Co-hort study of urinary schistosomiasis among two villages residing along Hadejia Valley, Jigawa State, Nigeria

A study was carried out to determine prevalence of urinary Schistosomiasis among two villages located along Hadejia valley in Jigawa State, Nigeria. A total of 125 urine sample from people residing in each of the two villages (Yamidi and Shawara), were screened for the presence or absence of S. haematobium eggs. Urine sample were screened using Concentration Sedimentation Technique. The overall prevalence of S. haematobium infection in Yamidi was 76.8% with mean Eggs per cubic Centiliter (EPC) of 2.9, and in Shawara the overall prevalence was 77.6% with mean EPC of 3.4. Males were found to be more infected than female in both the two villages. People aged 1 to 5 years have highest prevalence of the infection in both the two villages than people among older age group. People with haematuria have highest prevalence of 95.1% and mean EPC of 6.0 than people without haematuria that have lower prevalence of 72.0% and mean EPC of 3.4.There was no significant relationship (p > 0.05) between the infection and presence or absence of haematuria. This study has established that urinary schistosomiasis is endemic in the study area.Keywords: Hadejia, Haematuria, Infection, Jigawa, Nigeria, Schistosomiasi

Cross sectional study of malarial parasite among patients attending general hospital, Hadejia, Jigawa state, Nigeria

A study was conducted to find out prevalence of malarial parasite among patients attending Hadejia General Hospital. A total of 227 people were screened in the  study area. Out of this number 150(66.1%) were males, while 77(33.9%) were females. Overall prevalence of malarial parasite was found to be 114(50.2%). Prevalence of malarial parasite in males was found to be 78(52%), while prevalence in females was found to be 36(46.8%). There was no significant difference (p >0.05) between the sex of the people and prevalence of the infection. Prevalence of malarial parasite in children aged 0 to 5 years has highest prevalence37(53.4%), followed by children aged 6 to 15 years with prevalence of 56(50.3%) and lowest prevalence was obtained in people aged 15 years and above 25(40.4%).There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the age of the people and prevalence of the infection. The prevalence of malarial parasite was found to be high among patients attending Hadejia General Hospital.Keywords: Hospital, Malaria, Prevalence, Parasite, Patient

Effect of honey and intensity of swimming exercise on semen parameters of male albino Wistar rats

Background: The impairment of male fertility has been linked to exercise in a volume‑, intensity‑, and modality‑dependent manner. Infertility is a worldwide problem and male factor infertility is found to be increased. Chronic administration of honey results in elevating sorbitol dehydrogenase activity and decreases lactose dehydrogenase activity, which was found to be in abundance in spermatids and spermatozoa, and a decrease in this enzyme significantly affects the semen parameters and decreases ATP synthesis due to oxidative stress.Objective: The study aimed to evaluate the effect of honey and intensity of swimming exercise on semen parameters of male albino Wistar rats.Methodology: A randomized control trial study was adopted involving 50 sexually mature male Wistar rats (180 ± 20 g). The selected rats were divided into five groups of 10 rats each: group I served as normal control while group II was induced with honey only and served as study control. Groups III–V were study groups induced orally with 7.5 mL/kg of honey twice per week for 8 weeks and exposed to mild, moderate, and high‑intensity swimming exercises 5 days/week for 8 weeks, respectively.Results: Chronic oral administration of pure honey showed that motility, viability, sperm count, and semen morphology were significantly lower, and percentages of abnormal morphology were found to be significantly higher (P < 0.05) in group IIcompared with normal control rats (group I). There was a significant decrease in motility, viability, and morphology in group V when compared with groups I, III, and IV. However, they were significantly higher when compared with test control group. The decrease was found to be swimming exercise time‑dependent.Conclusion: Chronic consumption of pure honey has a deleterious effect on semen parameters, and mild, moderate, and intensity swimming exercises were found to have a positive effect of induced semen parameters of male albino Wistar rats.Keywords: Exercise; honey; intensity; semen; Wistar rat

Prevalence of fasciolosis among cattle slaughtered at Hadejia Abattoir

A study was carried out to find out the prevalence of Fasciolosis in cattle  slaughtered at Hadejia Abattoir. Fasciola gigantica is a parasite of liver and bile duct in cattle, sheep and goat. The liver was examined for Fasciola by making length wise incision on the ventral side of the liver in such a way that the Bile duct was cut open. The forcep was used to pick the exposed worms in the bile duct and the Gall bladder. The Flukes recovered from each cattle were placed in label containers and taken to the Laboratory for identification and preservation. A total of 545cattle were  examined for the presence or absence of Fasciolosis in Hadejia Abattoir. Out of this number 279 (51.2%) were males and 266 (48.8%) were females. The overall  prevalence of Fasciolosis in the study area was 159(28.0%). The prevalence of Fasciolosis in males was found to be 73(26.2%), while the prevalence in females was 79(29.7%). There was no significant relationship (P > 0.05)between sex of the cattle and prevalence of the infection. The Prevalence of Fasciolosis in adult cattle was 36(40.2%), while in young cattle the prevalence was 123(15.0%). There was significant relationship (P < 0.05) between the age of cattle and prevalence of the infection.Fasciolosis is one of the helminths diseases that were found to be prevalent affecting cattle in the study area.Key words: Abattoir, Cattle, Cross-sectional., Fasciolosis, Slaughter

