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MOSAIC: Japan to have 20,000 centenarians
Sari cloth reduces cholera FILTERING water with a folded piece of old cloth before drinking it cuts the rate of cholera contraction by half, according to a three-year study in 65 Bangladeshi villages published recently in the US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The finding has the potential to save thousands of lives annually. Fabric from saris was cheap and readily available to the 133,000 people who participated in the study, and comparable fabrics could function as filters for populations at risk for cholera around the world. Ingesting a high dose of the water-borne bacteria Vibrio cholerae O1, produces cholera, an infection that causes severe dehydration brought on by acute diarrhoea and vomiting. Left untreated, cholera can kill a person in 24 hours. According to Who, nearly 124,000 cases of the disease were reported in 2002, including 3,763 deaths. A large majority of these appeared on the African continent and in India. These statistics are highly unreliable, however, because many countries, including Bangladesh, do not report cholera data to Who. The sari cloth traps not V. cholerae themselves but copepods as well. They are a type of zooplankton onto whose mouths, surfaces, and egg cases, the vibrio attach. Although much of the vibrio did remain free in the filtered water, their number often diminished enough to fall short of an infective dose. The dilution lowered the rate of cholera infection by 48 per cent. For those who did contract cholera via filtered water, the severity of the disease appears to have lessened, the report says. Electron microscopy had revealed that the sari cloth, when folded four to eight times, would create a filter of approximately 20mm pore size, removing all copepods — and the cholera-causing bacteria attached to them — from the water. Old saris used in the experiment were expected to be more effective than the new ones, their laundered fabric resulting in a smaller pore size. Rivers and ponds are a common source of drinking water for the villages in rural Bangladesh. Boiling water, which kills all waterborne microorganisms, is often impossible for the villagers, who are hard-pressed to find dry wood for fuel or the money to buy it. High concentrations of arsenic in the groundwater make well sources a poor alternative. The experiment, conducted by researchers from the University of Maryland in the United States and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease in Bangladesh, compared the presence of cholera in households that filtered their water with old saris to households that used a nylon mesh filter and to those that had no filter at all. The nylon mesh filter was nearly as effective as the sari cloth in reducing cholera, but the material is more costly and harder to find in rural Bangladesh than material from saris. — Samina Iqbal Taping the knee OSTEOARTHIRITIS is a leading cause of pain and disability in elderly people, states the New England Journal of Medicine. The treatment is symptomatic as there is no absolute cure for the problem. Knee taping is believed to relieve pain by improving alignment of the patellofemoral joint and/or unloading inflamed soft tissues. A study was done in Australia on 87 patients with symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, to determine if knee taping had any benefits after stopping treatment. The trial comprised a three week intervention period and a three week follow up Tape was applied by 12 trained physiotherapists, was worn for three weeks and reapplied weekly. Therapeutic tape provided all the movements, medial glide, medial tilt and anteroposterior tilt to the patella. To prevent stretching, taping helped to unload the infrapatellar fat pad. Participants allocated to the no tape group received no intervention. The primary outcome was change in pain and disability, measured on a visual analogue scale After intervention the tape group showed a significantly greater reduction in pain than no tape groups. This benefit continued for three weeks after stopping the treatment, indicating a prolonged effect of therapeutic tape. Subtle changes in patellar position may alter the magnitude or distribution of patellofemoral joint pressures or stress on joint structures by taping. Unloading the fat pad may reduce strain on this often-inflamed soft tissue. The study concluded that therapeutic knee taping reduces pain and self reported disability in knee osteoarthritis. Also knee taping is a simple, inexpensive self management strategy.— Fatema Jawad | ||
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