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Background: Melioidosis, caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, is becoming a disease of public health importance. Despite appropriate treatment, the disease is associated with a high mortality due to the non-availability of diagnostic modalities at primary care and due to delayed presentation to the tertiary care hospital. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study of 12 cases of culture-proven melioidosis diagnosed at a tertiary care hospital in Hyderabad in South India over a period of 15 months. This study presents the epidemiology, risk factors, clinical and radiological manifestations and outcomes of patients with culture-proven melioidosis. Results: The study included 12 participants, out of which 11 were male, with a mean age of 39 years. Diabetes mellitus was the most common comorbidity in our series. The most common organs involved were lung (n = 5) and bone (n = 4). The other organs involved were prostate, liver, skin and soft tissue, spleen, aorta, brain, kidney and bone marrow. B. pseudomallei was isolated from pus culture in eight patients, blood cultures in seven patients and bone marrow culture in one patient. Eleven out of 12 patients were treated with meropenem. In our series, 7 out of 12 patients died; thus, a mortality of 58.3% was noted. Conclusions: Melioidosis is an emerging disease in India but remains under-recognised. This study showed that young males with diabetes, working in agricultural fields, are susceptible. Although the clinical manifestations are diverse, melioidosis should be suspected when patients with diabetes present with pneumonia and abscesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: India's recent increase in urbanization alongside with feminization of rural agriculture could increase the existing gender disparities in dietary diversity. With many rural men migrating to urban areas, women have increased domestic burdens as well as productive burdens such as making informed crop production decisions so household members consume a diverse diet. Given the rapid and recent onset of this phenomenon, there is a need to explore gender differentials in diet diversity across urban and rural areas to assess if certain populations are being disproportionately impacted by this trend. There are limited established quantitative studies discussing this gender disparity with respect to urbanization. Therefore, this paper compares dietary diversity among adult men, adult women, adolescent males, and adolescent females in urban and peri-urban locations. The authors also assess if various sociodemographic factors correlate with dietary diversity. Methods: Analyses were conducted on dietary diversity data collected by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) from selected urban (1108 individuals) and peri-urban (808 individuals) locations of Hyderabad, India. The total sample size of the population is n = 1816: 660 adult males, 662 adult females, 205 adolescent males, and 289 adolescent females. Results: Adult women and adolescent females have a higher diet disparity between peri-urban and urban areas when compared to adult males and adolescent males. Multivariate analyses followed by post hoc multiple comparisons testing further support that peri-urban adult women consume a less diverse diet compared to their urban counterparts and less than other peri-urban adult men and adolescent women. It was also found that marital status, type of household card owned, and the highest degree of education are statistically significant correlators of an individual's dietary diversity. Conclusions: Given that urbanization could negatively impact already vulnerable populations such as peri-urban adult women, who play a key role in children's nutrition, it is important to provide support to these populations. This paper suggests it is possible to do so through government subsidization of peri-urban farmers to grow more diverse crops, fortifying easily accessible foods with commonly lacking micronutrients, including Vitamin A, folic acid, and iron, market access, and affordable prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine the prevalence of refractive error (RE) and associated risk factors for myopic refractive errors in children and young adults from the urban region of Hyderabad, South India. Four thousand sixty-five (4,065) participants aged 6–22 years were enrolled and examined in this cross-sectional study conducted from October 2013 to January 2015. Participants were enrolled from a random sample of schools and universities in regions representative of urban Hyderabad. RE was determined using cycloplegic autorefraction. The association of demographic factors such as age, gender, and socio-economic category (SEC) (low/mid/high) with myopia was explored with logistic regression with robust standard error. Of the total participants, 2,259 were children aged 6–15 years and 1,806 were adolescents and young adults aged 16–22 years. Overall prevalence of myopia, high myopia (≤ −5.00D and ≤ −6.00 D), hyperopia, emmetropia, and astigmatism was 29.8% (95% CI: 26.0% to 33.6%, n = 1,216), 2.9% (95% CI: 1.9% to 3.9%, n = 120), 1.1% (95%CI: 0.7% to 1.5%, n = 46), 14.7% (95% CI: 12.4% to 17.0%, n = 599), 46.9% (95% CI: 43.7% to 50.1%, n = 1913) and 8.6% (95% CI: 7.4% to 9.9%, n = 352) respectively. A strong correlation existed between age and prevalence of myopia (R2 = 0.88, p <.001) and high myopia (R2 = 0.71, p <.001). Children from schools of low SEC (34.7%) had higher prevalence of myopia compared to the mid SEC (16.8%) (p =.043). Myopia was the most prevalent refractive error and increased with age in this urban population. More myopia was observed in schools of low SEC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic imposed challenges to access rehabilitation intervention to individuals with visual impairment, thereby increasing their disability effects. This study explored the viability maintaining the continuum of care through telerehabilitation.Methods: This study is a retrospective analysis of individuals with vision impairment who underwent telerehabilitation at the center of excellence in eye care at Hyderabad, Telangana, India, between April and September 2020. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework was followed to provide services such as counseling for mental well-being, information and resources, educational interventions, Assistive Technology programs, therapeutic interventions for children with multiple disabilities, access to digital audio books and rehabilitation helpline.A team of professionals involved in the service care. Phone and what's app calls were used to facilitate the training.The duration and the number of training sessions were individual need-based with an average of 45 minutes per session and 175 training sessions.Results: Three hundred and fifty individuals and their families benefited. The service include early intervention (n = 129), and low vision care (n = 176) inclusive of computer training (n = 53), soft skills (n = 53), digital books (n = 55).Nearly two-thirds of the participants were male (n = 205).Conclusion: Evidence from this study suggests telerehabilitation as a successful model of care.A well-planned telerehabilitation approach can expand the scope of reaching the visually impaired from geographically isolated areas where scarcity of service providers and service centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many