ACHARYA PRAFULLA CHANDRA RAY

Ministry of Culture along with the Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi, and Vigyan Bharati organized a curtain raiser for two days of International Conference on the “Contributions of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray as a Chemist and Freedom Fighter”, at Delhi University.

About the conference

• The Conference will be held on the 161st birth anniversary of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray on the 2nd-3rd August 2022, under the aegis of “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”.

Objective:

• Expand the legacy and the contribution of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray in Society, to increase general awareness and background of ancient chemistry along with its importance.
• It is unexpected that the government is updating the education system from the traditional concept of the 1980s to align with the aspirational goals of 21^st-century education, including SDG4 which talks about Quality Education while building upon India’s traditions and value systems.

About Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray

• He was a Professor of Chemistry, a pioneer in the field of the pharmaceutical industry in India who started making the chemicals at home.
• He was born on 2nd August 1861 in Rural-Kathipara, a village in the District of Khulna which is now in Bangladesh.
• He set up Bengal Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals as an individual initiative in a laboratory in 1892 to enhance the spirit of entrepreneurship among the youth of Bengal.

Contributions

• His contribution to the Indian industry was great.
• Directly or indirectly he helped to start many factories like Textile mills, soap factories, sugar factories, chemical industries, ceramic factories, and publishing houses were set up at the time with his active cooperation.
• He was the main force behind the industrialization of the country, which began at that time.

Literary Works

• He authored, books like the ‘History of Hindu Chemistry – From the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century AD’.
• He published a paper in 1896 on the preparation of a new stable chemical compound which is known as Mercurous Nitrite.
• It made way for a large number of research papers on nitrites and hyponitrites of different metals, and nitrites of ammonia and organic amines.
• He wrote his autobiography in English in 1932 and named it “The Life and Experience of a Bengali Chemist”.

He passed away on the 16th of June in the year 1944.

KERALA REPORTS INDIA FIRST MOKEYPOX CASE

The first confirmed case of monkeypox in India has been reported in a 35-year-old man in Kerala, who reached the state capital three days ago from the UAE.

The who has reported that from January 1 to June 22 a total of 3,413 laboratory-confirmed monkeypox cases and one death have been reported to it from 50 countries and territories.

A huge number of the cases have been reported from the European region (86%) and America (11%)

About Monkeypox

• It is a viral zoonotic disease and it is identified as a pox-like disease among monkeys hence it is named monkeypox. It is endemic to Nigeria.
• It is caused by a monkeypox virus, a member of the orthopoxviral genus in the family Poxviridae.
• Animals that are a source of the monkeypox virus are monkeys, apes, rats, mice, and rabbits.

Symptoms

• The people who are infected by the virus have rashes on their skin that will look like chicken pox.
• Fever, malaise, and headache from monkeypox are usually more severe than in chickenpox infection.
• Monkeypox can be distinguished from smallpox because the lymph gland gets enlarged.

Vulnerability

• It spreads rapidly and can cause one out of ten deaths if infected.

Transmission

• It is through direct contact with the blood, bodily fluid, or cutaneous or mucosal lesions of an infected animal, eating inadequately cooked meat of infected animals is also a risk factor
• Human-to-human transmission can result from close contact with infected respiratory tract secretion.

Treatment and Vaccine

• No specific treatment or vaccine is available for monkeypox infection. Earlier, the anti-smallpox vaccine was shown to be 85% effective in preventing monkeypox.
• The world was declared free of smallpox in 1980 and currently, there is no global system in place to manage the spread of monkeypox, and every country is struggling to contain the outbreak whenever it occurs.

Strict surveillance and the proper response is the need of the hour with special emphasis on raising awareness of the disease and avoiding contact with wild animals as much as possible.

HPV VACCINE

The HPV vaccine, Cervavac is a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer, one of the leading of female cancer mortality worldwide. It is indigenously developed by the Serum Institute of India. The vaccine has acquired market authorization from the Drugs Controller General of India.

• It is India's first Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccination (qHPV) designed to protect women from cervical cancer.

Cervical Cancer

• Cervical cancer is a prevalent sexually transmitted infection.?
• It’s a type of cancer that occurs in the cells of the cervix, which is the lower part of the uterus that connects to the vagina.
• It is mostly caused by long-term infection with particular forms of HPV.
• It is the second most prevalent cancer form and it is also the second leading cause of cancer death in women of reproductive age between 15 to 44?

Indian Perspective:

• According to the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer, India accounts for roughly one-fifth of the global burden, with more than 1.23 lakh cases and around 67,000 fatalities every year.

Significance of the new Vaccine

• It’s based on VLP (Virus-Like Particles), similar to the Hepatitis-B vaccination, as it gives protection by producing antibodies against the HPV virus' L1 protein.
• It is said to be effective against four strains of the virus that is Type 6, Type 11, Type 16, and Type 18.
• A quadrivalent vaccine is a vaccine that works by stimulating an immune response against four different antigens, such as four different viruses or other microorganisms.
• It has a significant potential to eliminate cervical cancer and it would be helpful if it will be included in national HPV vaccination efforts and offered at a lower cost than the existing vaccinations.
• Existing two vaccines licensed globally are available in India, they are a quadrivalent vaccine (Gardasil, from Merck) and a bivalent vaccine (Cervarix, from GlaxoSmithKline) which are costly and none of them are included in the National Immunization Program.
• After the DGCI approval, this would enable the government to procure vaccines in bulk to vaccinate around 50 million girls who are aged between 9 to 14 years.
• The vaccine is extremely effective only when it's given before the first sexual intercourse.