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COVID-19 vaccination was opened for senior citizens above 60 years on the 01 March 2021. By 25 June 2021, 2.29 crores senior citizens have received two doses and another 6.71 crores have received the first dose. A total of 9 crores citizens have been given two/one dose of vaccine out of the estimated 14.3 crores people above the age of 60 years. During this period two important roadblocks to the vaccination drive were vaccine hesitancy among certain segment of the population and vaccine coverage especially in the rural areas.

Background: Childbirth, though a physiological process, has been associated with multiple risks and stress on the women, even before the time of conception till the post-partum. Every woman around the world has a right to receive respectful maternity care. Birth satisfaction and respectful maternal care has direct impact on percentage of institutional deliveries. There is paucity of studies conducted among the women of rural Tamil Nadu regarding birth satisfaction and intrapartum experiences.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in primary health center area, red hills among the post-partum women attending the immunization OPD at 6, 10 and 14th week after delivery during the months of March to June 2018. By simple random sampling technique 195 subjects were included. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to collect the data. Ethical clearance was obtained from our Institutional Ethics Committee. Data was entered in MS Excel and analysis was done using SPSS Software version 23.Results: The study shows the importance of maternal satisfaction and intrapartum experiences of women in rural areas. It concluded that the overall satisfaction was 85.5%. The transport facility available at the health care set up which satisfied the mothers was around 91.4%. The interaction of health care providers with mothers during delivery was around 64.5%. Cleanliness and comfort of the delivery area was around 64%. Equality of care provided at the health care set up was around 83%.Conclusions: Reasons for delivery visit, duration of labour, and mode of delivery are independent predictors of maternal satisfaction.

Background: The COVID vaccination programme in conjunction with other control measures, are needed to control the COVID-19 pandemic. The mass vaccination with COVID vaccines, will help to increase the herd immunity. This study is an attempt to assess the knowledge and attitude of the adult population of a panchayat area of Thrissur district of Kerala towards COVID-19 vaccination and socio-demographic determinants associated with it. Methods: We have done a cross-sectional study among 350 study participants selected by cluster sampling technique from a panchayat area of Thrissur district of Kerala and the data was collected, using a pretested semi structured questionnaire. The knowledge and attitude were assessed by proportion and association of socio-demographic determinants was found out using ‘t’ test and ‘ANOVA’ test. Results: The result obtained, showed 94.3% of persons responded that there is a vaccine for preventing COVID and 85.2% were aware that Covishield and Covaxin were the vaccine freely available. The 78.3% respondents knew that there should be 84 days between the doses of Covishield and 77.1% knew that 28 days for Covaxin. The 100% respondents had attitude to take the vaccine and 99.1% were ready to continue COVID prevention measures even after vaccination. As per this study, younger age (p=0.04) and religion (0.000) had an association with knowledge. Conclusions: The high level of knowledge and a100% attitude towards COVID vaccination may be due to high political will and accountability of the governments towards it. The places with low acceptance rate can be able to model on it.

Background: The world’s population is on the rise and so is the need for good housing and job opportunities. This has led to an increase in the number and overcrowding of existing slums which lack reliable sanitation and hygiene. People who work as househelps take on the responsibilities of the households where they work and their own families. The study was undertaken to determine the health status and quality of life of househelps residing in Goa.Methods: A Community based cross sectional study was carried out among househelps living in the semi-urban area of Goa. Participants were selected via snowball sampling. Information was collected through a predetermined questionnaire and via medical examination, after initial briefing. The data was compiled; analyzed and appropriate statistical tests were applied.Results: Marriage before 20 years of age was noted in majority (70.2%). Poor housing standards were noticed in 94%.64% had increased working hours. 80% of the househelps had health complaints of backache, menstrual problems, fever. Statistically significant difference was observed between daily working hours and morbidity, and between age of marriage and number of children. Number of children and morbidity also showed significant statistical relationship.Conclusions: The study highlights the problems faced by the domestic helps which can be tackled by implementing laws which recognize them as a part of the organized sector, holding health camps in rural areas, increasing awareness about the diseases spread in an unhygienic environment.

Background: In high-income countries, dedicated self-harm surveillance systems are regarded as a key component in suicide prevention strategies, which suggests they may be important in low- and middle-income countries where rates of suicide are higher and risk factors for self-harm are different, provided they can be shown to be feasible in those settings.Methods: We established a hospital based self-harm register in Mysore, South India. A subset of participants was followed-up after two years. Results: Of the 453 who were examined at baseline, the vast majority (80%) were from rural areas, nearly a quarter were illiterate and 65 (14%) were diagnosed with depression. Compared to men, women tended to be younger, single, from rural areas, unemployed, with lower levels of educational attainment and higher levels of disability. Of the 453, 371 (80%) were successfully contacted by cellphone at 2 years. There were no significant differences in baseline variables between those followed-up and those who were not, including sociodemographic features, rates of depression, severity of disability and severity of suicidal intent. All participants reported that psychosocial assessment offered at baseline was helpful and that they would recommend assessment to othersConclusions: Findings from this study indicate that our self-harm register was a feasible and useful resource, and that contact and follow up are acceptable and feasible.

