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Authors are the souls of any journal, and deserve much respect. To publish a journal manuscripts are needed from authors. Authors have a great responsibility for producing facts of their work in terms of number and results truthfully and an individual honesty is expected from authors in this regards. Both ways its true "No authors-No manuscripts-No journals" and "No journals–No manuscripts–No authors". Reviewing a manuscript is also a very responsible and important task of any peer-reviewed journal and to be taken seriously. It needs knowledge on the subject, sincerity, honesty and determination. Although the process of reviewing a manuscript is a time consuming task butit is expected to give one's best remarks within the time frame of the journal.
Salient features of the JCDR: It is a biomedical, multidisciplinary (including all medical and dental specialities), e-journal, with wide scope and extensive author support. At the same time, a free text of manuscript is available in HTML and PDF format. There is fast growing authorship and readership with JCDR as this can be judged by the number of articles published in it i e; in Feb 2007 of its first issue, it contained 5 articles only, and now in its recent volume published in April 2011, it contained 67 manuscripts. This e-journal is fulfilling the commitments and objectives sincerely, (as stated by Editor-in-chief in his preface to first edition) i e; to encourage physicians through the internet, especially from the developing countries who witness a spectrum of disease and acquire a wealth of knowledge to publish their experiences to benefit the medical community in patients care. I also feel that many of us have work of substance, newer ideas, adequate clinical materials but poor in medical writing and hesitation to submit the work and need help. JCDR provides authors help in this regards.
Timely publication of journal: Publication of manuscripts and bringing out the issue in time is one of the positive aspects of JCDR and is possible with strong support team in terms of peer reviewers, proof reading, language check, computer operators, etc. This is one of the great reasons for authors to submit their work with JCDR. Another best part of JCDR is "Online first Publications" facilities available for the authors. This facility not only provides the prompt publications of the manuscripts but at the same time also early availability of the manuscripts for the readers.
Indexation and online availability: Indexation transforms the journal in some sense from its local ownership to the worldwide professional community and to the public.JCDR is indexed with Embase & EMbiology, Google Scholar, Index Copernicus, Chemical Abstracts Service, Journal seek Database, Indian Science Abstracts, to name few of them. Manuscriptspublished in JCDR are available on major search engines ie; google, yahoo, msn.
In the era of fast growing newer technologies, and in computer and internet friendly environment the manuscripts preparation, submission, review, revision, etc and all can be done and checked with a click from all corer of the world, at any time. Of course there is always a scope for improvement in every field and none is perfect. To progress, one needs to identify the areas of one's weakness and to strengthen them.
It is well said that "happy beginning is half done" and it fits perfectly with JCDR. It has grown considerably and I feel it has already grown up from its infancy to adolescence, achieving the status of standard online e-journal form Indian continent since its inception in Feb 2007. This had been made possible due to the efforts and the hard work put in it. The way the JCDR is improving with every new volume, with good quality original manuscripts, makes it a quality journal for readers. I must thank and congratulate Dr Hemant Jain, Editor-in-Chief JCDR and his team for their sincere efforts, dedication, and determination for making JCDR a fast growing journal.
Every one of us: authors, reviewers, editors, and publisher are responsible for enhancing the stature of the journal. I wish for a great success for JCDR."
Thanking you
With sincere regards
Dr. Rajendra Kumar Ghritlaharey, M.S., M. Ch., FAIS
Associate Professor,
Department of Paediatric Surgery, Gandhi Medical College & Associated
Kamla Nehru & Hamidia Hospitals Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462 001 (India)
E-mail: drrajendrak1@rediffmail.com
On May 11,2011
Dr. Shankar P.R.
"On looking back through my Gmail archives after being requested by the journal to write a short editorial about my experiences of publishing with the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research (JCDR), I came across an e-mail from Dr. Hemant Jain, Editor, in March 2007, which introduced the new electronic journal. The main features of the journal which were outlined in the e-mail were extensive author support, cash rewards, the peer review process, and other salient features of the journal.
Over a span of over four years, we (I and my colleagues) have published around 25 articles in the journal. In this editorial, I plan to briefly discuss my experiences of publishing with JCDR and the strengths of the journal and to finally address the areas for improvement.
My experiences of publishing with JCDR: Overall, my experiences of publishing withJCDR have been positive. The best point about the journal is that it responds to queries from the author. This may seem to be simple and not too much to ask for, but unfortunately, many journals in the subcontinent and from many developing countries do not respond or they respond with a long delay to the queries from the authors 1. The reasons could be many, including lack of optimal secretarial and other support. Another problem with many journals is the slowness of the review process. Editorial processing and peer review can take anywhere between a year to two years with some journals. Also, some journals do not keep the contributors informed about the progress of the review process. Due to the long review process, the articles can lose their relevance and topicality. A major benefit with JCDR is the timeliness and promptness of its response. In Dr Jain's e-mail which was sent to me in 2007, before the introduction of the Pre-publishing system, he had stated that he had received my submission and that he would get back to me within seven days and he did!
