The control of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Nigeria from inception is predicated on effective biosecurity by stamping out policy but outbreaks of the disease continued to re-occur with altered clinico-pathologic manifestations. This study undertook the qualitative assessment of the clinico- pathological features of HPAI H5N1 during the 2021/2022 outbreaks in commercial poultry and peri-domestic birds in northern Nigeria. A total of 22 commercial poultry farms with 53,932 laying chickens and 3 households with 120 backyard broiler chickens, 18 indigenous chickens, 10 peafowls and 9 geese were investigated for HPAI. The clinico-pathologic manifestations observed in commercial poultry were subtle compared to previous presentations of the disease except in the peafowls, geese, broilers and indigenous chickens. The interspecies mortality rates significantly varied from 1.6% to 19.6% for laying chickens and 33.3% to 100% for broilers, indigenous chickens, geese and peafowls. Based on the history of sudden and high mortality, clinical signs and post mortem lesions observed, three diseases; HPAI, very virulent Newcastle disease and fowl cholera were drawn out as differential diagnoses. However, a tentative diagnosis of HPAI was made and samples were sent to the National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, Plateau State, Nigeria for confirmatory diagnosis. Results of the laboratory tests conducted on the samples using one step flu A screening and duplex real time RT-PCR and virus isolation in embryonated chicken eggs confirmed HPAI H5N1 in twenty-five farms. It is concluded that the continuous though, irregular outbreaks of HPAI and emerging clinico-pathologic manifestations are pointers to failure of control and that the disease may become endemic. It is recommended that government should review its policy on the control of HPAI to include the adoption of zoned vaccination with close monitoring.
Covid 19, the pandemic originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, had the entire world conquered. The structure and transmission of the causative organism, Coronavirus is well studied. Remdesivir, the product of Gilead pharmaceuticals, was effective against many viral infections, including Ebola and SARS. It comes under the category of nucleoside prodrug and has given promising results in the early trials against SARS COV 19. In depth, research is taking place at a rapid pace, so that Remdesivir will be available to the therapeutic community as an effective remedy for the pandemic caused by SARS COV2. If this meets success, the darkest era in the modern history of mankind may become a memory in the near future.
Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, most educational institutions have opted for online education rather than traditional modes of education to protect their employees and students. Online education has been gaining momentum in almost all countries around the world. This coincides with the recently introduced competency-based medical education in India which has embraced online education. This poses a new challenge for the institutions involved, the instructors or teachers, and the students since they must adapt quickly to the new mode of learning. Online education requires teachers to improve their competency in three major areas; pedagogy, technology, and content knowledge. Some of the challenges include; lack of technological skill, poor time management and lack of infrastructure. As technology rapidly advances, health care education systems must also advance in tandem. To implement the new competency-based system and online education, the institutions and the individuals must realize the importance of online education, identify the barriers and quickly work on solutions for success. Methods: This review was conducted based on various research papers on the topic of online medical education, the challenges faced by faculty members, and the opinion of students on this dilemma. Search terms included online medical education, COVID19, competency-based medical education. Conclusion: This review identified various challenges posed by online education on the current medical curriculum, faced by both faculty members and students, especially under the light of the Competency-Based Undergraduate Curriculum for Indian Graduates. Different solutions were proposed to overcome these challenges.
Industrial waste is one of the most essential sources of contamination in the surface environment. Among different industries, tannery industry releases huge amount of pollutants into the ecosystem. Long term disposal of the tannery wastes has resulted in wide contamination of agricultural land and water sources in different parts of India. An attempt was made to study the diversity status of different microbial organisms in tannery effluent treated samples in Dindugal, Tamil Nadu. It was found that Electrical Conductivity (EC) and heavy metal contents were higher and population density of different beneficial microbes found better. Among different microbes isolated, phosphate solubilizing microbes (PSB) was found maximum which is followed by fungi and actinomycetes. The population density of non-symbiotic and symbiotic nitrogen fixers were found to be low in numbers when compared to other samples screened. Similarly, occurrence and distribution of AM fungal spores were also found low in heavy metal polluted samples as compared to the samples collected from non-polluted outside tannery effluent treatment area. Among different Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, Glomus species was found to be dominant in the samples collected from outside tannery effluent treatment area as compared to tannery effluent samples.