Background: Air pollution leads to several health effects, the major systems affected were respiratory, dermatology, neurology and ophthalmology. This study is an attempt to find out various health effects of pollution, from a food factory to the nearby residents.Methods: A cross sectional comparative study was performed on 248 residents nearby a food factory, situated in rural area of Thrissur district and a comparative group of 266 participants taken 5km away from this factory.Results: Both the groups were comparable in socio-demographic profile except religion and occupation. There was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) between the use of firewood in both the groups. The symptoms of major systems involved were respiratory (odds ratio 3.9, 95% CI 2.2 to 6.8), dermatological (odds ratio 18.3, 95% CI 8.3 to 40.7), neurological (odds ratio 13.5, 95% CI 4.1 to 44.7) and ophthalmological (odds ratio 5.9, 95% CI 2.6 to 13.6). The major symptoms complained by them were pruritus (32.7%), skin lesions (17.7%), breathlessness (16.9%), itching eye (13.3%) watering from eye (11.7%) and headache (11.3%). All these symptoms among the case group compared to control group were very high and these associations were highly statistically significant (p<0.001).Conclusions: This study showed an increased occurrence of adverse health effects among the individuals who were residing near the food factory. Therefore this study points out the possibility of environmental pollution (mainly air pollution) as a main factor for the increased prevalence of symptoms among those who reside nearby the factory.

Background: India has granted emergency use authorization to two COVID-19 vaccines, Pune based Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Hyderabad- based Bharat Biotech International Ltd.’s Covaxin, for the vaccination drive. Once a vaccine is in use, it must be continuously monitored to make sure it continues to be safe. These data will add on in policy making and also help vaccine to be safely tracked throughout its use. In view of above background present study has been conducted to determine adverse effect following immunization.Methods: A cross sectional observational study was conducted among 400 MBBS students of a rural medical college in Chhattisgarh, India from January 2021 to March 2021. Approval was taken from institutional ethical committee and written informed consent was obtained from participants. A semi-open questionnaire was used to estimate the adverse effect following Covishield administration. Data was processed, analysed using SPSS software and information was obtained.Results: Study shows most common adverse effect was pain at injection site (86%), followed by fever (76%). Female received more (69%) treatment compared to male (31%). Almost 100% of subject experienced adverse effect following immunization (AEFI) following first dose administration whereas about 20% only experienced adverse effect following administration of second dose.Conclusions: Pain at injection site was most common adverse effect followed by fever. Adverse effect was four times more with first dose compared to second dose. Female received more treatment compared to male. Majority had fever and pain for 1-2 days only. Thus, it was concluded that vaccine have no serious side effect.

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is considered one of the most common diseases in the world. It has a complex aetiology that includes both irreversible and reversible risk variables. Diet and its practice, sedentary way of life are the key factors for rapidly rising incidence amongst developing countries. Different methodological approach, to construct their diet patterns and their composition bound to conclusions on healthy patterns for diabetics. The study aimed to assess the dietary pattern among type 2 diabetic patients in rural field practice area of department of community medicine, Suttur, Mysuru.Methods: The study was conducted at rural primary health center, Suttur, Mysore. 384 patients with type 2 diabetes (having for >1 years) aged between 18-70 years formed the study population. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to obtain data about dietary practices and food frequency questionnaire was used to assess food intake.Results: Results revealed 70% were illiterates, 47.9% were between 1-3 years duration of diabetes and 97.4% followed both diet and oral medications. All of them consumed 3 meals a day. Dietary practices incorporated due to diabetic state were: cereals (100%) and fruits (166.6%), meat and poultry (200.6%) weekly.Conclusions: It is one such type of disease which can be prevented at various levels by identifying predictors. Diabetic patients had poor dietary practices and consumed protective foods inadequately. Dietary practices did not change markedly except for reduction in cereals, and fruits.

Background: Depression is a common and major public health problem among geriatric people, but it is not a normal part of aging. It is not just a low mood or feeling sad, but a serious condition that needs treatment and has serious effects on physical as well as mental health. It is one of the hidden problems of the geriatric people.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 196 elderly people from Kaski district of Nepal using geriatric depression scale to assess the level of depression. Wards of metropolitan was randomly selected and represented as urban area and ward of rural municipality were randomly selected and considered as rural areas. Data were collected by face-to-face interview among geriatric people. Data were analyzed by SPSS v.16 version. The appropriate statistical tests were applied based on the nature of the data, setting the level of significance at p<0.05.Results: Out of total 196 study participants 101 were from urban area and 95 from rural area. The overall prevalence of depression was 55.1%. In this study geriatric depression was significantly associated with: spouse status, living arrangement, satisfaction with living condition, family support, family care, abuse, relationship with son, relationship with daughter in law, work, discrimination, social isolation and loneliness and health problems.Conclusions: More than half of the elderly population had developed depressive symptoms. Immediate addressing of geriatric depression by providing health services, counseling and harmonious relationship among geriatric people and family members especially their son and daughter in law should be created by providing social support and counseling to family members.