Assessment of immunization status among under five children in rural Mangaluru: a cross sectional study

Background: Immunization is the process whereby a person is made immune resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of vaccine. If exposure to a disease occurs in a community there is a little to no risk of an epidemic if people have been immunized. This study was to assess the immunization status among children up to 5 years in rural Mangaluru.Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted among children of 0-5 years of age group (n=93) in rural Mangaluru using convenient sampling technique. After obtaining oral consent from parents, immunization status of children was assessed using validated questionnaire and details of child found to be partially immunized or not at all, reasons for not giving the vaccine were also collected.Results: 52.7% of the study population was partially immunized and 46.2% were fully immunized; only 83.9% possessed an immunization card. Majority of them have not taken measles/MR (55.9%) and also IPV 1 (46.2%) and Vitamin A2 (61.3%) because of unaware need for further immunization (58%).Conclusions: According to the survey, conducted in rural fields, we found that half of the population was partially immunized. Reasons being lack of awareness, negligence of parents, unaware of 2nd and 3rd dose of vaccines.

Visual pigments and oil droplets in diurnal lizards

SUMMARY We report microspectrophotometric (MSP) data for the visual pigments and oil droplets of 17 species of Caribbean anoline lizard known to live in differing photic habitats and having distinctly different dewlap colors. The outgroup Polychrus marmoratus was also examined to gain insight into the ancestral condition. Except for Anolis carolinensis, which is known to use vitamin A2 as its visual pigment chromophore, all anoline species examined possessed at least four vitamin-A1-based visual pigments with maximum absorbance (λmax) at 564, 495,455 and 365 nm. To the previously reported visual pigments for A. carolinensis we add an ultraviolet-sensitive one withλ max at 365 nm. Five common classes of oil droplet were measured, named according to apparent color and associated with specific cone classes — yellow and green in long-wavelength-sensitive (LWS) cones,green only in medium-wavelength-sensitive (MWS) cones and colorless in short-wavelength-sensitive (SWS) and ultraviolet-sensitive (UVS) cones. MSP data showed that the colorless droplet in the SWS cone had significant absorption between 350 and 400 nm, while the colorless droplet in the UVS cone did not. The pattern for Polychrus marmoratus was identical to that for the anoles except for the presence of a previously undescribed visual cell with a rod-like outer segment, a visual pigment with a λmaxof 497 nm and a colorless oil droplet like that in the UVS cones. These findings suggest that anoline visual pigments, as far as they determine visual system spectral sensitivity, are not necessarily adapted to the photic environment or to the color of significant visual targets (e.g. dewlaps).