Context: Menstruation is one of the most basic characteristic features of girls and inadequate knowledge of adolescent girls about menstruation can result in faulty menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and inappropriate dietary management both of these can causes diseases which is a major threat for adolescent health in developing countries like Bangladesh. Aim: To identify current knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to menstruation and menstrual hygiene management (MHM) among adolescent girls. Settings and Design: It is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in Jashore, Bangladesh. Methods and Materials: A pre-formed, pre-tested questionnaire was used. The questionnaire-based survey was conducted among randomly selected 250 adolescent girls between 10 and 19 years. Statistical analysis used: Data were analyzed statistically by Microsoft office excels and SPSS windows version 16 software programs. Results: Among 250 adolescent girls majority had their menarche between 12 and 15 years of age, 70% of adolescent girls of this study belonged to lower class families. This study revealed that 85% of the respondents had regular menstruation whereas 15% had irregular menstruations also. Most of them faced different types of Premenstrual syndrome including 76% from headache, 80% from lower abdominal pain, and 62.5% from fatigue and weakness. Only 56% had previous knowledge about puberty before attaining menarche. There was a statistically significant correlation between the mother’s education and the knowledge of participants about menstruation at puberty. All the participants used to bath and wash hand after changing pads whereas 80.8% used to avoid all types of exercises. Almost 94% of respondents used to dispose of their napkins properly. The micro-nutrient deficiency was also common; especially 49.2% were suffering from Iron deficiency and 69.6% from folic acids deficiency. Conclusion: Awareness programs regarding both menstrual hygiene and dietary management can aid to alleviate some complications during puberty and ensure better health for adolescent girls.
Developing automated systems with a reasonable cost for long-term care for elders is a promising research direction. Such smart systems are based on realizing activities of daily living (ADLs) to enable aging in place while preserving the quality of life of all inhabitants in smart homes. One of the research directions is based on localizing items used by elders to monitor their activities with fine-grained details of the progress. In this paper, we shed the light on this issue by presenting an approach for localizing items in smart homes. The presented method is based on applying machine learning algorithms to Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags readings. Our approach achieves the required task through two stages. The first stage detects in which room the selected object is located. Then, the second one determines the exact position of the selected object inside the detected room. Additionally, we present an efficient approach based on gradient boosted decision trees for detecting the location of the selected object in a real-world smart home. Moreover, we employ some techniques of over- and under-sampling with data clustering for improving the performance of the presented techniques. Many experiments are conducted in this work to evaluate the performance of the presented approach for localizing objects in a real smart home. The results of the experiments have shown that our approach provides remarkable performance.
Background: Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are infections that patients acquire while receiving treatments for other conditions. Studies have shown that stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers can act as potential sources of these infections in patients accessing treatment in healthcare facilities. This study aimed to increase awareness among health workers in Nigeria of the potentials of stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers to transmit HAIs. Methods: Moist swab sticks were used to collect samples from 38 randomly selected stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers from some departments of four district hospitals. Collected samples were cultured using standard microbiological techniques. In addition, self-designed questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and practice of doctors and nurses on the roles of stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers in HAIs. Results: About 83.8% of the health workers demonstrated some awareness of the roles of stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers in HAIs. 42.5% cleaned their stethoscopes, while 5% their sphygmomanometers. Staphylococcus aureus, (65.9% of stethoscopes), proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa (67.6% of sphygmomanometers), Streptococcus and Coliform species were isolated. There was no significant difference between the contamination of stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers by the isolates, except for Pseudomonas aeruginosa (t=3.49, p=0.04). Conclusions: Awareness did not match practice in cleaning the stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers in the four facilities. Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were the two most common organisms isolated with a significant difference (t=3.49, p=0.04) between stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers in isolation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To curb HAIs, health workers need to improve on their practice of cleaning stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers.
Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper belongs to the family Papilionaceae. It is an erect, hairy annual plant with long, twining branches. The flowers are small and yellow in color, while the fruits are cylindrical. The pods are hairy containing 1-4 seeds per pod. Seeds are used as a nervine tonic and in urinary reflex disorder. The phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of flavonoids, saponins, tannins, alkaloids, vitamin C and steroids. Seeds possess antidiabetic, antioxidant and hypolipidemic properties. The present review provides updated information on its medicinal uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology.
The seed flours of Macrotyloma uniflorum (Lam.) Verdc., Phaseolus lunatus Linn., and Phaseolus vulgaris Linn. were investigated for their total, soluble and insoluble oxalate contents by HPLC. The total oxalate content of Macrotyloma uniflorum, Phaseolus lunatus and Phaseolus vulgaris were 1.24, 1.77 and 1.71 mg/ g, respectively. The % age of soluble oxalate was Macrotyloma uniflorum (19.50), Phaseolus lunatus (15.08) and Phaseolus vulgaris (15.88). The calculated soluble oxalate: calcium ratio of all tested legume flours is lesser than one and hence will not create any resistance in calcium bioavailability.
