HEALTH

New kit for diagnosis 
Tribune News Service

LUDHIANA, Nov 20 — An Indian-born American scientist, Dr Romesh Kumar Gautam, has developed a new kit for investigating and diagnosing different food-borne diseases caused by certain bacteria. The kit, called Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE), is said to be both cost and time effective.

Dr Gautam, who was here after attending an international conference at Hyderabad, told TNS that the latest equipment could have great utility in developing countries like India. In India, there is frequent outbreak of food-borne disease caused by the bacteria like e-coli and salmonella.

He said the genomic DNA patterns generated by the PFGE were highly specific for different strains of organism and had significant value in epidemiologic investigations of infectious disease outbreaks. This was in contrast to the traditional time-consuming and tedious specimen processing in the epidemic investigations.

The investigation is done by conducting DNA finger printing on the bacteria after taking its culture. While this process will take at least five to six days by conventional methods, the procedure developed by Dr Gautam helps in investigating the bacteria in less than 24 hours.

The technique has been a great success in the United States. “This also helps in conducting proactive investigation of the food-borne diseases”, Dr Gautam said.

In India, the system can be adopted for diagnosing most common diseases like whooping cough, tuberculosis and cholera.

Dr Gautam said the system had been adopted at several places in India.

Seminar on handling newborn babies
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Nov 20 — During the National ‘New Born Week’ celebrations, a seminar was conducted at the Dumra Auditorium, DMCH, to teach the techniques of handling the newborn immediately after birth, specially in complicated cases when children do not cry or do not breathe immediately after birth. The lecture-cum-demonstration on ‘Technique of resuscitation’ was given jointly by Dr H.S. Bains and Dr Daljit Singh of the Pediatrics Department.

SPORT

CFC school wins cricket tourney
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Nov 20 — The CFC School won the Sahodya CBSE School Cricket Tournament here today. CFC School defeated Sacred Heart Convent School (SHCS), Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, by four wickets.

CFC School won the toss and invited SHCS to bat first. SHCS scored 125 runs in 25 overs and lost all wickets. CFC School achieved the target easily in 21 overs and lost six wickets. Sonal of CFC scored 16 runs while Varun and Satmeet scored 14 runs each. 

Cycling tourney
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Nov 20 — The Annual Ludhiana District Cycling Championship (boys and girls) for senior and junior category is scheduled to be held on November 23 at the PAU velodrome. Mr Balwinder Singh, organising secretary, Ludhiana District Cycling Association, in a press release issued here said that all participants should report to him at 9.30 a.m. at the venue.