Prevalence of Head Lice in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia According to Crowding Criteria

One of the cosmopolitan parasites recorded all over the world is the Head Lice, Pediculus humanus capitis, it parasitizes the human being with highly prevalent in children. The habit feeding of Head lice is sucking blood from human and it is about every 4 to 6 hours each day which causing severe irritation and inflammation. Crowding is the factor effect on the prevalence of Pediculus humanus capitis between hosts, this record is related to the crowding factor increased the head lice prevalence among school girl students attending the elementary schools in Jeddah city. Study was conducted by filling the questionnaires for the head lice infected students in the public and private schools under study according to their information in the schools records. The Pediculus humanus capitis infested students were mainly lived in apartments have at least three rooms. The student's siblings was five or more, most of them sharing their sister in bed and having prior infested people in the student's family

Review of Bilharzia in Saudi Arabia, Health Reports and Solutions

Bilharzia is an endemic illness caused by the Schistosoma worm, a genus of digenean trematodes. The Schistosoma life cycle contains two hosts, a human body which plays as definitive host and a mollusc as an intermediate host. Bilharzia prevalence is widely and more than 200 million people are infected annually. The adult worms inhabit the blood veins that drain certain organs of the human abdomen. The infection with S. mansoni and S. japonicum causes the intestinal Bilharzia while urinary Bilharzia resulted from S. haematobium infection. S. mekongi and S. intercalatum are both reported for causing Bilharzia but they are less commonly. Urinary Bilharzia has been documented in Saudi Arabia since 1887 and both S. haematobium and S. mansoni were reported as endemic. In 1967, more than million people were expected to be as Bilharzia infected in different Saudi regions. In 1973, the Saudi Ministry of Health established the Bilharzia Control Centers in the endemic provinces for control programs depend on chemotherapy, snails control and health education. The annual Saudi health reports recorded a significant decrease in the Bilharzia incidence in Saudi Arabia as a noticeable result for the control efforts

IN VIVO EFFECT OF SOME HOME SPICES EXTRACTS ON THE TOXOPLASMA GONDII TACHYZOITES

Toxoplasmosis drugs have the longest history and are still the first choice for most conditions. Alternative drugs such as Co-trimoxazole and Tetracycline have been tried and acclaimed successful. The lack of general acceptance, however, is an indication that the results are not very convincing. A wide range of antibiotics is urgently needed for patients with drug reaction or resistance problems. The anti-toxoplasmic activity of water and ethanol extracts as well as the oil of some home spices (Piper nigrum, Capsicum frutescens, Cinnamomum cassia and Curcuma longa), were evaluated in murine models of intraperitoneal infection using the RH strain of Toxoplasma gondii. Female mice were infected with 2×102 tachyzoites/ml, and then treated intraperitoneally with the home spices at 100 and 200 mg/kg/day for seven days. The tested extracts reduced the mean number of tachyzoites present in the peritoneal fluid of the experimental mice. The most effective extract was Curcuma longa ethanol extract which showed a 98.6% and 99.2% inhibition of the growth of Toxoplasma tachyzoites in 100 and 200 doses respectively compared to the control infected untreated mice

IBD-Disk as a tool estimating the prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease-related disability and associated influencing factors in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) disk is an easy tool to use in clinical practice to measure IBD-related disability, with a score >40 correlating with high daily-life burden. Its use has been limited mainly to the western world. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of IBD-related disability and evaluate the associated risk factors in Saudi Arabia. Methods: In this cross sectional study conducted at a tertiary referral center for IBD, the English IBD disk was translated into Arabic, and patients with IBD were approached to complete it. Total IBD disk score (0 = no disability; 100 = severe disability) was documented and a score of >40 was set as a threshold to estimate the prevalence of disability. Results: Eighty patients with a mean age of 32.5 ± 11.9 years and disease duration of 6 years, including 57% females, were analyzed. The mean IBD-disk total score was 20.70 ± 18.69. The mean subscores for each function within the disk ranged from 0.38 ± 1.69 for sexual functions to 3.61 ± 3.29 for energy. The overall prevalence of IBD-related disability was 19% (15/80 scoring >40) and was much higher in active disease, in males and in IBD of long duration (39%, 24%, and 26%, respectively). A clinically active disease, high CRP, and high calprotectin were strongly associated with higher disk scores. Conclusion: Although the overall mean IBD disk score was low, nearly 19% of our population had high scores signifying a high prevalence of disability. As demonstrated by other studies, active disease and high biomarkers were significantly associated with higher IBD-disk scores