Controlling the drug-resistant tuberculosis epidemic in India: challenges and implications

Aliabbas A,Husain1,Andreas Kupz,Rajpal S,Kashyap 한국역학회 2021 Epidemiology and Health Vol.43 No.-

India has a higher tuberculosis (TB) burden than any other country, accounting for an estimated one-fourth of the global burden. Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) presents a major public health problem in India. Patients with DR-TB often require profound changes in their drug regimens, which are invariably linked to poor treatment adherence and sub-optimal treatment outcomes compared to drug-sensitive TB. The challenge of addressing DR-TB is critical for India, as India contributes over 27% of global DR-TB cases. In recent decades, India has been proactive in its battle against TB, even implementing a revised National Strategic Plan to eliminate TB by 2025. However, to achieve this ambitious goal, the country will need to take a multifaceted approach with respect to its management of DR-TB. Despite concerted efforts made by the National TB Elimination Program, India faces substantial challenges with regard to DR-TB care, especially in peripheral and resource-limited endemic zones. This article describes some of the major challenges associated with mitigating the growing DR-TB epidemic in India and their implications.

Assessment of immunological markers and booster effects of Ag85B peptides, Ag85B, and BCG in blood of BCG vaccinated children: a preliminary report

Aliabbas A. Husain,Hatim F. Daginawla,Lokendra Singh,Rajpal S Kashyap 대한백신학회 2016 Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research Vol.5 No.1

Purpose: In the present study, the protective immunological markers in serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccinated and unvaccinated children were evaluated after vaccination. Further, PBMCs of children with low protective levels were boosted with BCG, Ag85B, and Ag85B peptides to study their booster effects to increase waning BCG induced immunity. Materials and Methods: Fifty children from 1 month to 18 years of age were randomized for the study. Blood samples were collected from 27 participants with/without BCG vaccination. Immunological markers (anti-BCG, interferon γ [IFN-γ], and adenosine deaminase activity) were assessed in both serum and PBMCs of children. Children with low levels of protective immunological markers were further recruited and their PBMCs were boosted with BCG, Ag85B, and Ag85B peptides. Results: Children in age group of 4-6 years were associated with significantly (p<0.05) higher BCG-specific IgG and IFN-γ levels compared to those in age group greater than 10 years. Vaccinated children had greater repertoire of immunological memory which on in vitro stimulation with BCG showed increase in BCG-specific response compared to unvaccinated controls. Assessment of booster effects of BCG, Ag85B, and Ag85B peptides in PBMCs of children revealed greater potential of peptides to boost BCG induced immunity compared to BCG and Ag85B. Conclusion: To conclude, children within age 4-6 years are associated with high immunological markers which eventually diminish with age thereby suggesting need for booster dose in later years. Mycobacterium tuberculosis peptides along with BCG may be used as attractive candidates to boost such waning BCG induced immunity in children.

Investigation of Immune Biomarkers Using Subcutaneous Model of M. tuberculosis Infection in BALB/c Mice: A Preliminary Report

Aliabbas A. Husain,Hatim F. Daginawala,Shubangi R Warke,Devanand R Kalorey,Nitin V. Kurkure,Hemant J Purohit,Girdhar M Taori,Rajpal S Kashyap 대한면역학회 2015 Immune Network Vol.15 No.2

Evaluation and screening of vaccines against tuberculosis depends on development of proper cost effective disease models along with identification of different immune markers that can be used as surrogate endpoints of protection in preclinical and clinical studies. The objective of the present study was therefore evaluation of subcutaneous model of M.tuberculosis infection along with investigation of different immune biomarkers of tuberculosis infection in BALB/c mice. Groups of mice were infected subcutaneously with two different doses : high (2×106 CFU) and low doses (2×102 CFU) of M.tuberculosis and immune markers including humoral and cellular markers were evaluated 30 days post M.tuberculosis infections. Based on results, we found that high dose of subcutaneous infection produced chronic disease with significant (p<0.001) production of immune markers of infection like IFNγ, heat shock antigens (65, 71) and antibody titres against panel of M.tuberculosis antigens (ESAT-6, CFP-10, Ag85B, 45kDa, GroES, Hsp-16) all of which correlated with high bacterial burden in lungs and spleen. To conclude high dose of subcutaneous infection produces chronic TB infection in mice and can be used as convenient alternative to aerosol models in resource limited settings. Moreover assessment of immune markers namely mycobacterial antigens and antibodies can provide us valuable insights on modulation of immune response post infection. However further investigations along with optimization of study protocols are needed to justify the outcome of present study and establish such markers as surrogate endpoints of vaccine protection in preclinical and clinical studies in future.

