Gajuwaka branch gets NABH accreditation
Visakhapatnam: Gajuwaka branch of Sankar Foundation Eye Care organisation received accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), a constituent board of the Quality Council of India.
NABH accreditation is a voluntary certification process for healthcare organisations in India, ensuring they meet stringent quality standards for patient care and safety.
The NABH accreditation process involves a thorough evaluation of a hospital's or healthcare provider's services, infrastructure, patient care, and organisational practices. As part of this assessment, the NABH team meticulously examined all clinical and non-clinical areas and engaged with doctors and employees at the Gajuwaka branch of hospital to ensure compliance with NABH-specific standards for eye care facilities.
Achieving NABH accreditation enhances a healthcare facility's credibility and fosters trust among patients and stakeholders, reaffirming its commitment to high-quality care and patient safety. These accreditation standards are globally benchmarked and recognised by the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua).
Chairman of the board of trustees M Ramdas, managing trustee A Krishna Kumar and general manager K Radhakrishnan congratulated the entire team of Gajuwaka branch for achieving this prestigious accreditation.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
4 days ago
- Time of India
Who was Guava Shuishui? Controversial Taiwanese influencer known for eating makeup dies mysteriously at 24
Social media influencer Guava Shuishui, popularly known as Guava Beauty, has passed away at the age of 24. Known for her unconventional beauty content that often involved tasting makeup products, Shuishui had developed a loyal following online. Her death was confirmed through a statement shared on her official social media account on May 24, 2025, leaving fans shocked and grieving. Heartfelt statement shared after Guava Shuishui's passing The news of her death came via a touching tribute translated from Chinese to English and circulated by Us Weekly. 'I regret to tell you that our favourite beauty and food broadcast treasure girl, Guava Shuishui, officially took off her beauty equipment on May 24, 2025, and flew to heaven with an endless appetite and a smile to open a new channel. Although this trip came suddenly, Shuishui held on to every difficult moment, just like she has always been—hard-working, serious, and shining.' The message continued, thanking her supporters: 'Thank you to everyone who has liked, left a message, and laughed with her, and thank you for your love and support. She really keeps it in her heart and cherishes it very much. Guava Shuishui just changed her place and continued to shine.' The post ended on a bittersweet note, accompanied by a clip of Shuishui waving to the camera: 'When we meet again one day, she should have already unboxed the Angel-specific co-branded makeup and mukbang over there.' As of now, no cause of death has been revealed. Who was Guava Shuishui? Guava Shuishui rose to popularity on social media platforms under the name Guava Beauty, thanks to her bold and quirky approach to beauty content. Unlike traditional influencers, she became known for tasting beauty products—sometimes licking or biting them—after applying them, creating a mix of shock value and humour that drew viewers in. In one notable video posted in September 2024, she applied a Maybelline lip product and then placed the applicator into her mouth. 'Easy to use, but the flavor is too strong,' she captioned the post. Her content often sparked controversy, leading to mixed reactions in the comments. Rather than shy away from criticism, Shuishui leaned into it. In a post from November, she addressed the backlash directly: 'I've wanted to make this theme into a unit for a long time. Although it's controversial, I really like it. I don't care. Anyway, this project is not allowed to be watched by people under 6 years old—and it is forbidden to eat.' Poya Beauty, Saint Laurent, Dinto Beauty, and Watsons Taiwan were among other beauty brands that often featured in her video. Fans loved Shuishui's playful approach Her posts balanced playful fun with a hint of mischief. With her confident, lighthearted style, she built a following of over 12,000 people who appreciated her offbeat charm and unapologetic approach. Following the announcement of her death, Shuishui's Instagram comment sections were turned off, leaving fans unable to publicly express their grief or ask questions. With no additional details provided, her sudden passing has only added to the mystery surrounding her life and content. To stay updated on the stories that are going viral, follow Indiatimes Trending.
