Sunday, July 29, 2012

MINUTES AND RESOLUTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE BODY MEETING OF IAMM AP CHAPTER

An executive body meeting of IAMM AP Chapter was held on 25th June 2012, at the Department of Microbiology, Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad in the chambers of Dr. P.R. Anuradha, Vice president of IAMM AP Chapter and Professor and Head, Department of Microbiology, Gandhi Medical College to discuss various issues and the following resolutions were made.

1. REGISTRATION OF THE ASSOCIATION : In accordance with the resolutions passed in the General body meeting at Kurnool Medical College, Kurnool during XV IAMM AP Chapter Annual Conference, 2012, it is resolved to register the IAMM AP Chapter as soon as possible. The PAN Card will also be applied after the registration process is completed. Also it is decided to prepare a letter head, receipt books and rubber stamps for the association. All the executive members have signed the registration form and also submitted the Photos and Photo IDs as required for the registration. It is also resolved to pay the registration and renewal fees from the funds of IAMM AP Chapter.

2. PG Memberships : In furtherance of the resolution passed in the General body meeting during the year 2008, it is resolved to continue ONLY PG Memberships for all the postgraduates that is valid for 3 years by payment of Rs. 500-00. This is going to be implemented from this year 2012. But the PGs who are already in the final year , who have not taken the PG 3 year membership earlier , may take annual membership by paying Rs.250/-, only for the current financial year . The membership is a must for participation of any events or competitions at the conference (The rules, regulations , membership guidelines and membership form will be available on the website). From here onwards only 3 year PG membership and life membership will be continued.

ALL THE POST GRADUATES ARE REQUESTED TO NOTE THIS AND TAKE MEMBERSHIPS AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.  PLEASE PASS ON THE MESSAGE TO OTHERS.

3. NEWS BULLETIN : A comprehensive news bulleting with updates once a year will be published. Keeping in view of the increased postal/courier rates, it is resolved to circulate the news letter through email only. The News letter will also be available on the website. This is supplementary to the other regular updates available on the website from time to time.

4. SUPPORT FOR POSTGRADUATE TEACHING/ RESEARCH ACTIVITES : It is resolved to gather information from the research or referral institutes regarding the facilities available and disseminate the same through regular updates on the website.

5. It is resolved to submit a memorandum to the Secretary, IAMM (Dr. Iyer Ranganathan), regarding the delays and non receipt of the journals by many of the life members.

6. It is resolved that the residential address of the secretary for the particular period has to be submitted as the address of communications and also for submitting the same to the registration authorities from time to time.

7. Guidelines for PG pedagogy Competetion at the conference : it is resolved to frame the guidelines for the PG pedagogy based on the guidelines of the Microteaching of the Teaching methodology courses, which will be published in the web site. (The guidelines will be published soon).

8. It is decided to suggest a topic on “curriculum design” in the conferences as a form of a group discussion or a small symposium. Needs to be discussed with the convener of the annual conference.

9. PG Practical examinations : it is resolved to call for opinions from the senior faculty and heads of the departments regarding reducing the duration of PG (MD) practical examination from 3 days to 2 days. The opinions may be submitted with justifications, so that a consolidated opinion can be represented to higher authorities for consideration.

10. Decision to provide TA for the executive members attending the Executive body meetings : An approximate amount of Rs. 10,000 may be needed to meet the expenditure. The matter kept pending for further discussions before a final decision is taken.

11. It is resolved to discuss in the general body meeting about increasing the life membership fee (from Rs. 1000 to Rs. 2000) for the state chapter and also to give some discount in delegate fee for a particular time period (like early bird registration fee for the Life members) for the annual state conferences.

LIST OF THE PARTICIPANTS

1. Dr. K. Sreenivasa Rao, President, IAMM AP Chapter, Professor and Head, Dept of Microbiology, Kurnool Medical College, Kurnool

2. Dr. P.R.Anuradha, Vice-President, IAMM AP Chapter , Professor and head of Microbiology, Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad

3. K. Prasanthi, Secretary, IAMM AP Chapter Asst. Professor of Microbiology, Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad

4. Dr. Venkataramana, Treasurer, IAMM AP Chapter : Asst. professor of Microbiology, Guntur Medical College, Guntur

5. Dr. D.S.Murty, Joint Secretary,  IAMM AP Chapter, Asst. Professor of Microbiology, Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad

