Impact of Covid-19 on FMCG Sector in India

Coronavirus pandemic shows an unprecedented change globally, and thus the impact is even higher in emerging economies like India. fast paced commodity (FMCG) is one of the foremost important sectors in India with varied businesses, including household, care , etc., with high demand, consumed frequently, and services are provided for a coffee cost. This paper is an decide to study the outbreak of COVID-19 within the FMCG sector. It shows that FMCG is affected uncommonly with many factors like Labours moved to their natives, logistics issues, and changes within the buyer basket kind of a explosion in demand for sanitary products and surged in demand for cosmetics. Keywords: Coronavirus, Pandemic, Outbreak, FMCG.

Design and In Vivo Evaluation of a Novel Transdermal Hydrogen/Oxygen-Generating Patch

Hydrogen/oxygen-generating biomaterials, a new trend in regenerative medicine, generate and supply hydrogen/oxygen to increase the local levels of hydrogen/oxygen to support tissue healing and regeneration. In this study, we carefully defined a strategic plan to develop a gas-permeable layer suitable for use in sanitary products that is capable of supplying hydrogen or oxygen in situ using calcium hydroxides as chemical oxygen sources. In vitro physicochemical evaluations of hydrogen- and oxygen-generation efficiency were performed to determine the amount of hydrogen and oxygen produced. An in vivo permeation study was conducted to assess biological parameters, including blood oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H+) levels. The stress hormone corticosterone and inflammation marker interleukin 6 (IL-6) were also quantified. The hydrogen/oxygen-generating patch (HOGP) continuously generated H+ or O2 for up to 12 h after activation by water. An in vivo evaluation showed blood H+ peaked at 2 h after application of the HOGP and then progressively decreased until the end of study (24 h), whereas oxygen content (O2(ct)) and oxygen saturation (SO2(SAT)) continuously increased up to 6 h. Hematological and electrolyte parameters did not significantly change compared to baseline. Wearing the stretch fabric used to secure the patch did not significantly increase serum corticosterone or interleukin 6 (IL-6) in the animals. This novel design of a hydrogen/oxygen-generating biomaterial for supplying topical H+/O2 may hold potential for increasing in situ or circulating H+/O2 levels to improve healthcare outcomes.

Menstrual health management: Practices, challenges and human rights violations

Although it is a natural biological process, menstruation and associated menstrual practices still result in a number of social, cultural and religious restrictions in many countries which sometimes markedly interfere with the implementation of appropriate menstrual hygiene management. India has been chosen as a case in point, as there are approximately 355 million menstruating women and girls in the country, many of whom still face significant barriers to a comfortable and dignified experience with their menses including lack of access to appropriate clean water and washing facilities, and having appropriately priced sanitary products available. Social and religious stigmatisation may also be strict. It is suggested that illnesses related to a lack of clean water, basic sanitation and hygiene were responsible for the deaths of almost 800,000 females globally in a single year, making it the fifth largest killer of women. With increasing population movements, this may also be an issue encountered in migrant communities. There is a need to equip adolescent girls with sound knowledge regarding safe, hygienic menstrual practices to enable them to lead a healthy reproductive life. This human rights issue has significant medico-legal implications and has to be supported by both strong legislative and public health initiatives.

Menstrual Regulation as a Means of Reproductive Control: The Law's Response to Disabled Bodies and Menstruation

Every day, millions of people make decisions about menstruation. They make decisions about what sanitary products to use, about pain relief, about with whom they will discuss their experience of menstruation. They make decisions about contraception to induce amenorrhea. These decisions may be influenced by family, poverty, society, and culture, but they remain, for the most part, up to the individual. However, this right to autonomy is not extended to all people equally. Some disabled people, for example, have these decisions made by substituted decision makers, including the courts. This is in violation of their rights; nevertheless, this practice continues in various jurisdictions, including through guardianship and conservatorship laws.

Are Women Human? Tampon Taxes and the Semiotics of Exclusion

By now, there is a robust body of scholarship critiquing the taxation of menstrual products from material, expressive, constitutional, and human rights perspectives. This literature highlights the issue of access to sanitary products in prisons, in secondary schools, and in poor countries. Invoking the expressive function of law, scholars have noted how the tax signals to women that their basic physical and health needs are not human necessities that merit tax exemption—like say Viagra—but are rather luxuries that should be taxed—like cigarettes and alcohol. In this tax regime, human needs considered basic enough to merit tax relief—thinning hair, for example—are male needs. So what else is new? As Catherine Mackinnon asked, ironically, decades ago: Are women human? In this Article, I want to turn the expressive critique of tampon taxation in the direction of semiotics. Culture constitutes systems of signs through which we understand our world. These signs convey meaning though their difference from other signs, not through any intrinsic meaning. Tax law has its own signs. By imposing differing tax regimes on people and things, it tells us how to read them. For example, through differing taxation, it tells us what a family is (one organized around a formal marriage) and is not (networks of dependence organized around cohabitants), what work is (labor exchanged for goods) and is not (housework), etc. Taxes also tell us which goods are luxuries and which are necessities by imposing a luxury tax on certain items and exempting others.

