BACKGROUND Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) need to be revisited in light of rapid economic growth and industrial development. Questions have been raised about the validity of existing population-specific norms for predicting PFTs, and therefore, the present study aimed to determine the applicability of existing norms for PFTs in young healthy non-smoking male university students of Kolkata. M...

This paper provides evidence concerning political participation (turnout, awareness, attendance at meetings, campaign involvement, voting) and its relation to local governance (targeting of public services) in a developing country, based on a rural household survey in West Bengal, India. We find that reported participation rates varied remarkably little with socio-economic status, with the exce...

This paper presents a general over view of the current municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Kolkata province, India. In order to characterize the solid waste stream in the Municipality of Kolkata, a long-term study was conducted over a 56-week period between the winter of 2010 and the winter of 2011. In this study, percentage of components and specific weight of the MSW, the composting par...

BACKGROUND Corneal blindness is one of the important types of blindness that can be prevented by proper health care education and conventionally cured by corneal transplantation for which awareness regarding eye donation is essential. OBJECTIVES The aim of the study is to assess the awareness of eye health care and eye donation among secondary level school students of North Kolkata. METHODS...

BACKGROUND Kolkata is one of the polluted metropolitan cities in India where health effects of air pollution are raising serious concern. OBJECTIVES Purpose of the present study was to analyze association between levels of air pollutants and pulmonary function of adult males living in two different air pollutant zones of Kolkata. METHODS Air pollution data of two ambient air quality monitor...

Chronological analysis of 125 Vibrio cholerae O139 strains isolated during 1993-2005 in Kolkata revealed the prevalence of two new genotypes of cholera toxin (CT) and novel combinations of ctxB and rstR alleles resulting in variant CTX prophages. One of the new genotypes of ctxB, which first appeared in 1996 with the re-emerged V. cholerae O139 strains that had CTX Calcutta phage, was designate...

Co-infection of Leptomonas seymouri with Leishmania donovani in Indian Leishmaniasis 1 Running Title: Co-infection of Leptomonas seymouri with Leishmania donovani 2 3 Susmita Ghosh, Priyanka Banerjee, Avijit Sarkar, Sudipto Ganguly, Simanti Datta* 4 and Mitali Chatterjee* 5 6 Dept. of Pharmacology and Centre for Liver Research, School of Digestive and Liver 7 Diseases, Institute of Post Graduat...

ii Summary This research aims at investigating the extent to which Information and Communication Technologies have influenced crime in India. The study has been conducted in the city of Kolkata with the help of the Kolkata Police. Three types of offences, namely, residential burglaries, commercial burglaries and frauds, were chosen for the study and data about the suspects, victims and the offe...

*Corresponding author: Mailing address: Division of Microbiology, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (Indian Council of Medical Research), P-33, C.I.T. Road, SchemeXM, Beliaghata, Kolkata 700 010, India. Tel : +91-332350-0448/5533/4478 (Ext.117), Fax: +91-33-2350-5066, E-mail: [email protected] Typhoid fever occurs both in epidemic and endemic forms and remains a public hea...

Background:Emergence of drug resistant tuberculosis, particularly multi drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) has become an obstacle to effective TB control in India. Objectives: To study the sociodemographic and clinical profile of MDR/XDR-TB patients in Kolkata. Methodology: A retrospective study was performed on MDR patients admitted in Jadavpur and Boral TB h...