mosquito population in Pashan area of urban Pune, which was urbanized rapidly during 2001-2005. Mosquitoes were trapped and identified to determine the species composition and abundance. Association of meteorological parameters like temperature, humidity and rainfall with mosquito abundance was also analyzed from June to November 2016. Raw meteorological data was obtained and analyzed mathematically to determine derived parameters like diurnal temperatures and fortnightly averages of all parameters. A total of 21 species of mosquitoes were observed across four genera viz. Aedes , Anopheles , Culex and Armigerus . Mosquito abundance (M) peaked during Sout...
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES An outbreak of dengue-like illness was reported from Wadi area within... more BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES An outbreak of dengue-like illness was reported from Wadi area within the Nagpur Municipal Corporation during September-October 2017 with five deaths. Major symptoms reported were high fever (103-106 oF), acute joint pains, myalgia, drowsiness, breathlessness, etc. An investigation was conducted to confirm the etiological agent, its characterization and the vectors involved in the outbreak. METHODS Serological analysis was conducted to detect dengue (DEN)/chikungunya IgM antibodies in 158 sera samples. Nested-PCR was carried out to serotype eight ELISA positive samples. Adult and larval mosquito collections were conducted in the affected areas to determine species composition and mosquito density. RESULTS Dengue IgM antibodies were detected in 44 sera samples. Molecular typing revealed involvement of DEN-2 and DEN-3 serotypes. Dengue hemorrhagic fever symptoms were observed in two patients. Aedes aegypti breeding was found rampant with Breteu index and house index ranging from 23 to 70 and 17 to 56, respectively. Major breeding habitats encountered were, used tyres, cement tanks and refrigerator trays. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION Clinical symptoms, detection of anti-DEN IgM antibodies in high number of samples and heavy breeding of Ae. aegypti confirmed it was a dengue outbreak.
Background Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics ... more Background Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics and vaccine development. India and its neighboring countries have a huge burden of arboviral diseases. Data mining for country-specific sequences from existing bioinformatics databases is cumbersome and time-consuming. This necessitated the development of a database of antigenic proteins from arboviruses isolated from the countries of the Indian subcontinent. Methods Arboviral antigenic protein sequences were obtained from the NCBI and other databases. In silico antigenic characterization was performed (Epitope predictions) and data was incorporated into the database. The front end was designed and developed using HTML, CSS, and PHP. For the backend of the database, we have used MySQL. Results A database, named ArVirInd, is created as a repository of information on curated antigenic proteins. This enlists sequences by country and year of outbreak or origin of the viral strain. For each e...
India is one of the worst affected countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We carried out compara... more India is one of the worst affected countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We carried out comparative analyses of the COVID-19 situation in the Maharashtra state, India for the first and second waves. Epidemiological and demographics data were obtained from open sources and the Government of Maharashtra. Mathematical modeling and analyses were conducted to estimate the epidemiological parameters like basic reproduction number (R0) for the first wave at different times. The districts with a higher percentage of the urban population recorded a higher attack rate during the first wave. However, during the second wave, the rural population was more affected. The effective reproduction number (Re) was estimated for the second wave at different times. The second wave affected more individuals than the first wave due to various factors such as strictness of restrictions or the lack of it and the emergence of new strains.
SUMMARYAn outbreak of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 was detected during the ongoing community-based surv... more SUMMARYAn outbreak of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 was detected during the ongoing community-based surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI). Among reported 119 influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 cases (59 cases in the year 2012 and 60 cases in 2015) in summer months, common clinical features were fever (100%), cough (90·7%), sore throat (85·7%), nasal discharge (48·7%), headache (55·5%), fatigue (18·5%), breathlessness (3·4%), and ear discharge (1·7%). Rise in ILI cases were negatively correlated with the seasonal factors such as relative humidity (Karl Pearson's correlation coefficient, i.e. r = −0·71 in the year 2012 and r = −0·44 in the year 2015), while rise in ILI cases were positively correlated with the temperature difference (r = 0·44 in the year 2012 and r = 0·77 in the year 2015). The effective reproduction number R, was estimated to be 1·30 in 2012 and 1·64 in 2015. The study highlights the rise in unusual influenza activity in summer month with high attack rate of ILI among childr...
Human Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is known to have antiviral activity against many v... more Human Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 is known to have antiviral activity against many viruses. In the present study, we investigated the in-vitro effect of LL-37 on dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) infection and replication in Vero E6 cells. To study the effect of pretreatment of virus or cells with LL-37, the virus was pretreated with different concentrations of LL-37 (2.5μM-15μM) or scrambled (Scr) LL-37(5μM-15μM) and used for infection or the cells were first treated with LL-37 and infected. To study the effect of LL-37 post infection (PI), the cells were infected first followed by addition of LL-37 to the culture medium 24h after infection. In all conditions, after the incubation, the culture supernatant was assessed for viral RNA copy number by real time RT-PCR, infectious virus particles by focus forming unit assay (FFU) and non structural protein 1 (NS1) antigen levels by ELISA. Percentage of infection was assessed using immunoflourescence assay (IFA). The results revea...
