SC notice on
discrimination against HIV children
New
Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday issued notice to the central and all state
governments on a petition seeking framing of guidelines to ensure that there is
no discrimination against HIV positive children during school admissions.
The
notice has also been issued to the National Commission for Protection of Child
Rights.
A
bench of Justice BS Chauhan and Justice J Chelameswar issued notice after NGO
Naz Foundation (India) Trust urged it to issue directions that HIV positive
school children should not be discriminated against for admission to schools or
turned out after their HIV positive status is revealed.
The
PIL has sought directions that no child affected by HIV would be denied
admission, suspended, segregated or expelled on the basis of their HIV status
or the status of their parents or guardians.
It
has further sought directions to the government to frame guidelines under the
Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 to ensure
non-discrimination in schools in this regard.
The
Naz Foundation has also sought direction that children affected by HIV be
notified as a "disadvantaged" group under the act, as it would put
the central and state governments as well private schools under further
obligation to ensure their such children's right to education without
discrimination.
Seeking
directions to the government to take steps for the elimination of
discrimination against HIV positive children, the PIL has invoked the
fundamental rights to life, education and equality guaranteed under the Indian
constitution.
The
PIL referred to March 2011 statement of Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in
parliament that in 2008-2010, 61 HIV positive children were removed from
school.
04.03.2014
Soon,
personalized medicines could help cure diseases
Washington:
Researchers have developed a new methodology for rapidly measuring the level of
antibiotic drug molecules in human blood serum, paving the way to applications
within drug development and personalised medicine.
When
effective, antibiotic molecules impose cellular stress on a pathogen's cell
wall target, such as a bacterium, which contributes to its breakdown. However,
competing molecules in solution, for example serum proteins, can affect the
binding of the antibiotic to the bacterium, reducing the efficacy of the drug.
Serum proteins bind to drugs in blood and, in doing so, reduce the amount of a
drug present and its penetration into cell tissues.
As
the amount of antibiotics that bind to serum proteins will vary between
individuals, it is extremely valuable to be able to determine the precise
amount of the drug that is bound to serum proteins, and how much is free in the
blood, in order to be able to accurately calculate the optimum dosage.
Existing
biosensors on the market do not measure cellular stress, however, the
nanomechanical sensor exploited by a group of researchers from the London
Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) at UCL, the University of Cambridge, the
University of Queensland and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and
Technology, can accurately measure this important information even when
antibiotic drug molecules are only present at very low concentrations.
The
researchers coated the surface of a nanomechanical cantilever array with a
model bacterial membrane and used this as a surface stress sensor. The sensor
is extremely sensitive to tiny bending signals caused by its interactions with
the antibiotics, in this case, the FDA-approved vancomycin and the yet to be
approved oritavancin, which appears to deal with certain vancomycin-resistant
bacteria, in the blood serum.
This
investigation has yielded the first experimental evidence that drug-serum
complexes (the antibiotics bound to the competing serum proteins) do not induce
stress on the bacteria and so could provide realistic in-vitro susceptibility
tests for drugs and to define effective doses which are effective enough but
less toxic to patients.
The
study has been published in journal Nature Nanotechnology.
04.03.2014
Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and
your attitude when you have everything
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