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Virtual autopsy: No cuts to body, no hurt feelings

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NEW DELHI: For a family that has lost someone to an unnatural death — be it suicide or accident — the grief is compounded when they have to witness the deceased’s dissected and sutured body after the postmortem.

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Autopsy, which is essentially the procedure to examine the external and internal organs of the deceased to assess the cause and manner of death, involves cutting open the body. “Most families don’t want it done. But they have no choice as post-mortem is an important part of police investigation in case of an unnatural death,” says Dr Sudhir Gupta, professor and head of forensic medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Dr Gupta and his team are, therefore, starting out an experiment, with the support of Indian Council of Medical Research, where autopsy will be conducted virtually. It is an established practice in many western countries, for example Switzerland.

Virtual autopsy, as the term suggests, involves examining the internal organs, tissues and bones in the dead body without touching it. The body is packed in a bag, which is then put through a CT scan machine and within seconds, thousands of images of the internal organs are captured, which are analysed further by forensic experts.

AIIMS conducts nearly 3,000 autopsies every year. Autopsies using conventional methods takes anywhere between 30 minutes and three days, depending on the complexity of the case and the availability of experts.

The head of the forensics department said they have already set up a digital X-ray machine to conduct autopsy of the deceased with bone injuries or fractures caused after an accident. “We had been researching a lot on virtual autopsy. The project, however, requires investment in terms of buying CT scan machine and creating a new post-mortem room for the same. The ICMR’s new initiative to select 10 projects for funding under its ‘Centre for Advanced Research and Excellence program came as a boon. The ICMR head Dr Balram Bhargava liked our idea and approved funding for the virtual autopsy project,” Dr Gupta added.

He said that in virtual autopsy, the deceased’s records are available in digital format and thus it permits additional analysis by other forensic pathologists on the same body; second or third opinion even after years if some allegations crop up in the future.

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Munmun Dutta shares transformation photos, says she is ‘feeling the change’

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Munmun Dutta who is most popular for portraying the part of Babita iyer in TMKOC has taken instagram to share her change pictures.

She shared a split of two photographs showing the distinction in her look prior to going through the program, and after it. She wrote in the subtitle that the interaction is as yet in progress and she is anticipating her wellness venture.

 

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Munmun in her caption wrote, “Great part was, at long last after not turning out for right around 4 months, I got once more into the propensity for working out routinely once more. Long approach to accomplish the god-like physique however I am on target and persuaded to do as such. It will be an excursion and I am anticipating it.”

As of late, Munmun had purchased another level in Mumbai and shared photographs of it via online media. She said that purchasing the new house was a “little glimpse of heaven” second for her.

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Health & Fitness

Life expectancy in India drops by 2 years due to Covid pandemic: Report

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A statistical analysis conducted by Mumbai’s International Institute for Population Studies shows that life expectancy in India has dropped by roughly two years due to Covid-19 pandemic.

According to IIPS assistant professor Surayakant Yadav, the life expectancy at birth for men and women has declined from 69.5 years and 72 years in 2019 to 67.5 years and 69.8 respectively in 2020, reports Times of India.

‘Life expectancy at birth’ is defined as the average number of years that a newborn is expected to live if the mortality pattern during their birth remains constant in the future.

The study was conducted to analyse the effect of the Covid pandemic on the mortality patterns across the country, as thousands of lives were lost due to the deadly pandemic waves.

The study also found out that the Covid toll was reported to be the highest for men in the age group of 35-69. The excess deaths in this age bracket due to Covid led to a sharp drop in life expectancy.

The IIPS based its study on the data collected by the 145-nation Global Burden of Disease study and the Covid-India Application Programme Interface (API) portal.

Yadav further added, “The Covid impact has wiped out the progress we made in the last decade to increase the life expectancy figure. India’s life expectancy at birth now is the same as it was in 2010. It will take us years to catch up.”

However, IIPS director Dr K S James added that epidemics in the past in countries, including Africa, massively impacted life expectancy, but it recouped in a few years.

Source : IndiaToday

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Health & Fitness

3rd Covid Wave Unlikely To Mirror Devastating 2nd Wave: Top Medical Body

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Rapid scale-up of vaccination efforts, says the study, could play an important role in mitigating the present and future waves of the disease.

New Delhi: A potential third wave of Covid infections seems unlikely to be as severe as the second wave, says a modelling study by a team of scientists from the Indian Council Of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Imperial College London, UK. Rapid scale-up of vaccination efforts, says the study, could play an important role in mitigating the present and future waves of the disease.

India’s first wave of SARSCoV-2 infection began in late January 2020 with a peak attained in mid-September. This phase was relatively mild compared to the second wave that followed, from mid-February 2021 onwards, exhibiting a more explosive spread across the country. A major factor driving this second wave is the emergence of more-infectious variants of SARS-CoV-2, principally B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant) and B.1.617.2 (Delta variant), of which the latter has played a dominant role in recent months.

Third waves have emerged in other countries – like the UK and the USA – and are driven by a range of factors, says the study.

The results suggest that a third wave, if it should occur, is unlikely to be as severe as the second wave, given the extent of spread that has already taken place in India, it adds.

“Consequently, for a virus to cause a major third wave in the face of this pre-existing immunity, extreme scenarios for the abrogation of that immunity are required, or for that matter, for the transmission fitness of any novel virus,” says the article in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.

For the wave to be as devastating, at least 30 per cent of the population who had been infected earlier must entirely lose their immunity, or an emerging variant of the virus must have a reproductive rate (R) over 4.5, that is, each infected person should be spreading to at least 4-5 others and these must occur almost immediately after the second wave ends, according to the study.

The emergence of a third wave in India could be substantially mitigated by the expansion of vaccination, says the study, adding the rollout of vaccine should be in such a way as to cover 40 per cent of the population with two doses over a period of three months following the end of the second wave, which is on the decline currently.

Crowding, use of mask and physical distancing during social interactions are all key factors shaping transmission rate and therefore population-level spread, the study cautions.

“Lockdown-release mechanisms could be a plausible driver for a third wave in India, depending on how effectively lockdowns have controlled transmission during the second wave particularly when instated at an early stage of the second wave and prior to attainment of peak,” says the study.

The analysis, says scientists, is intended to be illustrative and not predictive.

“In the present approach, we considered essentially a uniform waning rate over the spectrum of severity. Second, the basic reproduction number (equivalently, the rate-of-transmission) was assumed to remain constant during each wave,” said the scientists explaining the methodology used in the study.

Source : NDTV

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