HEALTH

‘Tuberculosis largest killer’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 25 — As many as four and a half million children, under the age of five, die every year because of respiratory disorders.

Presenting case scenario and demonstration of evidence in the first national update on evidence based management of paediatric respiratory disorders, here today, paediatricians said that tuberculosis (TB) was the largest killer of all infections and as many as 5,000 children fall prey to this infectious disease every day.

Speaking on symposia on acute respiratory infections and childhood pulmonary TB and HIV, doctors stressed that developing countries were responsible for 75 per cent of child deaths, the world over.

According to Dr Meenu Singh, Asst Prof, PGI, said that with timely measures diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis and upper airway infections were treatable. Dr Daljit Singh , Dean, DMC, Ludhiana, stressed that most of the upper respiratory disorders like normal coughs and colds in children do not need antibiotics and could be treated with simple home remedies like honey and tulsi.

Dr S.K.Kabra from AIIMS, Delhi, said that bacterial pneumonia was more intense than viral bacteria, however, with judicious use of antibiotics, both the infections were treatable.

Stressing upon a standard course of management, Dr G.R.Sethi from the Maulana Azad Medical College said parents too have to be made more aware about diagnosing diseases like pneumonia early.

Stressing that pneumonia can be diagnosed by counting respiratory rate of the child, Dr Sethi said a child with fever and cough and a fast breathing rate needs early referral and a standardised treatment.

For a child less than two months respiratory rate above 60 per minutes is a cause to worry for the parents. For the age group of two to 12 months, respiratory rate has to be less than 50, whereas for the children falling in the category of 12 months to 5 years, more than 40 respirations per minute needs medical attention.

Specialists said that it is equally important for the drugs to be standardised, cheap and easily available and it is important to educate the physicians not to randomly use any kind of treatment and only rely on the studies which were well conducted.

Dr Sethi said that for the management of TB cases as well, standard care management was essential. However, since in children TB was mostly acquired, the focus of the disease management had to be centered on the adults. Doctors also stressed for a single regime for the TB management as following different courses was leading to drug resistance by the virus.

Terminally ill need palliative care
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 25 — To provide effective comfort and care to the terminally ill patients, when the disease is beyond active treatment, an eight-day palliative care-cum-workshop began at the PGI, here today. The workshop has been organised by the Department of Radiotherapy in collaboration with the Global Cancer Concern

According to Dr Firuja Patel, organising secretary for the course, the main aim of the workshop was to provide hands on experience to the doctors and nurses to effectively impart palliative care to the terminally ill patients. Besides, just giving them analgesic for the pain, it is equally important to comfort and improve the quality of their life when the disease was beyond the treatment, she said.

During the course, the delegates from all over India and abroad, will deliver lectures on how to communicate with such patients, how to break the bad news to them and how to effectively control their pain.

In today’s session, Dr Robert Tycross gave an introduction to palliative care explaining the difference between curative and palliative treatment. He said palliative care was necessary when there was no hope of curing a patient and he or she had to be made as comfortable as possible.

Dr Firuza Patel speaking on the pain holistic concept said the doctors not only have to treat the pain but also look after social, psychological and spiritual needs of the patients .

Later in the afternoon session, Ms Val Humkin said it was equally important to effectively communicate with relatives of the patients. Earlier in the morning, Prof S.K. Sharma, Director, PGI, inaugurated the course while Maj-Gen R.S. Pannu, President of the Global Cancer Concern, was the guest of honour on the occasion.

Indian surgeons world class
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 25 — “Indian surgeons are world class and so are the facilities at some of the medical centres in the country.” These were the views of Dr Antonio Mario Califiore, Chief of the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Chieti in Italy. He also holds key posts in many other medical institutions in Italy.

Dr Califiore is here to perform a highrisk failing-heart surgery in Mukat Hospital and Heart Institute. He has done extensive work in the field of cardioplegia and mycrodial and revascularisation, arterial conduits and beating heart.

Interacting with the Press today, he said that facilities to carry out non-invasive investigations, catherisation procedures and all types of heart and vascular surgeries in India were comparable to those outside the country.

On the future of heart transplants, he said there was a need for more donors. He said, though the technique of heart transplant was not complicated, the survival rate after the operation was only 65 per cent after five years of the surgery.

The first-month mortality rate after the operation is 10 to 15 per cent and it rises to 20 per cent at the end of the first year. “Keeping in the view the lack of alternatives, it is not a bad proposition,” he said.

Also present on the occasion was the senior interventional cardiologist of the hospital, Dr Rakesh K. Jaswal, who has performed 12 life-saving angioplasties.

He said, whereas, an invasive cardiac procedure might cost more in a private hospital than in a government hospital, the patient received quality care in private hospital.

