Ludhiana, May 7
A South African group consisting of Prof Demetre Labadarios, head of department of human nutrition, and Debbi Marais, senior lecturer in the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, was in the Christian Medical College (CMC), here, since May 3. They will be here till tomorrow.

The South African experts had an extensive interaction with CMC faculty on nutritional issues.

During his extended interaction with the experts from the field, Professor Labadarios cautioned the medical institutions to raise awareness and to put necessary structures in place inside the hospitals to check this world wide problem.

He advised local dieticians to continue their study and keep in touch with the latest trends as their’s was a fastly expanding field.

The group had developed a self-learning module on nutrition in HIV for health professionals, which had been extensively tested in South Africa and found to be extremely useful. According to Dr Tejinder Singh, professor in the department of Pediatrics at CMC, this module would be converted for India and then tested under the local conditions.

He said,” Post this exercise, it will be available to the students of CMC and other medical and sciences students. The feedback and test results will be uploaded on to the suitable websites so that the entire medical world may utilise this research."

The visiting group also reviewed the progress made in South Africa regarding the use of breast feeding module developed by Dr Tejinder Singh and later adapted by another South African researcher, Lissane Du Plessis.

The group held detailed discussion with their counterparts in city on range of nutritional aspects.

A talk was organised on the ‘Prevalence of malnutrition in hospitalised patients’. It was attended by some leading dieticians of the city.

Ludhiana, May 7
The local branch of Indian Dental Association (IDA) today felicitated noted dental surgeon of the region and former national president of the body Dr Bhagwant Singh, who had returned back to the city after attending the 29th Asia Pacific Dental Federation (APDF) conference at Jakarta (Indonesia).

Stating this, the IDA honorary secretary Dr Vikas Jindal said that Dr Bhagwant Singh was the only dentist from this part of the country to have officially attended the conference.

Sharing his experience with the dental professionals, Dr Bhagwant Singh informed that more than 4000 delegates from 29 countries participated in this mega event. Besides 260 booths, which displayed the latest equipment and materials used in dentistry, there were 320 scientific papers, presented by speakers from across the globe at the conference.

Dr Jindal further told that Dr Bhagwant Singh was nominated by the Council of the APDF as APRO chairman of Booth Asia countries for the year 2007-08. Dr Singh is at present vice-president of the APDF/Asia Pacific Regional Organisation of the Federation Dentistry International as well as a fellow of international college of continuous dental education, which serves 32 countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

Ludhiana, May 7
Around 250 patients were examined at a free diabetes detection camp, organised by the local branch of National Integrated Medical Association (NIMA), at the Shivpuri locality here on Sunday.

The camp was held under the community service project as per the directions from the central office of NIMA to provide medical and health facilities to the needy people living in slums and rural areas.

A team of doctors, comprising Dr Ramanbir Singh, endocrinologist at SPS Apollo Hospital, Dr Surendra Gupta, secretary, NIMA, Dr Inder Sharma, Dr Sarjivan Sharma, Dr K.K. Kharbanda, Dr K.K. Sharma, Dr Satinder Kakar, Dr Navneet Saggar, Dr Pardeep Nagrath, Dr B.K. Dutt, Dr Meenakshi, Dr Lavkesh Sharma and Dr Diwaker Sharma, examined the patients and rendered followup advice, including free medicines to the patients diagnosed to be suffering from diabetes.

According to Dr Gupta, out of blood sugar test performed on 245 persons, 130 were found to be suffering from diabetes. In addition, free micral test was done for the patients to detect micro-albuminuria, an indicator of impending kidney failure.

Dr G.S. Bajwa, head of ophthalmology at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, also attended the camp and inaugurated an email-based helpline for diabetic patients - diabetesfreeworld. He appreciated the gesture of launching the helpline, which would provide latest information and personalised response to the needy diabetic patients.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Gupta said the whole aim of the service (helpline) was to create conditions so that diabetes could be kept away from the society. “This can be achieved only by educating the patients regularly about latest guidelines, based on scientific research and healthy lifestyle, along with medications and necessary preventive measures. Simple herb-based home recipes will also be intimated to the patients who sought guidance and assistance from the helpline.”

Dr Bajwa conducted “fundoscopy” on 45 diabetic patients to detect any impact of the disease on retina. He emphasised that timely detection of these changes could prevent blindness caused by diabetes.

Ludhiana, May 7
Boys and girls have been selected to represent Ludhiana in the 12th Punjab junior softball championship for boys and girls to be held at Moga from May 11 to 13, according to P.N. Passi of the Ludhiana District Softball Association.

They have been attending a preparatory camp at Ramgarhia Senior Secondary School (boys) and Teja Singh Sutantar Memorial School (girls) here since May 4.

Boys: Jatinder Singh, Kapil Dev, Arun Kumar, Balraj Dass, Sunil Kumar, Mohit Bawra, Vikramjit and Pawan, all from Ramgarhia Senior Secondary School, Gurliv, Guru Nanak Public Senior Secondary School, Prabhjot Singh, Aman Vij and Vivek, all of RS Model Senior Secondary School, Karandeep Singh and Gurmukh Singh, both from Teja Singh Sutantar Memorial Senior Secondary School, and Gagandeep Singh, Nankana Sahib High School.

Satish Kumar and Harnek Singh will accompany the team as coaches while Onkar Singh will be the manager.

Girls: Shweta Rai, Karamjit Kaur, Amandeep Kaur, Gurpreet Kaur, Reena, Parmajit Kaur, Heena, Manveer Kaur and Palwinder Kaur, all from Teja Singh Sutantar Memorial Senior Secondary School, Navdeep Kaur, Tejinder Kaur and Dilpreet Kaur, all from Nankana Sahib High School, Deepa and Khushbu Sharma, both from Guru Nanak Senior Secondary School, and Aarti, Jughar Model High School.

Amrit Kang and Rajeshwar Kaur have been named coaches, while Baljinder Kaur will be the manager.