Edu Dept facilitates ‘charity’ for NGO, DGSE orders probe

NGO purportedly working to create awareness on AIDS/HIV

A curious case of government senior secondary schools being asked to donate money to an NGO, purportedly working to create awareness on AIDS/HIV, has come to light in Bathinda.

The schools have been made to pay Rs 2,500 per cluster for the Delhi-based private NGO. Bathinda district has 46 clusters and each cluster has six to 13 schools in it. This way, the department has managed to collect an estimated Rs 1,15,000 for the NGO in the last 15 days when the drive was first started.

The schools were directed to collect the amount as charity. While in some schools, the teachers paid the amount, in others, it was the students who were made to pay.

The issue was duly listed on the agenda at the monthly meeting held at the Teachers’ Home today. The agenda even mentioned the schools that did not pay the amount. This includes the Government Senior Secondary School (Boys), Balianwali, government schools at Bhai Rupa, Bhagi Vandar, Bhagta, Maisarkhana, Maluka (Boys), Rampura Mandi (Girls), Sheikhpura, Bathinda (Girl), Kalyan Sukha, Goniana (Girls and Boys), Kotshamir, Kuti and Maur Mandi (Girls).

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HIV cases on rise in dist-Bathinda

The number of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) positive cases in Bathinda district appears to be gaining alarming proportions.In the first six months of this calendar year i.e. January to June 2011, as many as 134 HIV positive cases have been detected while during the entire 2010, a total of 162 HIV positive cases were detected in the district.

Five persons have already lost their lives this calendar year due to various diseases owing to lack of immunity due to HIV. Eleven HIV positive persons died in 2010 and one in 2009.

Three Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres (ICTCs) in the district had reported these 17 deaths, which included three by the Bathinda centre and six each by the Talwandi Sabo and Rampura Phul centres.

According to information available, out of 134 HIV positive cases detected between January to June this year, 110 were detected at the Bathinda ICTC alone. Nine cases were detected at the Rampura Phul ICTC and three cases at the Talwandi Sabo centre. Apart from these, two HIV positive cases each were detected at the link ICTCs situated at Goniana, Sangat, Ballianwali and Raman while four were detected at Maur’s link ICTC.

Sources said that there could be more cases that were lying undetected.

It may be mentioned here that in 2008, as many as 91 HIV positive cases were reported in the district while in 2009, the number of HIV positive cases touched the figure of 123.

According to an official of the Health Department, detection of a large number of HIV positive cases is due to testing of blood samples of pregnant women, blood donors, TB patients etc on a large scale for ruling out the HIV. Other factors responsible for HIV occurrence are unsafe sex, drug addiction and use of untreated syringes and needles.

134 cases have been detected in the district during the first six months of this year

5 HIV positive persons have lost their lives during the period.

src.http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110725/bathinda.htm#4

PEOPLE WITH HIV SUFFER MEMORY LOSS

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have solved a longstanding medical mystery – why so many people with HIV experience memory loss and other cognitive problems despite potent antiretroviral therapy.

Even though antiretroviral treatment suppresses HIV replication and slows the progress of HIV disease, between 40 and 60 percent of HIV-infected people eventually develop mild-to-moderate neurological deficits, and up to 5 percent develop full-blown dementia. Until now, researchers have not been able to explain why these complications, collectively known as neuroAIDS, occur.

In a previous study, the Einstein researchers found that HIV infects about 5 percent of brain cells known as astrocytes. These cells bolster the blood-brain barrier, a network of blood vessels that prevents harmful substances from crossing into the brain from the bloodstream. Now, they have shown that even this low-level of astrocyte infection can profoundly damage the blood-brain barrier.

“The relatively few infected astrocytes emit toxic signals through specialized channels that kill neighboring uninfected astrocytes, ultimately weakening the blood-brain barrier and allowing harmful compounds to enter the brain,” said senior author Joan Berman, Ph.D., professor of pathology and of microbiology and immunology at Einstein.

The evidence came from a laboratory model of the blood-brain barrier constructed of human cells and from examining brain tissue of macaque monkeys infected with the simian form of HIV. The results suggest that drugs capable of reducing the damaging signaling cascades triggered by HIV-infected astrocytes might help in preventing or treating neuroAIDS. Their findings were published in the June 29 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

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