Treatment of Women with Heavy Menstrual Bleeding with a Combination Therapy of Agnus Castus and Tranexamic Acid - Experiences of a German Single Centre

Background: Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is a common gynaecological problem and is the reason for 18-30% of gynaecological visits. In a European study in 4,502 women, 27.2% were diagnosed with HMB (Fraser et al., 2015). On the other hand, HMB is often associated with bleeding disorders (Shankar et al., 2004). The definition of HMB has different perspectives; from a subjective perspective HMB is defined as e excessive menstrual blood loss impacting on women's physical, social, emotional and/or mental quality of life, whereas from an objective perspective it is defined as excessive blood loss >80 ml per cycle (Munro et al., 2012). There are different approaches for treating HMB such as the administration of non-steroidal drugs, Desmopressin, herbal Vitex Agnus Castus (VAC), Tranexamic acid (TXA) or a hormonal therapy; moreover, HMB can also be treated surgically. The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of the specific HMB management used in our center: Women with HMB are treated usually with VAC, which optimizes the relation of estrogen to progesterone in the female body (Yavarikia et al., 2013). VAC can be used without using any hormones (Shahnazi et al, 2016), providing a treatment with a low impact on women's bodies. Additionally, TXA is given during the menstruation due to its antifibrinolytic effect. Furthermore, the "Pictural Blood-Loss-Assessment- Chart" (PBAC Score) is administered to analyze the menstrual blood loss. Methods: Two ad hoc patient-reported questionnaires were developed to test the efficacy of the HMB management in our center The baseline questionnaire includes the following aspects: menarche, duration, regularity, number of sanitary products, pain level, medical background and family history. During the first visit in our center women with HMB filled in the baseline questionnaire. In addition, laboratory tests are done including a comprehensive coagulation test and the examination of iron and hemoglobin levels. Moreover, we presented an application called "My Flow Score" to the patients, which calculates the PBAC score as a result of all entered sanitary products women use during their period. Women are prescribed VAC and/or TXA for the management of their HMB. After four months patients are scheduled for a follow up appointment. At that time they complete the follow-up questionnaire including the following aspects: compliance with the medication or the reason for the non-compliance, health complaints due to the medication, duration of the period, improvement, pain level, PBAC score if the patient did use the APP "My Flow Score" or if not the number of sanitary products. A blood test was taken and the HMB management was adapted to the patients' needs. Results: So far, 100 women with HMB with a median age of 14 years (range 9-50) were enrolled in our study. They had their menarche with a median age of 12 years (range 8-17). Diagnosis of women ranged from iron or folic acid deficiency to different forms of bleeding disorders; with the majority suffering from von Willebrand disease (43/100) followed by iron deficiency (14/100). One fifth of the patients had more than one diagnosis. 1/3 of patients received a treatment for the HMB previously, mainly contraceptives, TXA or VAC. 49% reported anomalies with regard to previous other bleeding; 25.8% had increased hematomas and 19.6% recurrent epistaxis. Most of them reported anomalies already in the family (60.2%). Before treatment women had a median PBAC Score of 169 (range 77-800) and reported a median pain level of 6.5 during menstruation on a scale ranging from 1 (low pain) to 10 (extreme pain). 87/100 women received VCA, of these 75.4% regularly and 85/100 women received TXA, of these 84.6% regularly. 81% of them received a combination of both medicines. Compared to before 28.8% of patients reported shorter duration of menstruation and reduced bleeding with treatment, 11.9% did not experience any improvement; the PBAC score decreased significantly (p<.0001). Conclusions: Although the type of diagnosis in women suffering from HMB had a great variation, these patients had a high disease burden with a relatively high level of pain and a high loss of blood assessed with the PBAC score. Thanks to a combination of VAC and TXA the disease burden in these women could be reduced, especially for the time of menstruation and amount of bleeding. VAC proved to be highly accepted by women due to its low treatment burden. Disclosures Von Mackensen: University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf: Current Employment; Sobi: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Sanofi: Consultancy; Novo Nordisk: Consultancy; Biomarin: Speakers Bureau; CSL Behring: Speakers Bureau; Chugai/Roche: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.