6. Dr. K.Saialeela, Executive Member, IAMM AP Chapter, Professor and Head of Microbiology, Kaimineni Institute of Medical Sciences, Narketpally

7. Dr. P.Sreenivasulu Reddy, Executive Member, IAMM AP Chapter, Professor of Microbiology, Narayana Medical College, Nellore

8. Dr. P. Kasturi, Executive Member, IAMM AP Chapter, Asst. Professor of Microbiology, Rangaraya Medical College, Kakinada

Website : http://sites.google.com/site/iammapchapter/
Email : iammapchapter@yahoo.co.in


Baruch Samuel Blumberg: 28th July

Baruch Samuel  Blumberg (July 28, 1925 – April 5, 2011) was an American doctor and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine .


The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1976 was awarded jointly to Baruch S. Blumberg and D. Carleton Gajdusek "for their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases"

Blumberg identified the Hepatitis B virus, and later developed its diagnostic test and vaccine.
His birthday is being observed as "World Hepatitis Day" (Read more)

Read the biography of Blumeberg

Read the obituary published in the "New Scientist" , after the death of this great scientist.
***
The life and times of a vaccine pioneer


15:49 - 6 April 2011
Roger Highfield, editor of New Scientist magazine

Baruch (Barry) Blumberg, the inventor of the world's first successful anticancer vaccine, has died aged 86.

His lifelong quest to fight the hepatitis B virus earned him a Nobel prize and the resulting vaccine prevented tens of millions of deaths from hepatitis and liver cancer.

I first met Barry in Oxford in the early 1990s, when he was the master of the university's Balliol College.

Late one night I had escorted his daughter Anne back to the college where I was greeted at the door by Barry, who was wearing only pyjamas and a mackintosh.

Typical of his warm and unpretentious demeanour, he immediately invited me in for a chat and a glass of whisky.

I would come to discover over the years that Barry was a truly extraordinary individual: an inspirational scientist, who had not only changed lives but saved them - tens of millions of them; a hard worker, who never retired; a person who was unceasingly curious about just about anything; and someone who was always fun to be with and enjoyed the support of a big, close, loving family.

Barry was born in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1920s, just before the economic depression in 1929. When his family moved to Queens he turned the basement of his parents' house into a laboratory.

At age 17, during the second world war, he was enlisted into the navy, which sent him to do a physics degree at Union College in upstate New York before he served as a deck officer on amphibious ships.

After the war Barry retrained as a doctor, working in Bellevue Hospital in lower New York ("Scenes on the wards were sometimes reminiscent of Hogarth's woodcuts of the public institutions of 18th-century London") before becoming interested in research.

Barry and his team discovered the hepatitis B virus. The team invented (and the Fox Chase Cancer Center patented) the vaccine in 1969, but it would take some time before they could interest a pharmaceutical company to help develop and produce it.

Where national hepatitis vaccination programmes have been introduced the impact has been dramatic. In China the prevalence fell from around 15 per cent to fewer than 1 per cent in less than a decade. In Taiwan, the incidence of the cancer fell by about two-thirds after vaccination was introduced in the early 1980s.

In 1976 Barry was awarded the Nobel prize for medicine. Since then he has written up his exploits in Hepatitis B: The hunt for a killer virus, was senior adviser to the president of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and president of the American Philosophical Society.

Barry was the founding director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, which focused on study of the origin, distribution, evolution and future of life on Earth and in the cosmos. As he remarked, it was "no mean programme. It addressed the heavy questions."

Barry died suddenly yesterday in California, where he had travelled to be at a NASA meeting.


World Hepatitis Day: 28 July 2012


Today, 28th July 2012, is being observed as "World Hepatitis Day".
“It’s closer than you think” is the theme of this year’s World Hepatitis Day.
The campaign focuses on raising awareness of the different forms of hepatitis: what they are and how they are transmitted; who is at risk; and the various methods of prevention and treatment.
The date, July 28 was chosen in honour of Nobel Laureate Prof. Baruch Samuel Blumberg, discoverer of the hepatitis B virus, who celebrates his birthday on that date.( The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1976 was awarded jointly to Baruch S. Blumberg and D. Carleton Gajdusek "for their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases")

READ MORE: (Source : WHO and Wikipedia)

World Hepatitis Day, observed on July 28 every year, aims to raise global awareness of hepatitis B and hepatitis C and encourage prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
“It’s closer than you think” is the theme of this year’s World Hepatitis Day, which takes place on 28 July 2012.

