Something new, something different happens every day happens in the world that shocks everyone; from making lives better to the deaths, from pig kidney transplant to the people suffering in the Uttarakhand, some news gets viral daily.
Pig kidney successfully tested for human transplant
Science is full of surprises and with every passing day with the more advanced facility, more miracles are possible; as of now the surgeons from the US have tested the pig kidney for the transplant in the human body successfully. The things which the world never expected have come to reality now.
NYU Langone Health in New York City conducted the procedure in which the pig’s kidney was genetically engineered to conform to the requirements of a human body so that the tissues no longer contain the molecule that triggers immediate rejection.
For the very first time in history, a pig kidney has been transplanted into the body of a human being without any immediate rejection from the recipient’s immune system. This will lead to solving the problem of shortage of human organs for the transplant and will be used as an alternative for that, resulting in the decline of death due to not getting the organ on time or due to the shortage.
The procedure carried out at the NYU Langone Health in New York City showed that the pig genes were altered before the injection into the body and the tissues were altered accordingly and the immediate rejection molecule was eliminated from the tissues.
The whole procedure was carried out on the patient who was declared brain dead but also showed some signs of dysfunction in the kidney and after the consent of the family members, the experiment was taken further as the patient had to be taken off from the life support as per the reports. The kidney was attached to the patient’s blood vessels for three days and was maintained outside the body; the researchers had full access to it.
According to Dr. Robert Montgomery, who conducted the research, the results of the transplant appear to be pretty good and normal. The kidney was able to generate the expected amount of urine from the body as it would have done in the case of human kidney transplant.
No signs of rejection was experienced upon the transplant of the unmodified kidney of pig into the non-human primates. The recipient’s abnormal creatinine level which is said to be the indicator for poor kidney function returned to normal after the transplant of the pig kidney.
Around 107,000 people in the United States are waiting for the organ transplant and in that approx. 90,000 people do not have kidney donors yet according to the reports of the United Network for Organ Sharing. A person has to wait for the duration of three to five years approximately to receive the kidney. For decades the researchers are working on the possibility to use the animal’s kidney for the transplant on humans but it was not successful due to the immediate rejection by the human immune system.
It was theorized by the Montgomery team that if they eliminate the pig gene for a carbohydrate that causes the immediate rejection and the sugar molecule or alpha-gal, a glycan can be the solution for the problem and the transplant can be successful. However, apart from these, the pig was genetically modified and developed in the Revivicor Unit of United Therapeutics Corp, which has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Suffering for Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand is experiencing heavy, record-breaking rainfall, resulting in landslides, floods, and property damage. Till now, 46 people have been reported dead due to the heavy rain. Kumaon is one of the worst-hit regions in Uttarakhand. In the last 24 hours, the Mukteshwar region said 340.8 mm of rainfall, and that is the highest one since 1897. The highest rainfall was recorded as 254.5 mm on September 18, 1914.
It was reported by the India Meteorology Department (IMD), Uttarakhand experienced 178.4 mm rain on the first eighteen days of October which is like 485% more than the average rainfall. Along with that, the regions like Udham Singh Nagar and Chamoli reported more than 10,000% more rain than average.
In the last 24 hours, Chamoli has reported 127.5mm and at the same time, Udham Singh Nagar experienced 232.1 mm rainfall which usually had an average of 1.6mm. The rainfall in the Udham Singh Nagar contributed to the extreme rainfall event. Since 2015, over 7,500 cloudbursts and heavy rain have been reported in Uttarakhand, and that majority occurred in the tenure of last three years when the region says rain of more than 204 mm in the 24 hours. 1,631 extreme rainfall was recorded in 2020, and earlier in 2018, it was 3,706.
The number of cases would have been higher, but many regions lack weather stations to record the situation. At present, there are 25 weather observatories in Uttarakhand. This year they have recorded three cloudbursts and rain in Dehradun, Haldwani, and Champawat.
Since the last seven years, approximately two thousand significant landslides have been reported, and all these are because of the climate crisis caused by unplanned development, road cuttings, and destruction of local ecology. The experts believe that the main reason for the landslides during the rainfall is because of the unscientific road cutting, disposals, mining activities which are illegally carried on, and no compensation activities are made for these. It resulted in the decline of forest cover, and the period of four years from 2015 to 2019, Uttarakhand did not even manage to increase the forest cover by 1%.
Humans create the factors, and they receive them in the very same way that nature does. Tree cutting, construction, and hill cutting for highway construction are all activities pushing the ecological balance to deteriorate. Starting to end is a step for the occurrence of such incidents, and people lose a life. It is the revenge that we get. It is so dreadful to listen that many people died in their sleep and did not even have an idea what happened and many lost their family members in this.
More upgrades for India in the eastern sector of LAC
India is trying to get everything best for the security of the nation. As for now, India has come up with an upgrade to one of its vintage air defense guns by bringing the latest Ultra Light Howitzer M777 artillery guns into action. Earlier the focus was on the western region of the Line of Actual Control in the eastern Ladakh area but now the focus has been shifted to the eastern region’s firepower.
Talking about the strategies, more details and the number of guns available in the area are not shared with anyone and according to the senior official, the decision to upgrade the guns at this time is correct. Earlier in 2018, 145 M777 guns were purchased by India and those were inducted in the same year. The Ultra Light Howitzer has various advantages over the guns India had before which has been India’s artillery mainstay since the 1980s.
IMD issues orange alert in Kerala
The India Meteorology Department (IMD) has issued alerts about the strong winds in Kerala till October 24 and has issued the orange alert for the three districts are Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Idukki, and yellow alerts for Kollam, Thiruvanthapuram, Malappuram, Thrissur, and Ernakulam. Keeping the recent landslide incidents from Kottayam and Idukki district in mind the government has started evacuating the residents from the regions of eastern hills of Kerala for the first time.
The government has also asked the fishermen for their support by lending the boats to evacuate the people from low-lying regions. According to the data, the state has received 135% of excess rain from October 1 to October 19. On October 16, looking at the situation the government issued the red alert indicating the heavy rains and many incidents of landslides were reported from the south-central region of Kerala and resulted in 27 deaths.