The aim of this work was to prepare chitosan nanoparticles loaded with antineoplastic drug Lomustine (LCNPs), by ionic-gelation method with homogenization. The nanoparticles were characterized for particle size, polydispersity index (PDI), surface morphology, encapsulation efficiency, in-vitro drug release and cytotoxicity on human lung cancer cell line L132 by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The particle size, zeta potential and encapsulation efficiency of prepared nanoparticles ranged from 75±1.1 to 637±1.6 nm (PDI from 0.05±0.001 to 0.18±0.007), 37.2±0.21 to 53.8±0.18 mV and 66.74±1.4 to 98.0±1.8% re- spectively. The particles were spherical in shape with smooth surface in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images. Mechanical shearing by homogenization treatment significantly changed the nanoparticle size. The drug release rate was biphasic and diffusion controlled over the 8 h. LCNPs greatly inhibited the growth of the L132 cancer cell line used in this study in comparison to the native Lomustine (LMT).
ABSTRACT Background: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection rate and mortality among Nigerian health care workers appear to be on the increase. Aside from health workers, it has caused millions of infections and deaths worldwide. This study determined the level of knowledge, attitude, and practices of nursing and midwifery students towards COVID-19 in a North-Eastern Nigerian state. Methods: A total of 156 respondents were involved in this institutional-based cross-sectional study, conducted after the lockdown period. A total of 17 questions were used to assess the KAP with knowledge appraised with 12 questions, attitudes with 2 questions, and practices with 3 questions. Results: The majority of the students (53.80%) possessed a good level of knowledge regarding COVID-19, while 40.4% had fair knowledge regarding COVID-19 with only 5.80% having poor knowledge of COVID-19. The mean knowledge of COVID-19 in this study was 9.40±1.353 with an overall 78% correct answer rate. A vast majority of the respondent (82.7% and 98.1%) had strong confidence in Nigeria and believed that the pandemic will soon be over, respectively. Only a few avoided large gatherings of people (30.8%) with the vast majority reporting to have worn a mask when going out (84.6%) and washing their hands with running water and soap frequently as recommended (73.1%). In multiple logistic regression analyses, the COVID-19 knowledge score (OR: 0.39-0.40, 95%CI: 0.26 – 0.62, P<0.05) was significantly associated with a lower likelihood of negative preventive practices towards COVID-19. Conclusions: The participants in this study showed good knowledge, positive attitudes, and good practices toward COVID-19. There is still a need to strategize and implement periodic educational interventions and training on infection control practices among healthcare workers including students.
The purpose of this study is to explore the impacts of foreign cartoons programs on the social behavior and attitude of Pakistani Children. It is forecasting different cartoon programs 24/7; hence, children spend most of their leisure in front of the television. All these cartoon characters affect the social life and psyche of the children and induce positive and negative mannerism in their daily lifestyles. It has found that one of the most disturbing factor is that the ferocity in children today is increasing rapidly due to following their favorite violent cartoon characters which are even different from their culture and societal norms. The issue is violence is what they see in every cartoon program in one or the other way. Their Guardians are unaware that these cartoons they let their children watch are destroying their parenting as negative forces are attacking the innocent minds of this generation. The study gives the insight of why and what is happening with non-parametric statistics studied and used for thorough analysis. The behavioral outcome of the kids like, imitating their preferred animation character, utilizing various dialects, watching the TV as opposed to deciding on outdoor games and being difficult about getting precisely the same outfits and embellishments as their adored character. This contextual analysis features the disturbing circumstance that guardians are uninformed of. There is something other than mimicking the particular character. The only traits of watching these foreign cartoon characters is that it might damage their own customs and they wildly become to believe these characters as their role models.
This study intends to describe assessment strategies for young students' online learning. The participants in this descriptive qualitative study were 15 primary school principals and 35 teachers teaching Years 4 and 5 in urban and rural schools on the island of Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara Province, who volunteered their participation after undergoing comparable procedures. Using operational concepts of assessment of learning for online learning, class observation, and interview were organized. The content and structure validity of the measures were evaluated in accordance with the developmental periods of young learners. The findings showed that the teachers assessed the primary students' cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains interactively during the online class meetings, in their portfolio, and through attitude direct observation. Several assessment strategies were advocated to circumvent the shortcomings of online learning. A criterion-referenced evaluation was used to conduct the analysis. The theoretical implications of the findings suggest that the various assessment procedures adopted have decreased the negative washback of online exams; however, further research is required to determine the consistency of the outcomes of online tests with other types of evaluation.