Global Retinoblastoma Presentation and Analysis by National Income Level

Importance: Early diagnosis of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular cancer, can save both a child's life and vision. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many children across the world are diagnosed late. To our knowledge, the clinical presentation of retinoblastoma has never been assessed on a global scale. Objectives: To report the retinoblastoma stage at diagnosis in patients across the world during a single year, to investigate associations between clinical variables and national income level, and to investigate risk factors for advanced disease at diagnosis. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 278 retinoblastoma treatment centers were recruited from June 2017 through December 2018 to participate in a cross-sectional analysis of treatment-naive patients with retinoblastoma who were diagnosed in 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures: Age at presentation, proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, and tumor stage and metastasis. Results: The cohort included 4351 new patients from 153 countries; the median age at diagnosis was 30.5 (interquartile range, 18.3-45.9) months, and 1976 patients (45.4) were female. Most patients (n = 3685 84.7%) were from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Globally, the most common indication for referral was leukocoria (n = 2638 62.8%), followed by strabismus (n = 429 10.2%) and proptosis (n = 309 7.4%). Patients from high-income countries (HICs) were diagnosed at a median age of 14.1 months, with 656 of 666 (98.5%) patients having intraocular retinoblastoma and 2 (0.3%) having metastasis. Patients from low-income countries were diagnosed at a median age of 30.5 months, with 256 of 521 (49.1%) having extraocular retinoblastoma and 94 of 498 (18.9%) having metastasis. Lower national income level was associated with older presentation age, higher proportion of locally advanced disease and distant metastasis, and smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma. Advanced disease at diagnosis was more common in LMICs even after adjusting for age (odds ratio for low-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 17.92 95% CI, 12.94-24.80, and for lower-middle-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 5.74 95% CI, 4.30-7.68). Conclusions and Relevance: This study is estimated to have included more than half of all new retinoblastoma cases worldwide in 2017. Children from LMICs, where the main global retinoblastoma burden lies, presented at an older age with more advanced disease and demonstrated a smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, likely because many do not reach a childbearing age. Given that retinoblastoma is curable, these data are concerning and mandate intervention at national and international levels. Further studies are needed to investigate factors, other than age at presentation, that may be associated with advanced disease in LMICs. © 2020 American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Can sub-Saharan Africa feed itself?

By the year 2050, the world’s population will need 60% more food than it did in 2005. In sub-Saharan Africa (we’ll call it SSA) (Fig. 1) this problem will be even greater, with the demand for cereals increasing by more than three times as the population rises.We collected and calculated farming data for 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This made us realize that countries in SSA must make many large changes to ncrease their yield of cereals (the amount of cereals that are grown on the current farmland each year) to meet this greater demand.If countries in SSA are unable to increase cereal yield, there are two options. either farmland areas will have to increase drastically, at the expense of natural land, or SSA will need to buy more cereal from other countries than it does today. This may put more people in these countries at risk of not having enough food to be able to live healthily

bi4africa dataset - open source

The bii4africa dataset is presented in a multi-spreadsheet .ods file. The raw data spreadsheet (‘Scores_Raw’) includes 31,313 individual expert estimates of the impact of a sub-Saharan African land use on a species response group of terrestrial vertebrates or vascular plants. Estimates are reported as intactness scores - the remaining proportion of an ‘intact’ reference (pre-industrial or contemporary wilderness area) population of a species response group in a land use, on a scale from 0 (no individuals remain) through 0.5 (half the individuals remain), to 1 (same as the reference population) and, in limited cases, to 2 (two or more times the reference population). For species that thrive in human-modified landscapes, scores could be greater than 1 but not exceeding 2 to avoid extremely large scores biasing aggregation exercises. Expert comments are included alongside respective estimates

bii4africa dataset

The bii4africa dataset is presented in a multi-spreadsheet .xlsx file. The raw data spreadsheet (‘Scores_Raw’) includes 31,313 individual expert estimates of the impact of a sub-Saharan African land use on a species response group of terrestrial vertebrates or vascular plants. Estimates are reported as intactness scores - the remaining proportion of an ‘intact’ reference (pre-industrial or contemporary wilderness area) population of a species response group in a land use, on a scale from 0 (no individuals remain) through 0.5 (half the individuals remain), to 1 (same as the reference population) and, in limited cases, to 2 (two or more times the reference population). For species that thrive in human-modified landscapes, scores could be greater than 1 but not exceeding 2 to avoid extremely large scores biasing aggregation exercises. Expert comments are included alongside respective estimates