Background: The incidence of breast cancer is seen to be low in India as compared to western countries, however the mortality is low. The knowledge about breast cancer, breast awareness and self-breast examination is the need of the hour. Breast Cancer, if caught in the early stages, makes it curable by various modalities of treatment. Our study aims here to qualitatively explore the views and ideas of the women in rural area about breast cancer and the need of a better comprehensive program. Method: A community based cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample size of 672 with a pre-tested questionnaire with open-ended questions for qualitative exploration. It was done by door-to-door survey. Resident females of the village above 30years were included and females with chronic illness and temporary residents were excluded. Results: The mean age of participants was 42.38±9.76 years with 48.2% educated till secondary school and 83.2% belonged to OBC category. The perceptions were assessed with qualitative findings where it was found that most of the females believed that they don't have breast cancer even before getting screened and so they didn't want to get mammography. However they affirmed that a doorstep approach of activities would be beneficial. They also said that doorstep activities help get good information of breast cancer signs and symptoms and program like this will be a good approach. Conclusion: Doorstep approach can be a welcome change in imparting awareness.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 was declared as pandemic by the WHO in March 2020. Social distancing and hand hygiene is advised during the pandemic to contain the spread of the virus. Rapid sharing of scientific information in an extraordinary way is the characteristic of the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be gap between information provided and received. Perception and practices in the community regarding handling materials need to be pointed out. the aim of this study was to assess the perception about myths and facts and change in the practices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among the faculties. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted during May–June 2020 among the faculties of Science and Technology. By multistage sampling technique, five districts from Maharashtra state and then one institution from each district was selected. A questionnaire was shared by Internet to institutional faculties. Descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-square test) is applied. RESULTS: Out of 276 faculties, 248 had responded. Most of the faculties were aware about basic preventive measures for COVID-19 infection. However, 25% of the faculties were unaware about the safe physical distance. Eating garlic and pepper protect against COVID-19 as per 63 (25.3%) and 59 (23.9%) faculties, respectively, was effective, whereas 56.8% of participants did not believe so. 93 (37.5%) respondents believed that respiratory function ultimately indicates the presence or absence of disease. About 95% of participants adopted new hygienic practices during the pandemic ( P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: COVID-19 can spread rapidly if the basic preventive measures are ignored by the small proportion of unaware people Hence, awareness needs to be improved. People have adapted to new hygienic practices for handling the material during the pandemic.