The valuable effects of regular exercise for promotion of health and therapy of diseases were obviously evaluated. The notion that exercise can be considered as a medication has been hypothesized. The growing problems of obesity and non-communicable diseases have placed a great burden on public health experts to promote physical literacy and physical activity among the modern day population. Physical literacy and physical activity have become the cornerstones of women’s health. Women have certain special needs that includes reproductive health. Increased physical activity and maintaining normal body image and body weight will help a woman attain physical, mental and spiritual development. With the growing number of women with obesity and the implication of obesity as one of the main risk factors for non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension, stroke and osteoarthritis, a knowledge and awareness about physical activity is essential. Thus, physical activity is a fundamental aspect of the improvement of motor skills and work performance, allowing a better healthy lifestyle. Physical exercise is effective to be measured as a drug, however, more care should be considered to the dosing and individual variations between genders.
Mediterranean journal of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences
cASUARINA EQUSITIFOLA IS A FAST GROWING EVERGREEN TREE GROWN BY FARMERS UNDER AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS IN tAMILNADU state of Southern India
Developmental venous anomalies (DVAs) are congenital vascular malformations often found incidentally on neuroimaging. This case report describes a 37-year-old female with chronic headaches and an incidentally discovered DVA in the left frontal lobe. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a classic "caput medusae" pattern without hemorrhage or associated cavernous malformation. This case highlights the importance of recognizing DVAs as incidental findings, differentiating them from other causes of chronic headaches, and understanding the significance of associated imaging findings.
The present investigation is an attempt to evaluate the analgesic and antiemetic activities of Ficus exasperata and Cleome ciliata leaves methanolic extract by using the chick emesis model (oral treatment) and acetic acid-induced writhing test (intraperitoneal treatment) in mice, respectively. The antiemetic activity (150 mg/kg b.w., of extract) was carried out by using chlorpromazine (150mg/kg) as standard antiemetic drug. The analgesic activity (250 mg/kg b.w. of extract) was performed using aspirin (150mg/kg) as a standard analgesic drug. The results showed significant analgesic and antiemetic effects.
The purpose of this paper is to offer insights that can help researchers to link ontology, epistemology and research methodology. This paper outlines the links among ontology, epistemology and research methodology by exploring ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives in the research. It discusses how ontological and epistemological issues influence research methodology by providing a clear understanding of different research methodologies based on ontology and epistemology. Furthermore, attention is given to research aspects such as the elements of the research process, research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, the choice of method, and research design
Human trafficking victims suffer a direct assault on their fundamental rights, enduring a modern form of slavery and exploitation. Perpetrated by criminal groups, human trafficking exploits victims, especially women and children, in forced labor, prostitution, or organ trafficking, treating them as commodities in a market driven by supply and demand, thereby profiting at the cost of fundamental rights and human dignity. This chapter underscores the critical significance of understanding the multifaceted challenges inherent in combating human trafficking, emphasizing the urgent need for effective measures. By delving into the complexities of the transnational organized structure of this crime, the chapter provides valuable insights into the hurdles faced by law enforcement and investigative agencies. Recognizing the gravity of human trafficking as a direct violation of fundamental rights and human dignity, this chapter aims to contribute to the development of comprehensive strategies and policies to address this pervasive issue.
The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency has recently been recognized in different parts of the world, even affecting healthy populations. The deficiency of vitamin D can lead to rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults. Few studies have been done to evaluate the status of vitamin D in the medical community around the world. No studies have been done in Libya to evaluate the status of vitamin D in medical students. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of low level of vitamin D in among healthy Libyan medical students of first year in University of Tripoli, Tripoli. Prospective study was conducted on 100 medical students of first year in Faculty of Medicine with a mean age of 19.5 years, 38 males and 62 females. Blood samples were taken and investigated for different biochemical parameters including serum calcium, serum vitamin D and serum parathyroid hormone levels. Questionnaire containing different data was completed for each student including personal data (age, address, nationality, and other data related to vitamin D deficiency. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in all the participated students was 74% (58.7% in males and 83.8% in females), while 21% had vitamin D insufficiency (28% in males and 16.12% in females). Only 5% of the students that had normal vitamin D was males. The mean 25-hydroxy vitamin D level was 19.49 ± 8.56 ng/ml in males and 12.08 ± 6.70 ng/ml in female students. Statistical analysis revealed that there is a highly significant difference among the student in vitamin D deficiency. In conclusion, low concentration of vitamin D is highly prevalent among the medical students included. An urgent action has to be taken in order to prevent adverse consequences of low vitamin D in young population.
Mediterranean journal of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences