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Background: Ever since the emergence of COVID-19 and its consequent spread across continents, engulfing both advanced and developing nations, COVID-19 vaccine was considered to be the main weapon to curb the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 vaccination program in India started after the first wave of infections (March - December 2020) had almost subsided., Objective: In this work, the objective is to perform a state-wise analysis to assess the impact of vaccination in slowing down the spread of infections during the second COVID-19 wave (February - October 2021) in India. The prediction accuracy of the proposed model with the optimal lag length (in days) after including the impact of vaccination is evaluated and compared with a model without it. A total of 21 states are chosen for the analysis encompassing 97% of the Indian population., Methods: We use the generalized Gompertz curve to study the COVID-19 outbreak. The generalized Gompertz model is then further modified to study the impact of vaccination to slow down the spread of COVID-19. The modified model considers the cumulative proportion of individuals having the first COVID-19 vaccine shot in each state as the explanatory variable., Results: By incorporating the impact of vaccination in the Generalized Gompertz Curves, it is seen that the visible impact of the first dose of the vaccination is observed after a lag of 20 days with 16 out of the 21 states showing the impact of vaccines in curbing the spread of COVID-19. However, in states like Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Kerala, we do not conclusively observe the impact of vaccination during the study period., Conclusions: Using only COVID-19 infection cases and the vaccination data in the proposed model, we conclude that overall, the vaccination program effectively curbed the spread of COVID-19 in India., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This work used publicly available anonymous COVID-19 infection and vaccination data on the Indian population. Therefore, the use of data does not require ethical clearance as per the guidelines stated (2019) by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology Government of India: Open access data are public and are shared with anyone interested in accessing the data. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Inclusion of research methodology and biostatistics in the postgraduate curriculum by the National Medical Commission is a welcome step to improve the research milieu in medical colleges in India. This step will have a long-term impact on research outcomes and scientific publications. In 2019, AIIMS-Bhubaneswar implemented the revised postgraduate curriculum, which introduced a faculty-facilitated program on research methodology and biostatistics for all postgraduate students. The institute also made the examination in research methodology mandatory, which can be viewed as a complementary mechanism. As the revised curriculum has been in practice for the last 4 years and six sessions of examinations have been completed, the authors tried to look back to check whether the program is having the expected results and share the experience they gained., (© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2024.)

A single center open label phase 2 randomised control trial (Clinical Trial Registry of India No. CTRI/2020/05/025209) was done to assess clinical and immunological benefits of passive immunization using convalescent plasma therapy. At the Infectious Diseases and Beleghata General Hospital in Kolkata, India, 80 patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 disease and fulfilling the inclusion criteria (aged more than 18 years, with either mild ARDS having PaO2/FiO2 200-300 or moderate ARDS having PaO2/FiO2 100-200, not on mechanical ventilation) were recruited and randomized into either standard of care (SOC) arm (N = 40) or the convalescent plasma therapy (CPT) arm (N = 40). Primary outcomes were all-cause mortality by day 30 of enrolment and immunological correlates of response to therapy if any, for which plasma abundance of a large panel of cytokines was quantitated before and after intervention to assess the effect of CPT on the systemic hyper-inflammation encountered in these patients. The secondary outcomes were recovery from ARDS and time taken to negative viral RNA PCR as well as to report any adverse reaction to plasma therapy. Transfused convalescent plasma was characterized in terms of its neutralizing antibody content as well as proteome. The trial was completed and it was found that primary outcome of all-cause mortality was not significantly different among severe COVID-19 patients with ARDS randomized to two treatment arms (Mantel-Haenszel Hazard Ratio 0.6731, 95% confidence interval 0.3010-1.505, with a P value of 0.3424 on Mantel-Cox Log-rank test). No adverse effect was reported with CPT. In severe COVID-19 patients with mild or moderate ARDS no significant clinical benefit was registered in this clinical trial with convalescent plasma therapy in terms of prespecified outcomes., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has led to significant morbidity and mortality. While most suffer from mild symptoms, some patients progress to severe disease with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and associated systemic hyperinflammation., Methods: First, to characterize key cytokines and their dynamics in this hyperinflammatory condition, we assessed abundance and correlative expression of a panel of 48 cytokines in patients progressing to ARDS as compared to patients with mild disease. Then, in an ongoing randomized controlled trial of convalescent plasma therapy (CPT), we analyzed rapid effects of CPT on the systemic cytokine dynamics as a correlate for the level of hypoxia experienced by the patients., Results: We identified an anti-inflammatory role of CPT independent of its neutralizing antibody content., Conclusions: Neutralizing antibodies, as well as reductions in circulating interleukin-6 and interferon-γ-inducible protein 10, contributed to marked rapid reductions in hypoxia in response to CPT., Clinical Trial Registry of India: CTRI/2020/05/025209. http://www.ctri.nic.in/., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

A field study was conducted to highlight the occupational risk factors related to building construction activities in India among female workers. These workers were engaged in eight different types of activities and related work parameters were studied in detail. From field environmental parameters, the calculated WBGT was obtained as 30.26+/-1.52 degrees C, indicated that these workers worked under a positive heat load condition. Whole day work study was conducted on 11 adult female workers performing concreting operation. They were having age of 28-32 years with 5-7 years of work experience. These workers were mainly performing two types of operations in the field: (A) asymmetric lifting during concreting a boundary wall formwork of a lift unit and (B) carrying the concrete mixture. During asymmetric lifting, the average field working heart rate (HR) was calculated as 124.1+/-12.5 beats min(-1), equivalent to 45.03+/-6.93% of VO(2) max level. These working heart rates (HRs) were significantly (p

A comprehensive equation for the evaluation of a maximum load limit for manual load lifting has been developed for the first time for Indian adult female workers, based on a physiological criterion due to the limitation of applicability of the NIOSH (1991) equation. Ten adult female workers, who had been engaged in building construction activities for at least 7 years participated in this study. The cut-off value was selected as the working heart rate corresponding to the 33% level of maximum aerobic power (i.e. V'O2 max.) of this population, which was equivalent to a heart rate of 101.6 beats x min(-1). An equation was developed based on the effects of the following three lifting parameters on working heart rate: vertical height (knee, waist, shoulder and maximum reach height), lifting frequency (1, 4, 7 and 14 lifts x min(-1)), and load weight (5, 10 and 15 kg). The variations of the specific lifting parameter values were selected from field observations. From this equation, the maximum load limit was calculated as 15.4 kg and the workers give this a psychophysical rating as in the moderate to heavy category.