The campaign focuses on raising awareness of the different forms of hepatitis: what they are and how they are transmitted; who is at risk; and the various methods of prevention and treatment. 
According to WHO,
Hepatitis A : 1.4 million estimated cases occur annually
Hepatitis B : 2 billion people (estimated) worldwide have been infected with the virus
Hepatitis C : 150 million people are chronically infected with the virus.

Approximately 500 million people worldwide are living with either hepatitis B or hepatitis C. This represents 1 in 12 people, and was the basis for the 2008 World Hepatitis Day Am I Number 12? Campaign.


World Hepatitis Day has been led by the World Hepatitis Alliance since 2007 and on May 2010, it got global endorsement from the World Health Organization as one of only four mandated health awareness days, together with malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

In 2007 the World Hepatitis Alliance was formed to unite worldwide hepatitis B and hepatitis C patient groups and bring more public and political attention to the issue of viral hepatitis.

With input of its members (organizations from around the world working in the field of hepatitis), the newly titled World Hepatitis Day was switched to May 19, and launched with the campaign slogan 'Am I Number 12?' in 2008. ‘Am I Number 12?’ referred to the worldwide statistic that 1 in 12 people are living with viral hepatitis B or hepatitis C, and the slogan was translated into 40 different languages for use by patient organizations worldwide, and also displayed in banner form on several public landmarks.

'Am I number 12' was maintained as the theme for the 2009 World Hepatitis Day, with many alliance members also creating a hepatitis themed '12 asks of government'.
In 2010 the third annual World Hepatitis Day was held, with a new theme of 'This is hepatitis' given prominence. This is hepatitis gave a renewed focus to the human stories behind viral hepatitis. 'This is hepatitis' was retained as the theme for 2011.
In 2012 the ‘This is hepatitis’ theme has been evolved to ‘This is hepatitis… It’s closer than you think’. The new slogan encourages people to recognise how prevalent the condition is, that hepatitis is “closer to home” than many people may imagine, whilst continuing to break down the stigma associated with it.
Following the adoption of a viral hepatitis resolution during the 63rd World Health Assembly in May 2010, World Hepatitis Day was given global endorsement as the primary focus for national and international awareness-raising efforts and the date was changed to July 28 (in honour of Nobel Laureate Prof. Baruch Samuel Blumberg, discoverer of the hepatitis B virus, who celebrates his birthday on that date). The resolution resolves that:

"28 July shall be designated as World Hepatitis Day in order to provide an opportunity for education and greater understanding of viral hepatitis as a global public health problem, and to stimulate the strengthening of preventive and control measures of this disease in Member States;"


World Hepatitis Day dates, names, and themes: (Date-Name-Theme-Campaign message) :

1 October 2004-International Hepatitis C Awareness Day -"You have company" -If you have viral hepatitis, you are not alone

1 October 2005- World Hepatitis C Awareness Day -"Hepatitis C - A Priority Today" -Global prioritisation of hepatitis C awareness, treatment and vaccination

1 October 2006 -World Hepatitis Awareness Day-"Get tested" -If you think you may have been at risk of viral hepatitis, get tested and seek treatment.

1 October 2007 -World Hepatitis Awareness Day -"Get tested" -If you think you may have been at risk of viral hepatitis, get tested and seek treatment.

19 May 2008 -World Hepatitis Day "-Am I number 12?" -Hepatitis affects one in twelve people globally.

19 May 2009 -World Hepatitis Day -"Am I number 12?"- Hepatitis affects one in twelve people globally.

19 May 2010 -World Hepatitis Day -"This is hepatitis" Hepatitis: Get tested-Liver disease is long and complicated, getting tested is quick and simple

28 July 2011 -World Hepatitis Day -"This is hepatitis" -Hepatitis can affect anyone, anywhere. Know it. Confront it.

28 July 2012- World Hepatitis Day -“This is hepatitis… It’s closer than you think” -Hepatitis does not discriminate against age, race or gender. It can affect anyone, anywhere. Know it. Confront it. Get tested.
***

The Logo :
The World Hepatitis Day logo is the global symbol for encouraging better awareness, action, and support to prevent and treat viral hepatitis.



 
Source : Wikipedia

Important Links :

WHO on World Hepatitis Day

WHO Position paper on hepatitis B vaccines

WHO Position paper on hepatitis A vaccines