Plant-based natural products in cancer therapeutics.

Various cells in our body regularly divide to replace old cells and dead cells. For a living cell to be growing, cell division and differentiation is highly essential. Cancer is characterised by uncontrollable cell division and invasion of other tissues due to dysregulation in the cell cycle. An accumulation of genetic changes or mutations develops through different physical (UV and other radiations), chemical (chewing and smoking of tobacco, chemical pollutants/mutagens), biological (viruses) and hereditary factors that can lead to cancer. Now, cancer is considered as a major death-causing factor worldwide. Due to advancements in technology, treatment like chemotherapy, radiation therapy, bone marrow transplant, immunotherapy, hormone therapy and many more in the rows. Although, it also has some side effects like fatigue, hair fall, anaemia, nausea and vomiting, constipation. Modern improved drug therapies come with severe side effects. There is need for safer, more effective, low-cost treatment with lesser side-effects. Biologically active natural products derived from plants are the emerging strategy to deal with cancer proliferation. Moreover, they possess anti-carcinogenic, anti-proliferative and anti-mutagenic properties with reduced side effects. They also detoxify and remove reactive substances formed by carcinogenic agents. In this article, we discuss different plant-based products and their mechanism of action against cancer.

Rabies epidemiology and control in India: a review.

Rabies, though a disease of low public health priority, still continues to be a major public health problem in India. In humans, rabies is almost invariably fatal once clinical symptoms have developed. WHO reports around 50 000 rabies deaths every year, out of which 20 000 are estimated to occur in India alone. There is often gross under-reporting of human rabies deaths in India. Despite potent anti-rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins available, rabies is far from control and elimination. An effective strategy for control of rabies takes into account the epidemiology of animal bites, rabies and factors influencing post exposure treatment. Hence it becomes pertinent to review the current status of rabies and strategies for its control in the country. In this article, an attempt has been made to discuss the epidemiology of Rabies, pathogenesis, diagnosis and its prevention and control including the various regimens of anti-rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins available for post-exposure prophylaxis. The importance of primary preventive measures like Animal Birth Control (ABC) and vaccination of dogs has also been highlighted. It is emphasized that rabies should be recognized as priority public health problem and cell culture vaccines should be made available free of cost at all government health facilities. Other important measures include generation of awareness about rabies and first aid of animal bites.