Aspects of the Microbiological Quality and Safety of Ready-to-Eat Foods in Sharjah Supermarket Stores

Ready to eat foods covers a wide range of pre-processed food products that are readily eaten by consumers without further processing. Recently, there has been considerable increase in the demand of processed and convenience foods that are mildly pre-cooked, rapidly chilled, portioned and distributed for refrigeration prior to reheating and consumption by consumers. However, some of these foods such as, luncheon meals, ready to eat vegetables, fruit salad, spinach salad, and other deli-style meat and poultry products can be a harbor for pathogenic bacteria that are harmful to health when consumed by people especially with weak immune system. Unfortunately, these foods quite often may suffer from temperature abuse of 10°C or above for extended period of time giving chance to pathogenic bacteria to grow and survive to sufficient numbers that are harmful to human health. In spite of all the safety concern, ready to eat foods are very popular among a wide range of consumers. Over the last few years, these foods became popular in Sharjah grocery stores. The study evaluated the microbiological safety of some ready to eat foods sold in supermarket stores in Sharjah and the appropriate shelf-life for those products. The results showed that the way of preparation of the food could be an indication of the quantity and quality of the presence of microorganisms as in tabbouleh, hommos, greek salad, and coleslaw (0.68, 0.50, 0.44 and 0.20 Log10 CFU/g) of E. coli and (3.57, 2.71, 2.76 and 2.52 Log10 CFU/g) of total microorganisms. All ready to eat appetizers tested contained acceptable count of total bacteria except tabbouleh with the highest count. Twenty percent of all samples contained E. coli although the number can be as low as 3 Log10 CFU/g. From the results of all products studied, it was recommended the shelf life of ready to eat appetizers should not exceed one day, according to UAE standards and it is recommended that Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) should be implemented in all locations studied

Examine the Perceived Risk of Falls Among Patients Receiving Acute Care

Purpose: In an effort to lower the number of falls that occur among hospitalized patients, several facilities have begun introducing various fall prevention programs. However, the efficacy of fall prevention programs is diminished if patients do not consider themselves to be at risk for falls and do not follow recommended procedures. The goal of this study was to characterize how patients in four different acute care specialist services felt about their risk of falling while in the hospital. Methods: One hundred patients admitted to the study hospital with a Morse Fall Scale score of 45 or higher were given the Patient Perception Questionnaire, a tool designed to assess a patient's perception of their own fall risk, fear of falling, and motivation to take part in fall prevention efforts. Scores on the Morse Fall Scale were gathered through a historical assessment of medical records. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and independent sample t tests were used to examine the data. Results: The average age was 65, and around half (52%) were men and half (48%) were women. Based on their ratings on the Morse Fall Scale, all 100 participants were classified as being at high risk for falls. However, only 55.5% of the individuals agreed with this assessment. The likelihood that a patient would seek assistance and the degree to which they feared falling both declined as their faith in their mobility improved. Patients hospitalized after a fall exhibited considerably lower confidence scores and greater fear scores than patients who had not been injured in a fall. Conclusions: Patients who have a high fall risk assessment score may not believe they are at risk for falls and may not take any steps to reduce their risk. The prevalence of falls in hospitals might be mitigated by the creation of a fall risk assessment technique that takes into account both objective and subjective factors

Bone Substitutes in Management of Benign Bone Tumors, Review of Literature

Intralesional excision or curettage is commonly used to treat benign and low-grade malignant bone tumors. The resulting defect can be treated with a variety of materials, such as autologous bone grafts, allografts, or synthetic materials like polymethylmethacrylate or composite alternatives. Because it is osteogenic, osteoinductive, and osteoconductive, autologous cancellous bone is often considered the gold standard of transplant material. However, issues including transplant size limitations, wound-related complications, and prolonged donor site pain have limited its usage in clinical practice. Concerns about immunogenicity and infection have also hampered the use of demineralized freeze-dried allografts and xenografts.  As a result, synthetic materials have sparked substantial interest in orthopedics, and a variety of bone graft alternatives are now commercially accessible

Prevalence of Comorbidities Associated With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus In Ksa: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: To determine the prevalence of comorbidities associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus among the Saudi adult population. Methods: A cross-sectional study design will be employed to investigate the prevalence of comorbidities associated with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) population. This design allows for the collection of data at a single point in time, providing insights into the existing relationship between T2DM and comorbidities.Results: The study included 601 participants. The most frequent body mass index BMI value among study participants was overweight 25-29.9 kg/m2 (n= 196, 33%), followed by Normal 18.5-24.9 kg/m2 (n= 177, 29%). The frequent gender among study participants was male years (n= 356, 59%) and female (n= 245, 41%). The most frequent age among study participants was 40-50 years (n= 145, 24%), followed by 18-28 years (n= 140, 23%). The most frequent marital status among study participants was married (n= 360, 60%), followed by single (n= 160, 27%). The perceived physical activity per week among study participants, most of whom did not do any activity (n=231,38%) followed one-time activity (n=98,16%). Conclusion: The results showed that most of the study participants were overweight according to their BMI. The majority of patients had normal blood pressure. Most of the participants suffer from diabetes. In addition, most of the participants do not do any activity, and the majority of participants are non-smokers

