BackgroundThe World Health Organization has declared tuberculosis a global emergency in 1993. It has been estimated that one third of the world population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. The emergence of TB/HIV co-infection poses an additional challenge for the control of tuberculosis throughout the world. The World Health Organization is supporting many developing countries to eradicate tuberculosis. It is an agony that one fifth of the tuberculosis patients worldwide are in India. The eradication of tuberculosis is the greatest public health challenge for this developing country. The aim of the present population based study on Mycobacterium tuberculosis is to test a large set of tuberculosis cases for the presence of statistically significant geographical clusters. A spatial scan statistic is used to identify purely spatial and space-time clusters of tuberculosis.ResultsSignificant (p < 0.05 for primary clusters and p < 0.1 for secondary clusters) high rate spatial and space-time clusters were identified in three areas of the district.ConclusionThere is sufficient evidence about the existence of statistically significant tuberculosis clusters in Almora district of Uttaranchal, India. The spatial scan statistics methodology used in this study has a potential use in surveillance of tuberculosis for detecting the true clusters of the disease.

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Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the newly discovered SARS-COV-2. Older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions, such as diabetes and obesity, appear to have the worst outcomes with the COVID-19 virus. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries enforced stringent lockdowns to prevent the spread of the disease. India had a lockdown of 68 days between 21st March and 31st May 2020. In this background, we undertook this study to assess the effect of the lockdown on the glycemic status and weight of people with diabetes, which was indirectly an opportunity to assess the self-care practices of people with diabetes. Material and Methods: The subjects included in the study were people with type 2 diabetes identified from electronic medical records who had attended the Jai Clinic and Diabetes Care Centre in Lucknow and were tested for HbA1c between 20th Feb 2020 and 20th March 2020. A total of 313 people with diabetes were identified meeting the inclusion criteria, out of which 171 were females and 142 were males. They were again tested for HbA1c between 1st June 2020 and 1st July 2020 after lockdown. Their pre- and post-lockdown HbA1c and weight were analyzed statistically. Results: HbA1c was increased in 195 patients, which was statistically significant. A total of 151 patients had an increase in weight compared to their prelockdown weights, but it was not statistically significant. Furthermore, an increase in weight correlated with an increase in HbA1c and a decrease in weight correlated with a decrease in HbA1c. Both were statistically significant. Conclusion: Optimum diabetes control and adherence to good self-care practices is the need of hour, and contingency plans for medicines and diabetes care supplies are of utmost importance in these testing times.

Introduction: Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and Type 2 Diabetes share a bidirectional relationship. NAFLD can increase the severity of diabetic microvascular and macrovascular complications. Ultrasonography, the most commonly used method of assessment of NAFLD in India, is associated with intra-operator variability and false positives. Transient elastography and Liver Stiffness Measurement (LSM) have emerged as one of the best modalities to screen NAFLD in people with diabetes. Aim: Screening for NAFLD in people with Type 2 Diabetes and its association with age, Body Mass Index (BMI) and duration of diabetes. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study conducted on patients with known Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) who visited the study center between July 2019 and November 2019 for consultation. A total of 287 people with diabetes were subjected to FibroScan test and LSM was done. The other variables-age, gender, duration of diabetes, height, weight, BMI and HbA1c were recorded for all subjects and the collected data was correlated using Spearman rho test. Results: The study population included 61% males and 39% females. The mean age was 46.96 years and the mean duration of diabetes was 10.98 years. The mean Glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) value was 9.28%. The median value of LSM by M probe was 7.16. Out of the total, 78 (27.2%) were identified with advanced fibrosis with LSM >9.6. Advanced fibrosis was strongly correlated with HbA1c (r=0.820), age (r=0.562) and duration of diabetes (r=0.596) and moderately with BMI (r=0.375). Conclusion: The screening of people with type 2 diabetes for NAFLD using LSM revealed 27.2% subjects with advanced fibrosis, it correlated positively with age, BMI and duration of diabetes.