Most of the manuscripts are published within 3 to 4 months of their submission if they are found to be suitable after the review process. JCDR is published bimonthly and the accepted articles were usually published in the next issue. Recently, due to the increased volume of the submissions, the review process has become slower and it ?? Section can take from 4 to 6 months for the articles to be reviewed. The journal has an extensive author support system and it has recently introduced a paid expedited review process. The journal also mentions the average time for processing the manuscript under different submission systems - regular submission and expedited review.
Strengths of the journal: The journal has an online first facility in which the accepted manuscripts may be published on the website before being included in a regular issue of the journal. This cuts down the time between their acceptance and the publication. The journal is indexed in many databases, though not in PubMed. The editorial board should now take steps to index the journal in PubMed. The journal has a system of notifying readers through e-mail when a new issue is released. Also, the articles are available in both the HTML and the PDF formats. I especially like the new and colorful page format of the journal. Also, the access statistics of the articles are available. The prepublication and the manuscript tracking system are also helpful for the authors.
Areas for improvement: In certain cases, I felt that the peer review process of the manuscripts was not up to international standards and that it should be strengthened. Also, the number of manuscripts in an issue is high and it may be difficult for readers to go through all of them. The journal can consider tightening of the peer review process and increasing the quality standards for the acceptance of the manuscripts. I faced occasional problems with the online manuscript submission (Pre-publishing) system, which have to be addressed.
Overall, the publishing process with JCDR has been smooth, quick and relatively hassle free and I can recommend other authors to consider the journal as an outlet for their work."
Dr. P. Ravi Shankar
KIST Medical College, P.O. Box 14142, Kathmandu, Nepal.
E-mail: ravi.dr.shankar@gmail.com
On April 2011 Anuradha
Dear team JCDR, I would like to thank you for the very professional and polite service provided by everyone at JCDR. While i have been in the field of writing and editing for sometime, this has been my first attempt in publishing a scientific paper.Thank you for hand-holding me through the process.
Dr. Anuradha
E-mail: anuradha2nittur@gmail.com
On Jan 2020
Original article / research
Full Version
Prevalence of HIV Infection among Blood Donors in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Haryana: A Retrospective Study
Correspondence Address :
Dr. Sumit Chawla,
Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee GMCH, Chhiansa, Faridabad, Haryana, India.
E-mail: snehkhatri1986@gmail.com; drschawla86@gmail.com
Introduction: Blood is a scarce, but life saving resource. At the same time, unsafe transfusion practice also puts millions of people at risk of Transfusion Transmissible Infections (TTIs).
Aim: To determine the prevalence and trend of blood borne infection namely Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) among blood donors donating blood in a tertiary care hospital of Haryana, India.
Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted in the Department of Transfusion Medicine of Pt. B.D Sharma PGIMS, Haryana, India, from September 2012 to August 2014 to calculate the prevalence and trend of HIV positivity among blood donors over a period of five years (2008-2012). Results were expressed in terms of frequency and percentage.
Results: There were a total of 1,59,077 donations, including both voluntary and replacement donors. The overall prevalence of HIV infection among blood donors was found to be 0.26% over a period of five years (2008-2012). The HIV prevalence among blood donors showed an increased trend from 2008 (0.18%) to 2011 (0.34%), and then there was a dip in the year 2012 (0.23%).
Conclusion: The number of female blood donors were less in comparison to male blood donor. The maximum number of donors were voluntary males followed by replacement males.
Human immunodeficiency virus, Source, Transfusion transmissible infections, Trend
In India, the main causes of blood for transfusion are voluntary donors and replacement donors. A voluntary blood donor purposely donates blood without looking for any compensation whereas a replacement donor is demanded to donate blood by the patient or his attendants (1),(2). The transfusion of blood and blood products is an essential part of patient care and sometimes the only option for survival. When used correctly, not only it saves lives and improves health but also support complex medical and surgical procedures including transplantation. The blood transfusion improve the life expectancy and quality of life of patients suffering from a wide spectrum of life-threatening inherited disorders such as haemophilia, thalassemia and acquired conditions, such as, cancer and traumatic thalassaemia. However, it also carries a potential risk of complications and transfusion related infections. The risk of TTIs can be minimised by safety measures in blood collection, processing and testing (3).
In India, screening of every unit of donated blood for TTIs is made mandatory by the government. Every unit of the donated blood must be screened for Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), HIV, malaria and syphilis in all blood banks (4). Despite strict donor screening, the difficulties of ‘window period’, false-negative results, frequency of asymptomatic carriers, genetic variability in viral strains and technical errors remains the area of concern (5). According to a report on assessment of blood banks in India 2016, the seropositivity of TTI among blood donors was 0.14% for HIV, 0.34% for Hepatitis C, 0.87% for Hepatitis-B, 0.17% for Syphilis and 0.06% for Malaria. However, there is a huge variation between states. The HIV seroprevalence among blood donors was 0.12% in Haryana (6). The adult (15-49 years) HIV prevalence in India was estimated as 0.22% (0.17-0.29%) in 2020; with 0.23% and 0.20% among males and females respectively while Haryana had an estimated adult HIV prevalence in the range of 0.20-0.21% (7).
