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Background: India has high prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases, especially bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Both of these are also recognized as risk factors for severity and poor outcome of COVID-19 disease. It is assumed that COVID-19 outbreak as well as an effective lockdown might have affected the incidence and outcome of some of these. Methods: To substantiate above hypothesis, an online survey was mailed to 547 pulmonologists across the country; 314 (54.7%) responses were recorded in the given period. The survey included observations on incidence and outcome of common chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, COPD and interstitial lung diseases (ILD) in predefined pre-COVID and during COVID period in a total of 24 questions. Results: It was observed that the reduction in incidence of outpatient department cases, acute exacerbations and hospitalization for asthma, COPD and ILD was statistically significant. The outcome of acute exacerbations of these chronic respiratory diseases was analyzed in terms of discharges from hospitals after satisfactory recovery and/ or mortalities. For COPD and ILD, it was not significantly affected during the COVID period. At the same time, a relatively higher proportion of acute asthma mortality was reported. A wide variation in nebulization practices was reported during this period. The doses of inhaled corticosteroids in asthma management were not affected. A wide variety of factors including effective lockdown, better quality of air and regular use of masks were probably responsible for reduced incidence of exacerbations of these chronic respiratory diseases. Conclusion: We conclude that while outpatient department visits, acute exacerbations and hospitalizations were significantly reduced during COVID-19 period, outcome of asthmatics was relatively unfavorable as compared to that of COPD and ILDs.

Introduction: School children constitute a particular vulnerable group for ocular morbidities which can have has detrimental effect on the academic, social and later the functional potential of individuals. This study was conducted to determine the comparative prevalence of category wise distribution of common ocular morbidities and their demographic correlates. Methods: Descriptive cross sectional study done in J.L.N. Medical College and Hospital, Ajmer. STUDY PERIOD: October 2012 to September 2013. Results: 2754 study subjects comprised the sample. In our study category wise distribution of refractive error showed that there was descending order of percentage of student of refractive error was in general, OBC, SC, ST category students in all types of refractive errors i.e. myopia, astigmatism and hypermetropia. Conclusion: Reserved categories showed high ocular morbidity in total as compared to general unreserved category amongst the studied social categories.