Eradicate dengue breeding sites in schools

The Education Ministry last week requested the heads of schools in the country to be more vigilant of possible dengue breeding sites that could have developed in the school premises, especially after the two -week New Year school vacation which ended on April 23.

Education Minister Bandula Gunawardene told the Junior Observer that as no cleaning campaigns were carried out by children in their respective school premises during the two-week school vacation, it has become necessary for all children to take part in regular clearing campaigns from now onwards to destroy mosquito breeding grounds.

He said the Ministry has already directed school authorities to clean their respective school premises. Principals and teachers should also coordinate such cleaning programs, he added.

According to a senior Health Department official, teams of entomologists have been deployed to conduct surveys in schools to ensure that the premises are free of dengue mosquito breeding grounds.

The entomologists were appointed by the Health Ministry on the directive of Minister Maithripala Sirisena .

The Health Ministry statistics also reveals that over 9700 dengue patients have been reported from all parts of the country during the first three months of this year with 45 deaths reported.

Minister Gunawardena further said the Ministry's on going ' Cleaning School Environment ‘programmes will be streamlined and strengthened to fulfil the Government's endeavour of creating a healthy society.

The Minister thanked school children for carrying out cleaning school compounds programmes regularly and said such programmes should be continued on par with their educational activities.

Minister Gunawardena said the Government spends a colossal sum of money every year to improve the health conditions of over 4.2 million school children.

“We have decided to establish dental clinics and spectacle distribution programmes even in remote schools, so that children will not have to go to other school for this purpose,” he said.

Violence puts wear and tear on children - DNA tests reveal

Children who have experienced violence might really be older than their years. The DNA of 10-year-olds who experienced violence in their young lives have been found to show wear and tear normally associated with ageing, a Duke University study has found.

“This is the first time it has been shown that our telomeres can shorten at a faster rate even at a really young age, while kids are still experiencing stress,” said Idan Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher in psychology and neuroscience at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy.

Telomeres are special DNA sequences found at the tips of chromosomes; much like the plastic tips of shoelaces, they prevent DNA from unravelling. Emerging evidence suggests that telomeres are “master integrators,” connecting stress to biological age and associated diseases.

Telomeres are known to get shorter each time cells divide, putting a limit on the number of times a given cell can go on dividing. Smoking, obesity, psychological disorders and stress have been found to possibly accelerate that process of telomere loss. In that sense, our telomeres may reflect biological age, not just chronological age.

Previous studies of telomeres and stress had primarily looked at telomeres in adults as they recalled experiences much earlier in their lives.

In the new study, Shalev took advantage of the Environmental-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study led by Duke's Avshalom Caspi and Terrie Moffitt that has followed 1,100 British families with twins since the time those twins were born in the 1990s. The twins are now 18-year-old adults, but the researchers performed the analysis on DNA samples collected when they were just five and 10 years old. The researchers also know, based on extensive interviews held with the twins’ mothers, which of them experienced some form of violence in their younger years, including domestic violence, frequent bullying or physical maltreatment by an adult.

The new report in the journal Molecular Psychiatry shows that a subset of those children with a history of two or more kinds of violent exposures have significantly more telomere loss than other children.Since shorter telomeres have been linked to poorer survival and chronic disease, this may not bode well for those kids.

“Research on human stress genomics keeps throwing up amazing new facts about how stress can influence the human genome and shape our lives,” said Caspi, the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.

The findings suggest a mechanism linking cumulative childhood stress to telomere maintenance and accelerated aging, even at a young age. It appears to be an important way that childhood stress may get “under the skin” at the fundamental level of our cells.An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Moffitt, who is the Knut Schmidt Nielsen Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.

“Some of the billions of dollars spent on diseases of aging such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia might be better invested in protecting children from harm.”

The Duke team plans to further explore the new findings by measuring the average length of telomeres in the twins now that they are adults. They'll also repeat the study in a second, older group of 1,000 individuals in the Dunedin Study, who have been under observation since their birth in the 1970s in New Zealand.-Science Daily - Science Daily

[News in Brief]

by Rohana JAYALAL

Colombo - Matara Southern coastal line in operation

The Southern coastal line from Colombo to Matara which was reconstructed to allow high speed trains to operate was officially opened recently. A special train operated from Kalutara to Aluthgama after religious observaces and a ceremony held at the Aluthgama railway station under the patronage of Transport Minister Kumara Welgama.

The Southern coastal line was reconstructed in three stages. The Indian Government provided US$ 168 million to implement the comprehensive project for upgrading the Colombo – Galle - Matara coastal railway track.

Indian Railway Construction Company Limited (IRCON) was entrusted with the construction.

New museum at Thanthirimale

National Heritage Ministry has decided to establish a new museum at the Thanthirimale ancient temple site to mark the Deyata Kirula National Development Programme, National Heritage Ministry sources said.

It will be built at a cost of Rs 8 million. Thanthirimale is a very important place in the country's Buddhist history.

There is a reclining stone statue and a sitting statue of the Buddha which dates back to the 11th century BC. The reclining Buddha statue is very similar to the Galvihara Buddha statue in Polonnaruwa.

Even though there is an old museum in Thanthirimale which is situated further away from the archaeological site, the ministry has decided to establish a new museum in an appropriate location. The museum site is around 1,000 acres in extent, the source said.

Programme to develop small and medium scale towns

Ministry of Local Government and Provincial Councils has launched a programme to develop small and medium scale towns which are fast urbanizing but lack proper infrastructure facilities to meet the urban services in Sri Lanka. The main objective of the project is to support the Local Government Institutions to fulfil the task of providing basic urban facilities more efficiently and effectively.

 Hettipola town and the Panduwasnuwara sacred area, which belong to the Panduwasnuwara Pradesheeya Sabha in Kurunegala District in North Western Province has great archaeological value and are very good tourist attractions.

However,the main problem faced by this rapidly urbanizing town is insufficient investment on infrastructure development in accordance with the growth of the local and foreign tourists to the area.

The Ministry of Local Government and Provincial Councils has therefore decided to develop Hettipola town and the Panduwasnuwara sacred area under a formal town development plan.

 The Cabinet has granted approval to complete the project under the mid-term development framework. A budgetary allocation of Rs.20 million has been provided for this project in the 2012 budget.