Are skin diseases in school children related to keeping of animals in homes?

Background: Families in Jos keep animals in the home vicinity for various reasons such as companionship, security, nutrition, and financial support. Children in such homes live in close proximity with such animals. The skin being the outermost organ to interface with animals may be exposed to infections and allergens. There is therefore a need to determine the proportion of children in the population who are exposed to animals in their homes, and to describe any relationship with skin diseases.Objectives: The study was carried out to investigate the proportion of school children in close contact with animals and the relationship between skin disease and presence of such animals in homes.Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study of 390 (aged 6-12 years) children of primary schools in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau state, Nigeria. Clinical diagnosis of skin disease was made from information on, disease symptomatology and examination of skin, hair and nails of respondents. Diseases were grouped into Infectious skin diseases (fungal, bacterial, viral and ectoparasitosis), dermatitis, urticaria and others. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.Results: The proportion of school aged children that had animals at home were 77.2 % ( 301 of 390).The prevalence of skin diseases in the school children was 36.2% (141 among 390). There was no statistically significant difference (p=0.144) in the occurrence of skin disease among those that kept animals 34.2%(103 of 301) and those that did not 42.7%(38 of 89). However there was a statistically significant difference in the pattern as children who had animals in their homes were observed to have more infectious skin diseases and  less urticaria and dermatitis (p-0.001)Conclusion: A large proportion of families with children keep animals in the vicinity of the homes and this may affect the type of skin diseases children present with. Simple personal hygiene should be taught to children and practiced at home after contact with animalsKeywords: Skin diseases, animals, zoonosis, childre

Renal sonographic parameters in human immunodeficiency virus - infected subjects and relationship to CD4 cell count

Nephropathy in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patient is common and constitutes a major cause of endstage kidney disease. CD4 cell count is a useful parameter in the assessment of the degree of immunosuppression among HIV-infected patients. Manifestations of renal disease are thought to be more profound when CD4 cell counts are low. Sonography is a safe and inexpensive method of evaluating renal disease, including renal sizes and degree of echogenicity. Ultrasound examination was carried out prospectively at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital on 120 HIV-infected patients comprising 45 males (37.5%) and 75 females (63.5%). Renal sizes and degree of echogenicity were assessed. Correlation with CD4 + cell counts of the patients was done. Mean CD4 cell count mean was 18.34 ± 142.18 cells/mm 3 with female patients having a significantly higher cell count compared with males. Seventy-four patients (63.8%) had a cell count of <200 cells/mm 3 . Renal sizes were normal in 85%, small in 7%, and large in 8% of patients. Fifty patients (41.7%) had increased renal echogenicity and 8 (6.7%) had severe increased echo-texture. CD4 cell count did not correlate with renal sizes and echotexture. Results of this study show that large kidneys and marked increase in renal echotexture were not common even in a population of patients where the majority had CD4 cell count < 200 cells/mm 3 . This study shows that increased renal sizes and degree of echogenicity alone are not useful predictors of renal involvement in HIV/AIDS

Epidemiologic and Clinical Differences Between Classic and Hypertrophic Lichen Planus in Nigeria

Introduction. Lichen planus is a chronic inflammatory skin disease known to have several clinical variants with attended variable clinical outcomes. Certain complications have been observed in the hypertrophic type, which were not found in association with the classic variant