The risk of transfusion transmission of the HIV viruses may be alarming due to high seroprevalence of HIV among blood donors who represent general population. Assessment of statistics on the frequency of TTIs like HIV among blood donors allows a calculation of the approximately precise estimation of risk of HIV which aids in the formation of long term policies to develop public health and to avoid spreading of these diseases in the overall population (8). The present study was undertaken to determine the prevalence and trend of HIV infection among blood donors in a tertiary care hospital of Haryana, India.
A retrospective study was conducted in the Department of Transfusion Medicine of Pt. B.D Sharma PGIMS Rohtak Haryana, India, to calculate the prevalence and trend of HIV infection among blood donors (voluntary and replacement) over a period of five years (January 2008 to December 2012). The study was carried out from September 2012 to August 2014. Ethical approval to conduct the study was taken from Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC/Thesis/Dr. Inderjeet Singh (CM-7)/2012). Prevalence of HIV infection among voluntary donors and replacement donors were studied.
Inclusion criteria: All the blood donors who donated blood (as per NACO guidelines) from 2008 to 2012 in the Department of Transfusion Medicine of Pt. B D Sharma PGIMS Rohtak were included (6).
Exclusion criteria: Incomplete records were excluded from the study records of all the donors along with their laboratory results.
Statistical Analysis
Collected data were entered in the Microsoft excel spreadsheet, coded appropriately and later cleaned for any possible errors. Analysis was carried out using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows version 20.0, and online Graph Pad software (Prism 5 for windows) version 5.01. Normally distributed data were presented as means and standard deviation and categorical data were expressed as frequency.
The (Table/Fig 1) shows that out of the 1,34,031 voluntary donors, majority (96.3%) were male donors. Similarly out of the 25046 replacement donors, majority (99.6%) were male donors.
The (Table/Fig 2) revealed that out of the total 1,59,077 donations, 416 (0.26%) were HIV positive. The year-wise HIV prevalence among blood donors showed an increased trend from 2008 (0.18%) to 2011 (0.34%).
As evident from (Table/Fig 3) both the voluntary and replacement donors had similar prevalence for HIV infection. The overall prevalence of HIV among blood donors was 0.26%.
Transfusion of blood and blood components as a specialised modality of patient management saves millions of lives worldwide. The strategies to prevent the spread of blood borne infections have been extremely effective but transmission still occurs. Evaluation of data for the prevalence of TTIs (like HIV) permits an assessment of acquisition of HIV infection in the blood donor population and consequently the safety of collected blood donations. It also gives an idea of epidemiology of HIV infection in the apparently healthy population. The improved screening and testing of blood donors has significantly reduced TTIs, in most developed countries. This has not been so in developing nations. Poor health education and the lack of awareness result in the reservoir of infections in the population.
Present study shows the overall prevalence of HIV infection in the five years (2008-2012) was 0.26% among blood donors in PGIMS Rohtak, Haryana, India. Negi G and Gaur DS from Uttarakhand reported that the mean percentage of HIV infection per year was found to be 0.2% (9). Similar results were reported by Chandra T et al., from Uttar Pradesh, showed seropositivity for the HIV infection ranging from 0.03-0.27% (10). The seroprevalence of HIV in other studies is shown in (Table/Fig 4) (11),(12),(13),(14),(15),(16),(17),(18).
Main donor population in present study was that of males (96.8%) instead of females (3.2%) and this finding was similar to study by Chavan SK and Chavan KB who observed proportion of male donors were higher (97.3%) as compared to females (2.7%) (19). Other studies Kalpana SR et al., Barla M et al., too showed male predominance (20),(21). There is need to increase awareness in females about blood donation. The rejection rate in female donors is more due to anaemia and underweight.
Limitation(s)
Donor pool was majority of male population, so prevalence cannot be generalised to female population.
In the present study, the overall prevalence of HIV infection was found to be 0.26% over a period of five years (2008-2012). Among blood donors there was male predominance. The sustainable and reliable approach to reduce the prevalence of this infection is to improve people’s awareness about modes of transmission of blood borne infections.
DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2022/46593.16456
Date of Submission: Sep 03, 2020
Date of Peer Review: Nov 24, 2020
Date of Acceptance: May 02, 2022
Date of Publishing: Jun 01, 2022
AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? Yes
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? NA
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. NA
PLAGIARISM CHECKING METHODS:
• Plagiarism X-checker: Nov 18, 2021
• Manual Googling: Apr 19, 2022
• iThenticate Software: May 26, 2022 (14%)
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