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Strengthening crash surveillance is an urgent priority for road safety in low- and middle-income countries. We reviewed the online availability and completeness of First Information Reports (FIRs; police reports) of road traffic crashes in India. We developed a relational database to record information extracted from FIRs, and implemented it for one state (Chhattisgarh, 2017-2019). We found that FIRs can be downloaded in bulk from government websites of 15 states and union territories. Another 14 provide access online but restrict bulk downloading, and 7 do not provide online access. For Chhattisgarh, 87% of registered FIRs could be downloaded. Most FIRs reported the date, time, collision-type, and vehicle-types, but important crash characteristics (e.g. infrastructure attributes) were missing. India needs to invest in building the crash surveillance capacity for research and safety management. However, in the interim, maintaining a national database of a sample of FIRs can provide useful policy guidance.

Despite strong advocacy, the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020) is ending with most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) no closer to the Sustainable Development Goals target of reducing traffic mortality by half. In contrast, most high-income countries (HICs) have seen large benefits in recent decades from large-scale safety interventions. We aimed to assess how much LMICs would benefit from interventions that address six key risk factors related to helmet use, seatbelt use, speed control, drink driving, and vehicle design for safety of occupants and pedestrians. We use a comparative risk assessment framework to estimate mortality and health loss (disability adjusted life years lost, DALYs) that would be averted if these risks were reduced through intervention. We estimate effects for six countries that span all developing regions: China, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Iran, and Russia. We find relatively large benefits (27% reductions in road traffic deaths and DALYs) from speed control in all countries, and about 5%-20% reductions due to other interventions depending on who is at risk in each country. To achieve larger gains, LMICs would need to move beyond simply learning from HICs and undertake new research to address risk factors particularly relevant to their context.

Background: Time to hospital after a road traffic crash (RTC) plays a vital role in determining the outcome for crash victims. In Delhi, there are seven designated trauma centres where crash victims are typically taken, which may not be nearest hospital. We compare the transport time access (crash to hospital) depending on whether the victim is transported to a designated trauma centre or the nearest hospital. Data and methods: For each RTC geocoded manually from police records, the nearest hospital and the designated trauma centre is identified using Google Maps places nearby Search API and guidelines. Travel time matrix is generated between RTC's and identified hospitals using Google maps distance matrix API. Index accounting inter-district differences is developed. Results and conclusions: The network of designated trauma centres in New Delhi is located such that they can be accessed within 45 min of most crashes while nearest hospital within 30 min. As a result, the vast majority of crash victims are likely to receive timely care if they are rapidly transferred to either of these caregivers. However, for the most severely injured and time-sensitive cases, bypassing nearest hospital for trauma care, could substantially improve survival outcomes.

Background: Hospital-based studies have suggested that fire-related deaths might be a neglected public-health issue in India. However, no national estimates of these deaths exist and the only numbers reported in published literature come from the Indian police. We combined multiple health datasets to assess the extent of the problem., Methods: We computed age-sex-specific fire-related mortality fractions nationally using a death registration system based on medically certified causes of death in urban areas and a verbal autopsy based sample survey for rural populations. We combined these data with all-cause mortality estimates based on the sample registration system and the population census. We adjusted for ill-defined injury categories that might contain misclassified fire-related deaths, and estimated the proportion of suicides due to self-immolation when deaths were reported by external causes., Findings: We estimated over 163 000 fire-related deaths in 2001 in India, which is about 2% of all deaths. This number was six times that reported by police. About 106 000 of these deaths occurred in women, mostly between 15 and 34 years of age. This age-sex pattern was consistent across multiple local studies, and the average ratio of fire-related deaths of young women to young men was 3:1., Interpretation: The high frequency of fire-related deaths in young women suggests that these deaths share common causes, including kitchen accidents, self-immolation, and different forms of domestic violence. Identification of populations at risk and description of structural determinants from existing data sources are urgently needed so that interventions can be rapidly implemented.

Purpose: To determine the seroprevalence of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) in two urban communities in Delhi and to correlate the presence of HSV-2 seroprevalence with sociodemographic profile, risk factors and presence of other reproductive tract infections (RTIs)., Methods: Men and women aged between 15-49 years from an urban slum and an urban middle class colony were invited to participate in the study. They provided interview information; blood for HSV-2, HIV and syphilis serology; first void urine specimens for diagnosis of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Chlamydia trachomatis infection; and genital specimens for diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis, vaginal candidiasis and trichomoniasis., Results: The prevalence of HSV-2 seropositivity was found to be 7 and 8.6% in men and women, respectively. HSV-2 seropositivity was found to be significantly associated with urban middle class community and older age. No statistically significant correlation was found between HSV-2 seropositivity and other laboratory-confirmed RTIs., Conclusions: The findings of our study indicate a relatively low prevalence of HSV-2 seropositivity and other sexually transmitted infections in the two communities that were studied.

Purpose: This study was carried out to analyze the epidemiology of gonorrhea based on antimicrobial susceptibility testing, auxotyping and serotyping in New Delhi, India., Methods: Sixty gonococcal isolates from males with urethritis, females with endocervicitis and their sexual contacts were studied. The isolates were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing, auxotyping and serotyping for epidemiological characterization., Results: We observed nine antibiotic resistance patterns. Ninety-eight percent of isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin, while 20% isolates were penicillinase producing N. gonorrhoeae (PPNG) and 18.3% isolates were tetracycline resistant N. gonorrhoeae (TRNG). Eight auxotypes were observed, of which the NR (non-requiring), proline requiring and arginine requiring were most common auxotypes. On the basis of serotyping alone, the gonococcal isolates could be differentiated into three serogroups and 18 serovars. Serogroup WI represented 46.7% and WII/III represented 51.7% of isolates and one strain was WI and WII/WIII serogroup combination. When results of auxotyping and serotyping were combined (A/S) 29 A/S classes could be identified. The most prevalent A/S classes were NR/Aost, NR/Arost, Pro/Aost and Pro/Boprt., Conclusions: Although A/S typing had the highest discriminatory index, isolates recovered from index case and their sexual contacts were found to be identical by all typing methods.

Syphilis continues to be a major health problem in India. Data regarding sero-prevalence of syphilis is largely hospital based. Majority of community based studies have been conducted on select groups. Therefore, these studies do not reflect the true prevalence of syphilis in general population. The objective of the study was to determine the sero-prevalence of syphilis in the urban and rural communities of New Delhi, using both VDRL and TPHA for screening and FTA-ABS for confirmation and discrepant analysis. Serum specimens from 178 males and 227 females aged between 15-49 years were tested. VDRL test was put up using VDRL antigen from serologist, Kolkata. TPHA and FTA-ABS were performed using commercially available kits. 6.91% (28/405) subjects were found to be seropositive for syphilis (males 10.11%, females 4.40%). Syphilis seropositivity was found to be significantly associated with low income (p=0.02) and presence of symptoms suggestive of STIs (p=0.00) among males. Positive syphilis serology was significantly associated with trichomoniasis in females (p=0.00). Community based studies utilizing one non-treponemal test plus one treponemal test for screening purpose and an additional specific test for confirmation should be used for designing a control programme.

Four new species of the hyphomycete genera Phaeoramularia viz. Ph. caesalpinae, Pseudocercospora viz., Ps. tiliacearum, Stenella, viz. S. argyreiae and S. grewiae occurring on Caesalpinia bonducella Fleming (Caesalpiniaceae), Grewia sp. (Tiliaceae), Argyrea sp. Lour (Convolvulaceae) and Grewia sp. L. (Tiliaceae), respectively are described and illustrated here. All these fungi were collected from Western Ghats of India.