The Hindu
29-05-2025
- The Hindu
Major study says malaria reinfection creates special immune cells
In a groundbreaking discovery that could reshape our understanding of the immune system and pave the way for revolutionary new vaccines and drugs, scientists have characterised a previously less-understood immune cell with powerful regulatory functions. They have found that immune cells called T R 1 cells play a dominant role in mounting an immune response to malaria. The implications of the study, published in the journal Science Immunologyon April 25, are far-reaching, potentially opening new pathways to conquer not only malaria but many other 'difficult' infections for which we currently lack effective vaccines. Lines of defence The human immune system has a complex multi-layered defence against infections. Its arsenal of weapons includes numerous components and subcomponents with precisely defined tasks to execute. They must also coordinate with each other to ensure the response is effective and minimises self-harm. When an infectious agent breaches the first layers of defence (skin and mucosae), specialised arms of the immune system respond. The first among them is innate immunity: it acts against any threat non-specifically, while activating other arms of the system, which are collectively called adaptive immunity. In addition to acting against a threat, adaptive immunity stores a record of the molecular signature of the threat, or antigen, with help from the memory cells. Every antigen has specific memory cells. When they recognise an antigen they've encountered before, they accelerate and enhance the immune response. This adaptive immunity has two important subcomponents. Antibody-mediated humoral immunity is mediated chiefly by B-cells while cell-mediated immunity involves the T-cells. The real heroes The new study, led by Jason Nideffer of Stanford University, focused on a subtype of T-cells called CD4+ cells. They are also called helper cells because they help activate B-cells, T-cells, and immune cells like macrophages during an immune response. The team examined helper cells in children and adults who have suffered malaria multiple times. One subset of helper cells are the type-1 regulatory T-cells, or T R 1 cells. Another subset of helper cells are the T H 1 cells. The study was conducted in eastern Uganda, where the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum (Pf for short) is perennially transmitted. Ugandan children under 5 years of age often suffer three to five episodes of malaria every year. After multiple episodes, they become clinically immune by about 10 years of age: i.e., they don't develop symptoms despite getting infected by Pf again. The researchers have surmised that Pf-specific helper cells play a crucial role in developing this clinical immunity. Specifically, for many years, malaria textbooks said that the human body responded to a Pf infection by mounting a 'classic' immune response mediated by CD4+ T H 1 cells. But by sequencing more than 500,000 single CD4⁺ T-cells and tracking their genetic barcodes, the researchers found that T R 1 cells are the real heroes. While they make up only around 3% of resting CD4⁺ cells, they account for almost 90 % of all Pf-specific helper cells. This forces us to rethink what an effective anti-malarial T-cell response looks like. Technique that turned tables The research team took advantage of an ongoing three-year study called Malaria in Uganda Systems Biology and Computational Approaches study (MUSICAL). The study is trying to understand malaria in Uganda using advanced systems biology and computational approaches. Investigators follow the participants with regular surveillance, including blood smear, quantitative PCR tests, peripheral blood mononuclear cell sampling. In the new study, the researchers tracked helper-cell clones through multiple infections in humans to assess their long-term stability and the efficiency with which they could facilitate an immune response inside the body over hundreds of days. (Helper cells that respond to the same antigen are said to be clones of each other.) The first unique feature of the study was its longitudinal nature. All previous studies on the subject have been cross-sectional, i.e. studying a population at one point in time. Longitudinal studies are more challenging since they require repeated biological sampling, active case-finding, and long-term follow-ups of participants. The researchers used an advanced technique called single-cell RNA and T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing to track the relative proliferation of different CD4+ T-cell clonotypes (clones derived from the same ancestor cell), their changes afterwards, and whether they multiplied in the same ways after every infection. Together, these data connote the cells' memory potential (how well they remember) and clonal fidelity (how well they make copies of themselves). This was the second unique feature of this study. Previous studies on the CD4+ T-cell response to malaria were based on characterising them using enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot assays or flow cytometry-based approaches, which have many inherent limitations. As a result, researchers have thus far had trouble confirming whether the T R 1 cells induced by malaria were a bona fide class of helper cells distinct from other T H 1 cells. Follow the barcode By sequencing memory CD4+ T-cells before, during, and multiple times after repeated episodes of malaria, the researchers acquired an unbiased picture of CD4+ T-cells' memory in the body. To perform its specific functions, each cell needs specific proteins. The sequencing technique reveals which proteins a cell is making. Call it a genetic barcode that the sequencing reads to reveal the cell's current state. The team found that nearly all clonotypes displayed a strong preference for one of seven subsets of CD4+ T-cells. This finding was made possible by the team's use of single-cell genomics in vivo. Perhaps the biggest finding was that the T R 1 cells also displayed high average clonal fidelity. The study also identified T R 1 cells as the dominant CD4+ T-cell subset induced after paediatric malaria and that they are capable of long-term memory with clonal fidelity upon reinfection. Sequence samples in the same individuals also revealed many clonotypes at multiple time points that retained their fidelity for hundreds of days. The researchers used each T-cell's barcode TCR sequence to keep track of 'who was who' as the cells went from a calm, resting state to a revved-up, activated state. The technique let them