Dr Jaswal said the incidence of heart problem was on a rise and Indians needed to be particularly cautious as they were genetically more prone to the disease.” 

SPORT

Kanwar Sandeep UT chess champ
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Nov 25 — Kanwar Sandeep Singh won the UT (under-25) Chess Championship here today in the Sector 44 St Xavier’s Senior Secondary School. Vipan Negi won the second position. Both will now represent Chandigarh in the National Chess Championship that is to be held in Bangalore in December.

The final positions were as follows: Kanwar Sandeep Singh 1 (4.5 pts); Vipan Negi 2 (4.5 pts on draw); 3 points — Nitin (DAV College, Sector 10), Chetan Vikas (St Xavier’s-44), Anup Gupta (SD School-32), Rohit Chodha (Bhavan Vidyalaya), Madhusheel Arora, Ripudaman Singh (St Xavier’s-44), Anmol Razdan (Tender Heart-33), Rajeev Rajput, Mohit Malhotra (St Xavier’s-44), Pankaj Kumar Tiwari (GCM-11), Praveen Bhalla and Praveen Kumar Goyal (DAVC-10).

Jagpreet Singh (St Xavier’s-44), Ranjeet Singh Badwal (St Xavier’s-44), Ritesh Jain (St Xavier's-44), Anmol Bhagat (DAVC-10), Sanjeev Biswas, Jatin Kaushal (Hansraj Public School, Sector 6, Panchkula), Arjun Mendhi (Bhavan Vidyalya-27) — all two points; followed by Nishant Seth, Abhishek Suri, Manpreet Singh (St Xavier’s-44) and Prince Deep (St Xavier’s-44).

DAV-10 win
A good allround performance by Kamal Walia helped the Sector 10 DAV College beat the Sector 26 SGGS College by 87 runs in a match of the UT Inter-College Cricket Tournament in the Sector 16 stadium here today.

Brief scores: DAVC-10 — 264 for 7 in 40 overs (Kamal Walia 92, Vipin Saggar 48, Tej Govind 38 n.o., Rajesh Sehgal 29, Avtar Singh 2 for 57, A.P. Singh 2 for 61); SGGS-26 — 177 all out in 31.4 overs (Manav 72, A.P. Singh 27, Vishal Sahni 24, Kamal Walia 4 for 41, Sahil Bhatia 3 for 41, Tej Gobind 2 for 30).

Death condoled
The Dronacharya Awardees Sports Coaches Forum has condoled the death of Arjun Naidu, a former National Institute of Sports cricket coach, who died on November 14 at Udaipur. Desh Prem Azad, Chairman of the forum, said Naidu had coached players like Kapil Dev and Yograj Singh.

Arjun Naidu had played for Holkar under the captaincy of Col C.K. Naidu, Mushtaq Ali and Jagdale. He had also played in England along with players like Vinoo Mankad. He retired from the NIS in 1983, but remained involved with training budding cricketers at Udaipur palace. He was a medium-pace bowler.

Krishnan to visit city
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Nov 25 — Ramesh Krishnan, the former tennis player and captain of the Indian Davis cup team, will be in the city from December 2 to 11 to impart training to young players for high competitive tennis. This was informed by Mr Rajan Kashyap, Chairman, Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association.

He said the special daily sessions for physical conditioning will be supervised by Dr Vece Paes, India’s foremost physical training specialist in the CLTA complex. Then Acharya Prem Bhatia from Delhi will be giving instructions in yoga, including mental strength and concentration.

The camp will be a unique effort to integrate the virtues of a tough physical regime, sports psychology and technical tennis playing skills.

Some of the top ranked players of India like Syed Fazalludin,Vijay Kannan, Manoj Mahadevan and Vishal Uppal are expected to join the camp. Mr Kashyap said the main camp will be of 10 players, of which six will be from the city. A parallel camp for a group of 20 other promising youngsters of the CLTA will be conducted by coaches under the supervision of Krishnan and Dr Paes. 

Ajeetesh wins golf title
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Nov 25 — Ajeetesh Sandhu of the Chandigarh Golf Club won the title in the Northern India Junior/Sub Junior Golf Championships which concluded at the Delhi Golf Club yesterday. A 12-year-old Class VI student of St John High School, Ajeetesh fired a card of 331 over four rounds to finish nine strokes ahead of his nearest rival — Gaganjeet Bhullar from Kapurthala.

Ajeetesh had a card of 82 on the first day, 81 on the second and 89 on the third day. However, on the last day of the four-day championship he carded seven over par 79 to clinch the title.

The Chandigarh youngster has a number of achievements to his credit. Last year he had won the Northern India Golf Championship held in Chandigarh and was runner-up in the All-India Golf Championship held at Calcutta in 1998.