A Machine Learning Model of Response to Hypomethylating Agents in Myelodysplastic Syndromes

Hypomethylating agents (HMA) prolong survival and improve cytopenias in individuals with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Only 30-40% of patients, however, respond to HMAs, and responses may not occur for more than 6 months after HMA initiation. We developed a model to more rapidly assess HMA response by analyzing early changes in patients’ blood counts. Three institutions’ data were used to develop a model that assessed patients’ response to therapy 90 days after the initiation using serial blood counts. The model was developed with a training cohort of 424 patients from2 institutions and validated on an independent cohort of 90 patients. The final model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.79 in the train/test group and 0.84 in the validation group. The model provides cohort-wide and individual- level explanations for model predictions, and model certainty can be interrogated to gauge the reliability of a given prediction

The Saudi Critical Care Society practice guidelines on the management of COVID-19 in the ICU: Therapy section

BACKGROUND: The rapid increase in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases during the subsequent waves in Saudi Arabia and other countries prompted the Saudi Critical Care Society (SCCS) to put together a panel of experts to issue evidence-based recommendations for the management of COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel included 51 experts with expertise in critical care, respirology, infectious disease, epidemiology, emergency medicine, clinical pharmacy, nursing, respiratory therapy, methodology, and health policy. All members completed an electronic conflict of interest disclosure form. The panel addressed 9 questions that are related to the therapy of COVID-19 in the ICU. We identified relevant systematic reviews and clinical trials, then used the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach as well as the evidence-to-decision framework (EtD) to assess the quality of evidence and generate recommendations. RESULTS: The SCCS COVID-19 panel issued 12 recommendations on pharmacotherapeutic interventions (immunomodulators, antiviral agents, and anticoagulants) for severe and critical COVID-19, of which 3 were strong recommendations and 9 were weak recommendations. CONCLUSION: The SCCS COVID-19 panel used the GRADE approach to formulate recommendations on therapy for COVID-19 in the ICU. The EtD framework allows adaptation of these recommendations in different contexts. The SCCS guideline committee will update recommendations as new evidence becomes available

Characterization of greater middle eastern genetic variation for enhanced disease gene discovery

The Greater Middle East (GME) has been a central hub of human migration and population admixture. The tradition of consanguinity, variably practiced in the Persian Gulf region, North Africa, and Central Asia1-3, has resulted in an elevated burden of recessive disease4. Here we generated a whole-exome GME variome from 1,111 unrelated subjects. We detected substantial diversity and admixture in continental and subregional populations, corresponding to several ancient founder populations with little evidence of bottlenecks. Measured consanguinity rates were an order of magnitude above those in other sampled populations, and the GME population exhibited an increased burden of runs of homozygosity (ROHs) but showed no evidence for reduced burden of deleterious variation due to classically theorized ‘genetic purging’. Applying this database to unsolved recessive conditions in the GME population reduced the number of potential disease-causing variants by four- to sevenfold. These results show variegated genetic architecture in GME populations and support future human genetic discoveries in Mendelian and population genetics

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium report, datasummary of 50 countries for 2010-2015 : Device-associated module

Q3Artículo original1495-1504Background: We report the results of International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) sur-veillance study from January 2010-December 2015 in 703 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America,Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific.Methods:During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Health-care Safety Network (CDC-NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 861,284 patients hospitalized in INICC hospital ICUs for an aggregateof 3,506,562 days.Results:Although device use in INICC ICUs was similar to that reported from CDC-NHSN ICUs, DA-HAIrates were higher in the INICC ICUs: in the INICC medical-surgical ICUs, the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection, 4.1 per 1,000 central line-days, was nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.8per 1,000 central line-days reported from comparable US ICUs, the overall rate of ventilator-associatedpneumonia was also higher, 13.1 versus 0.9 per 1,000 ventilator-days, as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection, 5.07 versus 1.7 per 1,000 catheter-days. From blood cultures samples,frequencies of resistance ofPseudomonasisolates to amikacin (29.87% vs 10%) and to imipenem (44.3%vs 26.1%), and ofKlebsiella pneumoniaeisolates to ceftazidime (73.2% vs 28.8%) and to imipenem (43.27%vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC ICUs compared with CDC-NHSN ICUs.Conclusions:Although DA-HAIs in INICC ICU patients continue to be higher than the rates reported inCDC-NSHN ICUs representing the developed world, we have observed a significant trend toward the re-duction of DA-HAI rates in INICC ICUs as shown in each international report. It is INICC’s main goal tocontinue facilitating education, training, and basic and cost-effective tools and resources, such as stan-dardized forms and an online platform, to tackle this problem effectively and systematically