25.3 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses. Around 2 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2014 and 1.2 million people died from AIDSrelated causes worldwide. 1 India has the third highest number of estimated people living with HIV in the world. According to the HIV Estimations 2012, the estimated ABSTRACT Background: AIDS is one among the complex health problems of today's world, in the year 2014 there were 36.9 million people living with HIV. Since 2000, around 38.1 million people have become infected with HIV and 25.3 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses. India has the third highest number of estimated people living with HIV in the world. Though the overall trend of HIV in India shows a declining trend, the HIV infected cases among adolescent age group in India is on the rise. The aim is to assess the knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS among engineering students and to assess the attitude of students towards people infected with HIV/AIDS. Methods: Cross sectional study done among 500 college students from an engineering college in Nellore district from August 2015 to September 2015. The selection of study subjects was done using convenience sampling. After consenting, each participant answered a questionnaire comprising of questions pertaining to awareness and attitude of people toward PLHA. Results: About 54% of the participants were aware that HIV can spread through body fluids such as blood, semen/vaginal fluid and breast milk and 58% knew that HIV can spread by having sex with an infected partner. About 37% of the students answered that they would not sit next to a HIV infected person on a bus and 59% of the students responded that they would divorce their spouse if they happen to know that (he/she) is infected. Conclusions: Though the study population is aware of the disease HIV/AIDS, complete knowledge about the disease, its modes of spread and protective measures is not satisfactory. It is observed that stigmatization and tendency to discriminate people living with HIV/AIDS is still present and there is no complete acceptance of positive cases by the study subjects.

On 4th December 2020, a sudden outbreak, with neurological symptoms like seizures, loss of consciousness etc., was reported in a town from south India. By 3rd day about 400 people were involved. A multi disciplinary team from our institute visited the site to investigate the outbreak. Based on the case history and clinical examination of the patients, the team suspected a probable diagnosis of an acute pesticide, heavy metal and/or mycotoxin exposure for which, biological samples (blood, urine) were collected from those who reported the symptoms as well as from a few who did not report symptoms (controls). To identify the source, water and food samples were collected. The samples were subjected to ICP-MS for heavy metal analysis, LC-MS/MS for pesticide analysis, microbiological analysis and ELISA-Kit method for aflatoxins if any. Clinical and dietary details were collected from a total of 112 participants, of which, 103 cases (77 active cases at Hospital and 26 recovered cases from community) and 9 were controls. A total of 109 biological samples, 36 water samples and food samples were collected. The mean age of the study participants was 29.2 years. Among cases, Seizures were seen in 84%, loss of consciousness in 66%, mental confusion in 35%, pinpoint pupil in 11%. Triazophos (organophosphate) pesticide was present in 74% of Blood samples and its metabolites were present in 98% of the urine samples collected from the cases. All the ten heavy metals investigated including lead, mercury and nickel were found to be within permissible limits except for a few samples. No presence of mycotoxins was observed in Food samples. Water samples which included Head pump and reservoir were free from pesticides; however, all water samples from households of cases had triazophos pesticide with a mean concentration of 1.00 ug/L. Thus, it was concluded that, the probable cause of outbreak was Triazophos (Organophosphate) pesticide contamination in water at the Household level. Regular surveillance for the presence of residual pesticides in soil, water and food with heightened vigour is recommended to prevent future outbreaks.