other developing countries, urban sprawl is a growing phenomenon in India, which poses socio-economic and environmental challenges that worryingly affect urban sustainability. In this study, a latent class clustering approach was used to investigate perceptions of urban sprawl among 622 urban and peri-urban dwellers in Hyderabad. The empirical results clustered the respondents into three distinct classes based on their perceptions of urban sprawl impacts: 'undecided respondents', 'negative perceivers', and 'opportunity perceivers'. The majority of respondents were undecided with no strong views towards the impacts of urban sprawl, which may increase their vulnerability and hinder effective adaptation to the adverse economic, social and environmental effects of urban sprawl. This also provokes concerns about the effectiveness of government interventions to build public awareness of urban development and its impacts on the city. With regard to the role of demographic and socio-economic characteristics in shaping the perception of the respondents, the results revealed that social caste plays a determining role in forming dwellers' perception. In particular, members of marginalised social castes were more likely to form positive perceptions of the impacts of urban sprawl as urban expansion generates better and stable income that improve their social status. In addition, individuals with higher levels of education were more likely to form negative or positive perceptions, implying that efforts to raise social capital could be a useful means for mitigating the impacts of urban sprawl. Finally, membership in community development organisations was a key factor in dictating membership of the negative perceivers' class. Overall, our findings suggest that an appropriate policy framework and specific programmes are needed for enhancing dwellers' perception towards the impacts of urban sprawl, which can enhance the design, acceptance, and implementation of a more sustainable governance of urbanisation and contribute to achieving urban sustainability in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing cities are a concern to mankind as they exert enormous pressure on natural resources resulting in environmental degradation. It is speculated that more than 50% of population will live in cities by 2050. In this context the studies on growing cities is of paramount importance to not only researchers but also urban planners. The present paper highlights the pressure, state and response (PSR model) of Hyderabad city region with a view to analyse the present state of urban land use along with suburban rural land use. A few concerns are raised with respective to sustainable urban growth which can be amalgamated into urban planning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, an increasing number of women in most parts of India - especially in the rural south - are coming together to form SHGs, largely engaged in providing savings and credit services to their members. A few also pursue a social agenda such as supporting the anti-liquor movement, improving health and education of their communities, and so on. Credit services are complemented with other services to create or support livelihoods of members and their families. These efforts are supported by NGOs and state agencies. While the benefits are diverse, ranging from creating opportunities for saving to enterprise promotion, one of the most articulated benefit for the SHG members is the freedom to come out from their homes and speak up in public'. This article, prepared on the basis of interactions with SHG women members, attempts to capture the experiences of Muslim women in Hyderabad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The type and extent of colours added to ready-to-eat (RTE) foods prepared in the non-industrial sector of India was investigated. Of the 545 RTE foods analysed, 90% contained permitted colours, 2% contained a combination of permitted and non-permitted colours and 8% contained only non-permitted colours. However in RTE foods with permitted colours, 73% exceeded 100 ppm, as prescribed by the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act of India, and 27% were within the prescribed levels. Among the permitted colours, tartrazine was the most widely used colour followed by sunset yellow. The maximum concentration of colours was detected in sweet meats (18 767 ppm), non-alcoholic beverages (9450 ppm), miscellaneous foods (6106 ppm) and hard-boiled sugar confectioneries (3811 ppm). Among the non-permitted colours found, rhodamine was most commonly used. Some of the foods, such as savouries and miscellaneous foods like sugar coated aniseed and almond milk, are not supposed to contain colours as per the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, but were found to contain colours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing countries, food-borne diseases, attributable to lack of, or inappropriate, food hygiene and handling practices at home, are expected to increase due to a rapid growth in the consumption of fats and animal source foods. The context-specific and situational practices corresponding to underlying traits of food hygiene and handling practices for home-cooked food were investigated for a set of 662 randomly selected households in Hyderabad, India. Results indicate that about one-third of the households lack access to a refrigerator. Of those with a refrigerator, a majority (83%) had the temperature set at medium, with an actual temperature ranging from 8 to 11 °C. Results also show that smell, followed by food appearance rather than taste or labelled expiry dates were used as the main criteria for edibility. Furthermore, six indicators related to handling, storage and cooking non-vegetarian food and three indicators related to storage of the cooked food were assessed. For households with a refrigerator, the latent class analysis identified three exclusive and exhaustive subgroups of households representing the heterogeneity of handling and hygiene traits, while two subgroups were identified for households not having a refrigerator. Only a small proportion of households (12.6%) with a refrigerator were profiled as having adequate and consistent practices. Remaining subgroups revealed substantial within-group variations in terms of consistency in certain behaviors. Next, latent class modelling with covariates related to socio-demographic, socio-economic, socio-spatial variables and health or dietary outcomes showed that having higher than a primary school education, having a high percentage of food expenditure, or non-optimal refrigerator temperature were predictive of the latent class with more adequate practices. For households without a refrigerator, five covariates related to social class, age, income, and obesity distinguished the latent classes. These findings of latent trait-specific behaviors have implications for actions aiming to inform and direct behavioral change interventions on food safety practices in the developing countries. • We examined food handling and hygiene at home for 662 households in Hyderabad, India. • Socio-economic characteristics explained lack of refrigeration. • Smell, followed by food appearance were used as the main criteria for edibility. • Safer practices were adopted by only 12% of the sample. • Education and food expenditure were predictive of latent traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]