Investigation of Immune Biomarkers Using Subcutaneous Model of M. tuberculosis Infection in BALB/c Mice: A Preliminary Report

Husain, Aliabbas A.,Daginawala, Hatim F.,Warke, Shubangi R.,Kalorey, Devanand R.,Kurkure, Nitin V.,Purohit, Hemant J.,Taori, Girdhar M.,Kashyap, Rajpal S. The Korean Association of Immunobiologists 2015 Immune Network Vol.15 No.2

Evaluation and screening of vaccines against tuberculosis depends on development of proper cost effective disease models along with identification of different immune markers that can be used as surrogate endpoints of protection in preclinical and clinical studies. The objective of the present study was therefore evaluation of subcutaneous model of M.tuberculosis infection along with investigation of different immune biomarkers of tuberculosis infection in BALB/c mice. Groups of mice were infected subcutaneously with two different doses : high ($2{\times}10^6CFU$) and low doses ($2{\times}10^2CFU$) of M.tuberculosis and immune markers including humoral and cellular markers were evaluated 30 days post M.tuberculosis infections. Based on results, we found that high dose of subcutaneous infection produced chronic disease with significant (p<0.001) production of immune markers of infection like $IFN{\gamma}$, heat shock antigens (65, 71) and antibody titres against panel of M.tuberculosis antigens (ESAT-6, CFP-10, Ag85B, 45kDa, GroES, Hsp-16) all of which correlated with high bacterial burden in lungs and spleen. To conclude high dose of subcutaneous infection produces chronic TB infection in mice and can be used as convenient alternative to aerosol models in resource limited settings. Moreover assessment of immune markers namely mycobacterial antigens and antibodies can provide us valuable insights on modulation of immune response post infection. However further investigations along with optimization of study protocols are needed to justify the outcome of present study and establish such markers as surrogate endpoints of vaccine protection in preclinical and clinical studies in future.

ANALYSIS OF A FOURTH ORDER SCHEME AND APPLICATION OF LOCAL DEFECT CORRECTION METHOD

Ali Abbas 한국전산응용수학회 2014 Journal of applied mathematics & informatics Vol.32 No.3

This paper provides a new application similar to the Local Defect Correction (LDC) technique to solve Poisson problem −u ′′ (x) = f(x) with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The exact solution is supposed to have high activity in some region of the domain. LDC is combined with a fourth order compact scheme which is recently developed in Abbas (Num. Meth. Partial differential equations, 2013). Numerical tests illustrate the interest of this application.

Effectiveness of Immersive Virtual Reality-Based Communication for Construction Projects

Ali Abbas,최민지,서준오,차승현,Heng Li 대한토목학회 2019 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Vol.23 No.12

Though computer-mediated communication technologies such as immersive virtual reality (IVR) have recently shown considerablepromise, their effectiveness as methods of communication among the participants in construction projects has yet to be systematically investigated. This study helps fill this gap via a detailed comparison of traditional face-to-face (FtF) discussion of Building Information Modeling (BIM) information displayed on a monitor screen against IVR-based communication with BIM information embedded in the immersive environment. The results of experiments in which groups of participants discussed and chose optimal design options indicated that there is no large statistical difference in IVR-based and FtF communication in terms of discussion quality (level of effectiveness and satisfaction experienced), communication richness (detailed responses and vivid messages), and openness (enjoyableness and open-mindedness) during the communication. However, for the accuracy of communication (information communicated correctly and understood properly), FtF communication was better than IVR-based communication, which is assumed due to weak human-human to interaction in IVR. In addition, the communication appropriateness (behavioral acts such as politeness or social norms), IVR-based communication was significantly less than FtF communication, indicating that communicating with others only seeing virtual avatar could make it difficult to discern participant’ reactions or identify appropriate moments to speak. These results could confirm certain advantages of adopting IVR-based communication while further improvement for real-like interaction between people needs to be made for more effective use of IVR communication.

Deadline Aware Hybrid Data Forwarding Scheme in Delay Tolerant Networks

Ali Abbas,Ki-Il Kim 보안공학연구지원센터 2014 International Journal of Control and Automation Vol.7 No.1