Paper and thread as media for the frugal detection of urinary tract infections (UTIs)

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) make up a significant proportion of the global burden of disease in vulnerable groups and tend to substantially impair the quality of life of those affected, making timely detection of UTIs a priority for public health. However, economic and societal barriers drastically reduce accessibility of traditional lab-based testing methods for critical patient groups in low-resource areas, negatively affecting their overall healthcare outcomes. As a result, cellulose-based materials such as paper and thread have garnered significant interest among researchers as substrates for so-called frugal analytical devices which leverage the material’s portability and adaptability for facile and reproducible diagnoses of UTIs. Although the field may be only in its infancy, strategies aimed at commercial penetration can appreciably increase access to more healthcare options for at-risk people. In this review, we catalogue recent advances in devices that use cellulose-based materials as the primary housing or medium for UTI detection and chart out trends in the field. We also explore different modalities employed for detection, with particular emphasis on their ability to be ported onto discreet casings such as sanitary products. Graphical abstract

The hidden WASH needs of perimenopausal women

Meeting the needs of an ageing population, particularly in the global South, is increasingly an issue for WASH service provision. An ageing-related issue for women, warranting specific attention from the WASH sector, is the perimenopause, but this is often not discussed publicly. Drawing on data from the UK and Ghana, this paper provides recommendations for meeting the additional WASH needs of women as they experience the perimenopause (the transition period to menopause). Finding these ‘hidden’ needs involved a UK-based phenomenological review and mixed feminist methods in two low-income urban communities in Accra and Kumasi, Ghana. The hidden WASH needs of perimenopausal women included understanding the perimenopause, menstrual hygiene management, urine incontinence management, bathing, and laundry. Community awareness, engagement and empowerment, and ensuring good perimenopausal health can begin to address these needs. Infrastructural measures for perimenopausal women include a continuous water supply, user-friendly bathing and laundry infrastructure, and gender-sensitive, accessible toilets with discrete sanitary disposal bins. High-absorbency sanitary products are important for managing heavy menstruation. A better understanding of the needs of perimenopausal women and training on how to meet these would benefit the WASH sector in ensuring that perimenopausal women are not left behind in efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

A Study of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Menstrual Hygiene among Adolescent Teenage Girls in and Around Anantapur Town

Menstrual hygiene is defined as the principle of maintaining the cleanliness of the body during menstrual flow. It requires basic facilities such as appropriate clothes, soakage material, water, soap, and toilet facilities with privacy. Many studies have revealed that most adolescent girls had incomplete and inaccurate information about menstrual hygiene and physiology. It also revealed that mothers, television, friends, teachers, and relatives were the main sources that provided information on menstruation to adolescent girls. In our study, most of the girls belong to the age group of 15 – 17 that is 448 participants are from that age group which comprises about 89% and they mostly belong to intermediate which is around 442 students (88.4%). 90.6% of the girls knew that menstruation occurs only in females and 88% of the girls aware that the best sanitary products are pads and only 39.6% of girls knew about menstruation before menarche. It was observed that only 37.2% of girls knew that infection would occur if they don’t clean their vagina regularly during their menstruation. Maximum that is 304 (60.8%) girls responded for dysmenorrhoea in the present study. The majority of these responses were in the age group of 13–15 years. the knowledge on menstruation and menstrual hygiene was found to be unsatisfactory although the practices were noted to be good. The majority of girls attained menarche in the study. Menstrual hygiene is an issue that needs to be addressed at all levels. In our study majority of the mothers were found to be illiterates, as mothers are the first informant to the majority of adolescent girls the health education actives can be extended to the mothers to improve awareness.

A Study of Environmentally Friendly Menstrual Absorbents in the Context of Social Change for Adolescent Girls in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Girls in low- and middle-income countries struggle to maintain good menstrual hygiene in part due to a lack of affordable sanitary products. The unaffordability of reliable sanitary products can lead to school absenteeism and is a barrier to education attainment and gender equality for girls in low-income contexts. Further, the lack of adequate disposal facilities can lead to social embarrassment and environmental pollution. Low-cost biodegradable absorbents (cotton terry cloth, linen, hemp cloth and bamboo wadding) were investigated in gelatine solution in terms of their absorption for use in menstrual hygiene. Bamboo wadding exhibits the highest absorption index (7.86), greater than cotton terry cloth (0.84), hemp cloth (1.4), linen (1.57) and a commercial sanitary pad (4.38). Though the absorption index of bamboo wadding is promising, especially in light of the vast availability of bamboo in tropical low- and middle-income countries, challenges lie in overcoming complex extraction processes from bamboo plants, which is discussed. This simple research of a physical material from a technical aspect, if further investigated with a social science and policy lens, could increase school attendance, improve the education levels attained by girls and be a key step towards gender equality in low- and middle-income countries.