Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Parasitic diseases can affect the economy,
says Vice-Chancellor
SIVAGANGA: “Parasitic diseases have potential to affect
the health and economy of the country in the longer run. The
challenges posed by the diseases have to be viewed seriously,”
according to P. Ramasamy, Vice-Chancellor of Alagappa University.
He was presiding over the inauguration of a five-day international
seminar-cum-workshop on “Advances in modern biotechnology
and molecular techniques in veterinary parasitology: diagnosis,
chemotherapy and control,” organised by School of Biotechnology,
Alagappa University at Karaikudi.
Mr. Ramasamy said that many of the parasitic diseases such as
dengue, malaria, Japanese encephalitis, chikukngunya, leptospirosis,
etc. had increased manifold among the human and livestock basically
because of the climate change and prevailing favourable conditions
for parasites.
There were an estimated 10 million cases of tuberculosis in
1980s, of which about 25 per cent was infectious. In the early
1990s, 19 million people showed symptoms of filariasis and 25
million were deemed to be hosts to the parasites. “Although
the death rate due to parasitic diseases is low, it certainly
affects the human efficiency and physical activities resulting
in overall loss to the country,” Mr. Ramasamy added.
Inaugurating the seminar, K.R. Periakaruppan, Minister for Hindu
Religious and Charitable Endowments, said the impacts of the
diseases to the human and cattle had to be intensively studied.
K. Dharmalingam, Senior Professor of Biotechnology, Madurai
Kamaraj Univeristy, said the standard of research activities
and interest in research was on the decline. R.E.B. Hanna, Veterinary
Sciences Division, Agri Food and Biosciences Institute, Northern
Ireland, said that drug resistance nature of parasites had become
a serious concern among the scientific community throughout
the world.
Scientists were in a position to discover new type of drugs
to fight parasitic diseases.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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