Skip to main content

As we rush through life!

In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. About 3 minutes: The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. At 45 minutes: The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.  After 1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He...
2 comments

BLOOD TRANSFUSION - 1

Blood transfusion is not always safe for the recipients. In most of the countries , standard tests those are conducted to detect any infection in donor's blood are not full proof. I wrote an article on this for someone but the article remained with me for some reason. I would like to share the information it has with you. Since the article is long enough , I am going to publish it in few installments.

INTRODUCTION

Hepatitis B is the dreaded disease, especially when it is transmitted through blood received from donation. The detection of hepatitis B in blood became easy when hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) was discovered. This helped decrease the occurrence of hepatitis in post-transfusion scenario. As such this has been a major breakthrough to arrest the spread of hepatitis B through blood transfusion. This helped the detection of hepatitis B ‘e’ antigen, hepatitis B core antigen (anit-HBc) and HBsAg as well. The common method of detecting hepatitis B infection is screening the blood by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay or ELISA for HBsAg. But this could not rule out the incidence of post transfusion incidence of hepatitis B with the receiver of blood from donor totally. This is because during a phase called “window period”, the screening of blood for detecting of the viral presence does not work fully. During this period the virus of hepatitis B can escape the detection for the serological response of host to infection, so HBsAg can avoid detection their presence in blood though the infection of hepatitis B virus is present. This “window phase” denotes a period when the disease is carried but not effective, so this poses a definite hazard to the recipient of blood from the donor who is going through “window phase”. It necessitates during the `the window period` marking the antibody of hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) which could serve as a serological marker of hepatitis B infection.
The conventional blood tests fail to serve this purpose. That is why blood transfused from apparent healthy donors with anti –HBc of IgG variety; that may not affect the donors due to presence of high anti bodies of HBsAg (anti HBs) since they are protective in nature. But it may infect the healthy recipient with the virus of hepatitis B in case of blood transfusion from such donors. In many ethnic groups or countries; there are high incidences of presence HBsAg, so it is obvious that there is lots of scope for inadvertently transfusing HBV infected blood. Therefore the need arose for a marker that should be used for blood screening on such population while they are on such “window period or phase”. A marker what helps to detect the presence of hepatitis B virus during this period (Hoofnagle, Seef, Bales, et al.1978 : Douglas, Taswell, Rakela, Rabe.1993) by screening the donors blood for anti –HbcAg antibody amongst the IgM type and at the same time detecting the antibodies to hepatitis B core antigen IgM type i.e anti-HBcAg in the donor population.

To be continued................
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DARJEELING - THE HISTORY

“DARJEELING”, the very name of this hill station in India reminds you the colonial days and tea. Because it was the British colonizers; who were constantly on look out for cooler places, obviously in India it uses to be in hills what would remind them their home. The temperature in tropical countries, particularly in summer months use to be unbearable for them for mercury touching anywhere between 35 to 44 degree Celsius! In India Shimla and Darjeeling earned their reputation for hosting the colonial administrators with their staffs with families during summer months for running colonial administration for years. Though with English rulers, gone are the colonial days and prestige of Darjeeling, but it still holds name in world for its tea. It still the producer of world number one flavored tea and sold at a price, unthinkable for we ordinary mortals! Off late, a new hue for Gorkhaland is raised time and again. It stared in the decades of 90s, lot of agitations, number of strikes call...
16 comments
Read more

A blank sheet of paper!

In busy office hours; amidst humming and buzzing noises; I got lost seeing an extra piece of white sheet in that sheaf  of reports!   I was about to check; that was urgent.  My mind focused on memory; how long it was I wrote a letter or anything on paper! Could not recollect exactly. The last letter I must have written to my mother who departed in 2003. But obviously it was much earlier to her settling to ‘rest in peace’ forever. The white sheet tempted me to write anything that comes in my mind as I used to long ago; long after I wrote last! Gone are the days of letters. Email and SMS replaced and outdated them almost totally; ever since computer permeated to our offices first and then our households. I am not sure how the word ‘love letter’ sounds to young generations! My heart still throbs faster when I remember writing or receiving my first one! I held the pen again though not sure enough what to write about! Received a jolt finishing the very first ...
2 comments
Read more

As we rush through life!

In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. About 3 minutes: The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. At 45 minutes: The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.  After 1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed and no one applauded.  There was no recognition at all. No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He...
2 comments
Read more