By 1 2 1 News Reporter
Chandigarh 26th April:-- The Department of Medical Parasitology at
PGI, today organized a conference "Food Borne & Zoonotic Parasitic
Diseases of Human Importance" . The North-West Chapter of the Indian
Academy of Tropical Parasitology (IATP) was inaugurated on this day by
Prof. RC Mahajan, Emeritus Professor, PGIMER, and Advisor ECD, Indian
Council of Medical Research, New Delhi. Under the North-west chapter
of the Academy, regular scientific events in this region of the
country will be held.
Prof. Y. K. Chawla, Director PGI, presided the occasion as the Chief
Guest, amongst a gathering of about 200 delegates and eminent
scientists from India and abroad. Prof. Chawla in his inaugural
address stressed upon the huge burden of foodborne zoonotic parasitic
infections of human importance in India, and the significance of
holding such scientific meets.
Prof. Rakesh Sehgal, the Organizing Chairperson of the conference from
the Department of Medical Parasitologytold, "Of the 17 tropical
diseases identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as
'Neglected Tropical Diseases', 12 are parasitic diseases, and this
conference addresses a majority of these diseases, which have a
significant presence in our country. Prof. Sehgal told that parasites
have been a problem for human health since times immemorial and some
of them have shaped history of mankind, like malaria, which was
rampant throughout the world. Due to scientific advances, some viral
diseases like small pox have been eradicated but parasites remain with
us and still cause untold misery. Malaria still kills nearly a million
people annually, mostly in the poorer nations. Helminths infect more
than 2 billion population, again mainly in the developing nations.
Globally, an estimated 450 million people were infected with hookworm
in 2010, more than 800 million with Ascaris lumbricoides (Roundworm)
and 465 million with Trichuris trichiura. The vast majority of soil
transmitted helminth infections (67%) occur in Asia.
Experts in the conference were of the opinion that unhygienic living
conditions, lack of education, and poor infrastructure are the major
factors responsible for the high prevalence of foodborne infections in
India.In the scientific session of the conference, Prof. Mahajan
described the current scenario of parasitic infections in India and
was very positive that parasitic infections can be dealt with very
effectively in our country, "India has been successful in tackling
infectious diseases like small pox, guinea worm, and poliomyelitis
very effectively. Soon, Kala Azar will join the list of infections
eliminated from India", said Prof. Mahajan. Various aspects of
detection of food borne zoonotic parasites were discussed by Prof.
Lucy Robertson from Department of Food Safety & Infection Biology,
Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norway. Prof. Nancy
Malla, former head of the Department of Medical Parasitology, PGIMER,
elaborated the perspectives of Human Hydatidosis in India, a diseases
transmitted by consumption of infected sheep meat. Prof. BR Mirdha,
Professor from AIIMS, apprised the delegates about the various
opportunistic parasitic infections in India. Prof. Jagat Kanwar from
Deakin University, Australia, described the use of nano-technology in
the development of new drug delivery systems which can be used for
these parasites.As 26th April is marked as the World Intellectual
Property Day and patenting system is highly neglected in India, Mr.
Rahul Taneja of the Patent Information Center, Department of Science
and Technology, Haryana, made aware the participants that India is far
behind in terms of Patent filing in healthcare as compared to other
countries such as United States of America, China, and European
Countries.
The conference was preceded by a Workshop on Zoonotic Parasites of
importance in India, in which the participants ranked the parasites
according to their importance on human health using the WHO ranking
methodology. It was observed that the most important foodborne
parasite in India is tapeworm, similar to the ranking of WHO which
also ranks tapeworm as the most important foodborne parasite across
the globe. The other parasites of importance were Cryptosporidum,
Entamoeba histolytica.amongst several others. This workshop was a part
of a three-year educational exchange project between India and Norway,
in which PGIMER's department of Medical Parasitology is the Indian
collaborator.
"The theme of the present conference, 'Food Borne and Zoonotic
Parasitic Diseases of Human Importance' was chosen as this is a highly
neglected area of research and it was only recently that the WHO has
thought that this is an important area which cannot be neglected. Data
from India are lacking and hence all available prevalence data are
gross underestimates of the actual burden of these diseases in the
Indian population", told Prof. Sehgal. The purpose of this conference
was to increase awareness among the participants on this neglected but
important disease.
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