see — without any guess-work — which genes flipped on universally and which flipped on only in, say, T R 1 cells. It revealed the presence of fresh subset-specific genes. It also showed that while helper cells 'shouted' by expressing the TNF and IL-2 genes, regulator cells hit the brakes by expressing the FAS gene. The researchers also conducted another test that likened the seven CD4⁺ T-cells subsets to an army with seven regiments. When they blew a loud horn, every soldier charged forward. But when they waved a specific enemy flag — in this case, Pf-infected red blood cells — only one regiment, the T R 1 peacekeepers, stepped forward. These T R 1 troops are normally a small minority yet almost all malaria-recognising T-cell badges belonged to them. In other words, people who have never fought malaria don't have that regiment, so nothing much happens when their cells see the specific flag. In sum., the researchers were able to verify that T R 1 cells mounted a focused, antigen-specific response to blood-stage malaria and not a broad, nonspecific reaction. With longitudinal follow-ups, researchers found that T R 1 cells' abundance increased with every infection — even when the second infection occurred hundreds of days from the first — and more than tripled after a few infections. The abundance also correlated with the frequency of Pf parasites in the blood, suggesting that the T R 1 cell response depends on the antigen load. Although the abundance also dropped a bit from the peak once an individual recovered from an infection, it still maintained higher baseline levels in clinically immune individuals. In fact, even though a subset of helper cells called T H 1 cells also clonally expanded after a symptomatic infection, they didn't expand upon reinfection — whereas the T R 1 helper cells did. This suggested that the T H 1 cells are likely not Pf-specific and that their expansion after the first infection was unrelated to the infection being malaria. The finding is important because it almost completely negates a suggestion from previous studies that malaria primarily induces a T H 1 response. The researchers also found some preliminary evidence to suggest that the T R 1 cell response is encoded epigenetically, meaning the response is controlled in a way that is independent of the genes. Gene-expression studies of T R 1 cells showed that there are distinct subgroups of these cells: naïve-like T R 1 cells, effector T R 1 cells and memory T R 1 cells. The expansion and contraction of these subpopulations during and after symptomatic infections proved that these are functionally distinct entities and validated the memory potential of individual Pf-specific T R 1 clones. Tuning the immune system These insights into the immune response against malaria are likely to be game-changers: in approaches to prevent or manage malaria infections as well as in terms of opening new avenues to interrogate certain diseases and how our bodies respond to them. For example, by proving that T R 1 cells are the ones to follow during a malaria reinfection, the study offers new ways to develop effective vaccines against malaria. If T R 1 cells take centrestage, and given how they work, they may be helping the body carry Pf parasites without falling severely ill. Their specific role also opens the door to host-directed therapies, i.e. improving treatment outcomes by 'tuning' the immune system rather than targeting the pathogen itself. The findings may also open new avenues of research into the immunology of other infectious diseases and new ways to conquer them. Puneet Kumar is a clinician, Kumar Child Clinic, New Delhi.
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Time of India
Local weather conditions, access to cities can impact prevalence of tuberculosis, study finds
New Delhi: Researchers who mapped tuberculosis cases in African countries found that local weather conditions and access to cities can influence prevalence of the bacterial disease. The study's methodology of identifying disease patterns could help fight tuberculosis in a more targeted manner around the world -- particularly in regions where resources are limited, they said. Tuberculosis (TB) mostly affects the lungs and can be deadly if untreated. The disease -- symptoms of which include persistent cough, chest pain and fever -- spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Focusing on 14 nations, including Nigeria and Mozambique, the team, including researchers from Curtin University and The Kids Research Institute Australia, analysed prevalence of tuberculosis from 50 population-based surveys, involving over 15 lakh people. The researchers estimated how common the disease is at a local level, breaking each country down into grids, each five square kilometres in area, to identify hotspots. "Here we estimate 1.28 million TB cases across 14 countries, with marked spatial variations," the authors wrote in the study published in the journal Communications Medicine. "Factors such as temperature, precipitation, and access to cities are positively associated with higher TB prevalence, while higher altitude is linked to lower TB prevalence," they wrote. For example, rainfall tends to keep one spends indoors, thereby increasing person-to-person contact, crowding, and affecting ventilation levels -- all of which have been linked to spreading of tuberculosis, the researchers explained. Lead researcher Alemneh Liyew, PhD candidate from Curtin University's school of population health, said the study uncovered dramatic differences in disease burden between local regions within countries -- which could prove vital in reducing the impact of tuberculosis. "This study highlights how factors such as higher temperatures, rainfall, altitude and better access to cities can influence the prevalence of tuberculosis. "With this data, health resources can be better targeted towards the communities that need them most," Liyew said. The study is also the first to provide local-level tuberculosis maps across Africa, the researcher said. "Until now, we haven't been able to see where within countries the disease is most concentrated," Liyew said. Author Kefyalew Alene, associate professor Curtin University, said the study's findings could potentially help fight the disease outside of Africa. "While some aspects of the study are Africa-specific, using mapping to identify patterns associated with tuberculosis could help battle the disease in a more targeted manner elsewhere," Alene said. "One-size-fits-all national strategies aren't as effective, particularly in regions where resources are limited," the researcher said.
