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Background: Since its first detection in November 2019, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has influenced over 200 countries, areas or territories worldwide. The virus was initially thought to be a primary respiratory pathogen, but has been reported to have multisystem involvement, including cardiovascular, neurological and gastrointestinal manifestations. The manifestations of liver damage are usually mild and generally asymptomatic. While abdominal symptoms such as pain and diarrhoea are a known presentation, little is known about pancreatic injury as a complication of COVID-19 infection. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the study was to describe the abnormality in liver enzymes and pancreatic enzymes and to correlate it with the severity and outcome of COVID-19 patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 200 patients were enrolled during the study period from August-2020 to July-2021. Data were collected from case files of patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Results: A cross sectional study conducted among 200 patients showed that the mean aspartate transaminase and alanine transaminase values were 41.89±50.22U/L and 37.69±41.41U/L respectively and mean amylase and lipase levels were 97.77±126.42U/L and 90.34±127.76U/L. The percentage of transaminitis that was present in patients who were discharged was 29.41% when compared to those who died which was 53.33% and this difference is statistically significant(P=0.02).However, there was no statistically significant difference observed in patients with elevated pancreatic enzymes with their outcomes. Conclusion: Hepatic injury is more commonly associated with an increased severity of the disease and also as a contributor for the greater mortality of the COVID-19 patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Rajasthan is a semi-arid state in India where people still use groundwater for drinking purposes. However, the quality of groundwater as compared to standards have not been studied in any details. This ecological study was done to study the groundwater quality parameters in the stone-belt states, compare the quality of groundwater in Alwar with the rest of Rajasthan, and study the morbidity profile of surgical in-patients in the same district, with special emphasis on kidney stone disease (KSDs)., Methods: The morbidity profile of patients coming to the surgery department of a tertiary teaching hospital between January 2002 and June 2023 was obtained from the medical records department, and water quality data was obtained from the publicly available Water Resources Information System (WRIS) groundwater dataset for the year 2023. The dataset provided detailed information on the chemical parameters of water samples throughout the country that were evaluated to estimate the quality of groundwater., Results: It was found that the groundwater in Alwar is non-potable due to the presence of iron, alkalinity, magnesium, and total dissolved solids (TDS). Iron was estimated to be much higher than the acceptable limit of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) drinking-water quality guidelines (0.3 mg/L). Similarly, most of the chemical parameters in the groundwaters of Rajasthan significantly exceeded the national average. The median electrical conductivity, fluoride, magnesium, sodium, hardness, alkalinity, and turbidity were found to be 1680 μS/cm, 1.05 parts per million (PPM), 41 PPM, 233 PPM, 330 PPM, 310 PPM, 988 PPM, respectively, which are above the WHO recommendations for drinking water guidelines., Conclusions: The levels of iron and total alkalinity were significantly higher in the study district as compared to the rest of the state. Also, magnesium hardness and TDS levels were very high in the groundwater of the entire state of Rajasthan, making the population vulnerable to KSDs in the long run., Competing Interests: Human subjects: Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Institute Ethics Committee, Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Medical College & Hospital, Alwar issued approval ESIC/MCH/Alwar/2023/IEC/Proj121. Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work., (Copyright © 2024, Manna et al.)

Introduction: Spiritual health is an important dimension of positive health and is often ignored as it is not amenable to measurement. The present study was conducted to generate relevant evidence on spiritual health among adolescents living in urban areas of Northern India., Methods: A cross-sectional study was done from June 2019 - May 2020 in an urban area of Northern India on a sample of 300 adolescents selected purposively. After collection of demographic details of the participants, the Index of Core Spiritual Experiences (INSPIRIT) tool was used to capture their spiritual health., Results: The Cronbach's alpha for the scale was 0.832 (0.797-0.863) indicating good internal consistency of the measure. As far as spiritual health is concerned, 217 (72.3%) of the study participants scored medium-high to high, followed by 83 (27.7%) who scored medium-low to low on the spiritual health scale. Adjusted multivariate analysis using binary logistic regression showed that positive traits like caring (odds ratio (OR) 1.19, 95% CI: 1.08-1.33), connection to school (OR 1.16, 95% CI: 1.04-1.29), having positive identity (OR 1.19, 95% CI: 1.04-1.36) and having highly educated (post-graduate) parents (OR 2.18, 95% CI: 1.13-4.21) lead to significantly higher spiritual health scores.  Discussion: Although spiritual health is not routinely measured among adolescents, the current study demonstrated high levels of spiritual health among half of the urban adolescents. Parental education was found to have a positive association with spiritual health scores, indicating the indirect effect of parental spiritual inclination. The study has important implications for policy, as it demonstrates the feasibility of measuring a covert dimension of health which tends to have an indirect effect on holistic youth development., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2024, Manna et al.)