Electroporation or electropermeabilization is a biophysical process involving enhanced permeabili... more Electroporation or electropermeabilization is a biophysical process involving enhanced permeability of biological cell membrane due to the application of an electric field of very short duration. Since its inception in the early 1970’s, the technique has been utilized widely in biomedical research and applications including gene transfection and electrochemotherapy of cancer. Past theoretical models of cell electroporation considered approximations which made the predicted results very different from the experimental descriptions of poration, especially for electrochemotherapy applications. Present work is a theoretical formulation and numerical implementation of small molecule (Doxorubicin) uptake during electroporation of a mammalian cell with cholesterol-containing membrane. Here, we explore the effects of changes in membrane cholesterol content on electroporation pore dynamics and uptake of small molecules.
Climate change is manifest globally through extreme weather events, altered rainfall patterns and... more Climate change is manifest globally through extreme weather events, altered rainfall patterns and spread of viral diseases. The emergence and re-emergence of arthropod-borne viral diseases viz. dengue, chikungunya, West Nile, Japanese encephalitis and Zika are of global public health concern. Over the last decade India has faced a huge burden of Dengue and chikungunya with more than ten million individuals affected. This not only necessitates studies on the role of environmental effects on disease, but also requires policy-framing towards effective prevention or control of epidemics. In this chapter we are presenting the initiative taken by the Government of Maharashtra state, Republic of India to establish a pilot project to record and document disease outbreaks in the different districts of the state and to develop a predictive model that can analyse the effect of meteorological parameters on disease occurrences. A web portal has been developed for recording of data and online display and efforts are on to develop mathematical models for analyses and estimation disease occurrences. As a first, we have successfully developed a Poisson regression model to describe the effects of meteorological parameters on dengue occurrences in the Nagpur region of the Maharashtra state.
The re-emergence of vector-borne viral diseases in an emerging climate change scenario has raised... more The re-emergence of vector-borne viral diseases in an emerging climate change scenario has raised considerable public health concern in rapidly expanding cities of India where altered land-use and environmental factors have resulted in increased mosquito breeding and occurrences of dengue and chikungunya in the recent years. The present year-round study was undertaken to investigate the seasonal variability and demographic diversity of mosquito population in the Pune urban-zone, western India, (18.52°N / 73.85°E), which is located on the eastern slope of the Western Ghats mountain range with considerable green cover. Mosquitoes were trapped from different localities (fixed trapping sites) representative of the urban-zone throughout the year covering all the four seasons. Specimens were identified, determined the demographic diversity, mosquito abundance and the association of the latter to meteorological parameters. Meteorological parameters were recorded daily and analyzed mathemat...
Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics and vaccine... more Studies on antigenic proteins for arboviruses are important for providing diagnostics and vaccine development. India and its neighbouring countries have huge burden of arboviral diseases. Data mining for country-specific sequences from existing databases is cumbersome and time-consuming. This necessitated the development of a database of antigenic proteins from arbo-viruses isolated from the countries of the Indian subcontinent. Arboviral antigenic protein sequences were obtained from the NCBI and other databases. In silico antigenic characterization was performed (Epitope predictions) and data incorporated in the database. The front end is designed and developed using HTML, CSS and PHP. For the backend of the database, we have used MySQL. A database, named ArVirInd, is created as a repository of information on antigenic proteins. This enlists sequences by country and year of outbreak or origin of the viral strain. For each entry antigenic information is provided along with function...
The resurgence of vector borne diseases over the last decade has raised concerns about the role o... more The resurgence of vector borne diseases over the last decade has raised concerns about the role of climatic factors. Rapid urbanization due to expansion of Indian cities like Pune over the last decade has altered local land-use and environment. The present study was undertaken to investigate the composition and seasonal abundance of mosquito population in Pashan area of urban Pune, which was urbanized rapidly during 2001-2005. Mosquitoes were trapped and identified to determine the species composition and abundance. Association of meteorological parameters like temperature, humidity and rainfall with mosquito abundance was also analyzed from June to November 2016. Raw meteorological data was obtained and analyzed mathematically to determine derived parameters like diurnal temperatures and fortnightly averages of all parameters. A total of 21 species of mosquitoes were observed across four genera viz. Aedes , Anopheles , Culex and Armigerus . Mosquito abundance (M) peaked during Sout...
Uploads