Chandigarh, August 23
Chandigarh has at least 1,500 AIDS cases, said Dr Inderjeet Kaur Walia, Director, UT Health Services, while addressing a seminar on HIV/AIDS for hair dressers, road side barbers and beauty parlours today. The seminar was organised by the Citizens Awareness Group in collaboration with the State Aids Control Society at the Female Literacy House, Sector 42, here.

Dr Walia was the chief guest. She expressed her concern over the increasing HIV positive cases and stressed the need to create awareness among the youth. She highlighted the precautionary measures to be adopted to curtain the disease.

Mr Surinder Verma, Chairman of the awareness group, explained how hair dressers and beauty parlours are high risk places for contacting the disease due to the nature of their trade. He stressed the need for the usage of hygienic methods in the beauty trade.

Mr Verma said: “To avoid the spread of infection, the barbers should make use of sterilised or disposable razors. The best policy is to use fresh blade after every shave. Since AIDS spreads from cuts and quashes, barbers should apply some antiseptic on the cuts.”

The Project Director, State AIDS Control Society, Dr Sonia Trikha, in her keynote address said HIV positive cases from the region were on the rise and first case from the city was reported in 1992. She said since a large number of patients from the region were coming to the city because of the advanced medical treatment facilities, the responsibilities of providing the best possible care to them rest with the UT AIDS Control Society. She said apart from focussing on target intervention, attention was also being paid towards awareness generation and holding of training programmes and conferences.

Chandigarh, August 23
The Department of Gastroenterology at the PGI, has won the best poster award at the First Annual Conference of Indian Pancreas Club held at New Delhi.

This research work highlighted that chronic pancreatitis occurring in non-alcoholic patients in North India is different from that found in coastal areas of South India known as tropical pancreatitis.

The research work for the project was based on profile of chronic pancreatitis in North India, conducted by a team of doctors, including Dr Deepak K. Bhasin, Dr Gursewak Singh, Dr Shokat M Chowdry, Dr Surinder Rana, Dr B.R. Thapa, Dr S. K. Sinha and Dr (Ms) B. Nagi, worked as a team

Pancreas secretes insulin and enzymes for digestion of food and is prone to acute or chronic pancreatitis. Acute pancreatitis is commonly caused by gall stones or alcohol intake and patient presents with severe pain in the abdomen. In chronic pancreatitis, patient has repeated episodes of abdominal pain and can develop diabetes or malabsorption of fat. Chronic pancreatitis is commonly caused by alcohol intake or congenital abnormalities of the pancreas. According to Dr Bhasin in many cases cause of chronic pancreatitis remains unknown, which is called idiopathic pancreatitis.

Prof (Ms) B Nagi said stone formation in the pancreas was much less common in North Indian patients as compared to those from South India.

In the past, patients of chronic pancreatitis were being managed by surgery. Now through an endoscope, a small tube (called stent) can be placed inside the duct of pancreas, which relieves the pain and avoids the major surgery. Prof Bhasin informed that this is a highly complex and technical procedure. The department of gastroenterology, PGI, Chandigarh, is one of the few centres in the country where this form of treatment is being given for the past one decade.

Chandigarh, August 23
A superb knock of 71 by skipper Rahul Arora in 99 balls put DAV College, Chandigarh, an edge over its rival Khalsa College, Amritsar, and bagged the winners title in the final of the Samuel Banerjee Trophy played at DAV College, Sector 10, here today.

Batting first, DAV College imposed a fighting total of 232 runs for Khalsa College. Another contribution by Siddharth (64), with his skipper Rahul, gave a stand of 136 runs when DAV College had lost 2 wickets and the scoreboard reading 12 runs.

After the loss of Siddharth DAV could not maintain the momentum and lost the wickets on regular intervals. For Khalsa College, Ranjit, Jatinder and Sumit Sharma took 2 wickets each.

Khalsa College started its chase but lost their opener at the score of 6. Sumit Sharma then tried to steady the innings with a score of 36 with Mayank Sharma who scored 45.

At one time, when Khalsa College lost 9 wickets at 121 runs it was assumed that the match was all over. But Mayank and Jatinder (33) both played steadily but could took the score to 176 only. Sumit Narwal claimed 3 wickets for 27 runs.

Waqar Ahmed and Amit both took 2 wickets each. Ultimately, DAV won the trophy by 56 runs.