"Dr. P. C. Sen Memorial Best Paper Presentation Award on rural health practice". Physical and mental community health: what are the obstacles!

The present work aims to study the cultural concepts of the health in general and mental health in particular from six villages of Sundarban region, West Bengal, India, by using field research methodology, viz, participants observation, focus group discussion and in depth interview. A qualitative data was collected from the field. Analysis of the data shows that there is a clear difference of conception among the people of the region according to their socio-economic status. Poor and non-educated segment stressed much more on the physical ability and lack of economic resources in relation to health, whereas educated and comparatively economically stable segment with some urban influence, stressed more on both physical and emotional stability as a measure of good health. The pattern of help seeking also reflects different preferences towards traditional and modern treatment facilities available in the region. Results on the study promoted to take intensive community awareness programme for effective health coverage of the population.

Evaluation of indirect immunofluorescent antibody test for detection of IgM specific antibodies in malaria.

Indirect immunofluorescent antibody test using Plasmodium falciparum antigen from in vitro culture was evaluated for detecting IgM antibodies in order to determine the feasibility of its application in serodiagnosis of malaria. Test was compared with the already adapted IgG-IIF test using the same antigen. It was found that none of the healthy controls and slide negative fever cases had malaria IgM antibodies whereas 8 per cent of healthy controls and 49.01 per cent of the slide negative fever cases had malaria IgG antibodies. The sensitivity of IgM-IIF test was 94.68 per cent and that of IgG-IIF test was 96.81 per cent. IgM antibodies could be detected very early even on the first day of fever and titre rose gradually with increasing number of days of illness before institution of treatment. The IgM antibodies, being short lasting are able to reflect recent infection. The test although highly sensitive and specific is laborious and expensive. Therefore, it may be used as a serodiagnostic test in advanced laboratories only for confirmation of selected slide negative cases.

Immunoprophylaxis against rabies.

Rabies is responsible for a large extent of morbidity and mortality in human beings. However, the long incubation period of the disease allows the effective utilization of post exposure immunization. Till recently neural tissue vaccines were the mainstay of antirabic immunoprophylaxis. These vaccines are, associated with severe neuroparalytic complications. The recent introduction of human diploid cell vaccine and chick embro fibroblast vaccines have heralded a new era in antirabic vaccination because of their high immunogenicity and lack of major side effects.

Antibody response to human diploid cell antirabies vaccine in human volunteers--a preliminary study.

HDCS was given to 12 healthy volunteers in three different schedules. The levels of neutralising antibodies were determined by ELISA test. The antibodies could be detected on day 7 after vaccination. With 3 doses (D-0, D-15, D-30) satisfactory high level of neutralising antibodies could be detected in 3 out of 4 volunteers till 2 years. With 2 doses (D-0, D-15) similar levels could be observed only till day 270, and with single dose significant levels could be seen till day 30 only after which levels declined and no antibodies could be detected on day 270. Reactogenicity of the vaccine was nil as no major or minor side-effects were observed in any of the volunteer.