Finding Needle in A Haystack; Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome Disguising Meningitis in A 2-Years-Old Girl

Fever with CNS symptoms in children is almost, always considered to be a CNS infection and treated as Meningitis. Central causes of fever are not usually taken in to the account in such cases. We present a case of a 2- year old girl who developed fever and CNS symptoms after she was given anti-emetic medications for her initial presentation of acute gastroenteritis. She developed high grade fever and spasticity and was treated on lines of meningitis empirically without any evidence of infection. She did not improve and once she fulfilled clinical criteria of Neuroleptic malignant syndrome, her condition improved, fever and spasticity settled. The case report highlights the importance of Central causes of fever in children to be considered in differential diagnosis while managing patients with Fever and CNS symptoms

Measuring Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality in Pakistan

The key development objective of Pakistan, since its existence, has been to reduce poverty, inequality and to improve the condition of its people. While this goal seems very important in itself yet is also necessary for the eradication of other social, political and economic problems. The objective to eradicate poverty has remained same but methodology to analysing this has changed. It can be said that failure of most of the poverty strategies is due to lack of clear choice of poverty definition. A sound development policy including poverty alleviation hinges upon accurate and well-defined measurements of multidimensional socio-economic characteristics which reflect the ground realities confronting the poor and down trodden rather than using some abstract/income based criteria for poverty measurement. Conventionally welfare has generally been measured using income or expenditures criteria. Similarly, in Pakistan poverty has been measured mostly in uni-dimension, income or expenditures variables. However, recent literature on poverty has pointed out some drawbacks in measuring uni-dimensional poverty in terms of money. It is argued that uni-dimensional poverty measures are insufficient to understand the wellbeing of individuals. Poverty is a multidimensional concept rather than a unidimensional. Uni-dimensional poverty is unable to capture a true picture of poverty because poverty is more than income deprivatio

25 0H Vitamin D Levels in Pregnant Females: The Hidden Time Bomb

Objective: To assess and correlate changes in vitamin D levels in three trimesters of pregnancy. Material and methods: This longitudinal study was conducted in collaboration with the Gynecology & Obstetric and Pathology department of Fauji foundation hospital, Rawalpindi. Eighty pregnant females were included in the study and tested for vitamin D at three points of time i.e. first trimester gestational age: (7-13 weeks), second trimester (20-26weeks), and third trimester (33 weeks till term). Pregnant females at their first visit and healthy nonpregnant females (controls) were analyzed for vitamin D, vitamin B12, folate, ferritin, and Hemoglobin (Hb) levels and compared using the Mann- Whitney U test for vitamin D and independent sample t-test for other parameters. Vitamin D and Hemoglobin (Hb) testing was done during the first, second, and third trimesters among pregnant females and compared between three groups using the Kruskal Wallis test and paired t-test respectively. Results: Mean age of the pregnant females was 35 years. Mean vitamin D levels showed a significant decline from 30.7 ng/ml vs 19.5 ng/ml vs 18.6 ng/ml for the first, second, and third trimesters respectively (p-value<0.05). The frequency of vitamin D deficiency was 15.1% for pregnant females at their first visit which progressed to 20% and 25% in the second and third trimesters respectively. Conclusion: Increased vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency rates exist in pregnant females, which progresses to further decline in the ensuing trimesters

Response of Some Biochemical Components in Phosphine Susceptible and Resistant Populations of 4th Instar Larvae of Trogoderma Granarium (Coleoptera: Dermestidae)

Stored grain pests are controlled by a number different pesticides and fumigants. This study, investigated the effect of phosphine on khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium) which is a notorious pest in stored grain godowns in Pakistan and a significant trade pest around the world. For this purpose, the LC50 of phosphine against 4th instar larvae of two different strains of T. granarium (collected from different cities of Punjab, Khaniwal (Khw) and Chishtian (Chi) were determined. The LC50 values shown by these strains were 3.8 and 7.0 ppm respectively. On the basis of LC50 the Chishtian strain was considered as resistant to phosphine, whereas Khaniwal strain was regarded as a susceptible strain. The effect of sub lethal doses (LC10, LC20, and LC30) on the larval stages of two T. granarium strains were evaluated. The toxic effect of phosphine was observed on glucose, glycogen, total lipid, FAA, protein and trehalose of the strains after 24 hours of exposure. The treatment showed significant increase in glucose content in Khaniwal (susceptible) and decrease in resistant strains throughout the treatment. Lipid content showed a highly significant increase for all doses of phosphine in both strains. Glycogen, Trehalose, protein and FAA contents depicted highly significantly increases in the resistant strain at LC10, LC20, and LC30

Antimicrobial, Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Potential of Aerial Parts of Monotheca buxifolia

In this study, different aerial parts of Monotheca Buxifolia were screened for their antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-oxidant activity. Extract of the fruit was most active against P. mirabilis, MSSA and M. morganii strains. Moreover, the methanolic fruit extract demonstrated good antibacterial properties against VRSA, S. aureus and Acinetobacter. Despite having good antibacterial properties, Monotheca buxifolia showed low antifungal activity. The cytotoxic activity was the highest in the pet-ether fruit extract, causing 60% of lethality against Artemia salina larvae with LD50 at 3.307. The highest scavenging activity was shown by the methanolic leaf extract in a concentration-dependent pattern. The findings of this study suggest that Monotheca Buxifolia has good antibacterial, antioxidant potential but low antifungal properties

Biochemical Markers of Liver Toxicity among Coal Mine Workers of Punjab, Pakistan Suffering from HCV

Hepatitis C is among the leading hepatic disorders in current period through which about 3 % world population has been anguish among them 170 million were diagnosed as persistent carriers. A great range of alteration in liver biochemical parameters were found to be allied with HCV infestation. Current study was designed to evaluate the extent of HCV mediated abnormalities in liver biochemical markers which includes ALT (alanine aminotransferase), AST (Aspartate transaminase), ALP (Alkaline Phosphatase) and serum bilirubin. The study was conducted on coal miners of Punjab province, Pakistan. HCV was primarily diagnosed through one step rapid test device after which positive samples were confirmed through ELISA. Biochemical markers were determined through Autoanalyzer by using standard procedure provided with spinreact kits. Simple linear regression analysis significantly explained 24 %, 56.2 %, 68.8 % and 56 % variance in ALT (alanine aminotransferase), AST (Aspartate transaminase), ALP (Alkaline Phosphatase) and serum bilirubin level among HCV positive coal mine workers respectively. Results have clearly indicated significant correlation between HCV seropositivity and liver biochemical markers. Findings of present study conclude monitoring of liver biochemical markers is crucial during HCV infectivity as it represents the degree of impairment in liver functioning. In addition to this elevation in these diagnostic markers could points toward the presence of HCV in respective individual

Factors Affecting Child Health: A Study of Rural Faisalabad

ABSTRACT In this paper an attempt is made to explore the effect of socio-cultural and democratic factors on the health of children. The study was conducted in rural tehsil Faisalabad, Pakistan. One hundred and twenty women of childbearing age 20 to 45 years with at least two living children under the age of 5 years were selected through systematic random sampling technique. A well structured questionnaire consisting of open-ended and close-ended questions was used for gathering information from the selected respondents. 84.2% of the respondents reported that their children are suffering from one or more of these diseases e.g. diarrhea, worm infestation, goiter, cholera and gastroenteritis and they also expressed about their poor health. Majority of the women were mal-nourished and anemic. The problems of antenatal and post-natal care were common in the selected area due to the unavailability and inaccessibility of the health care services along with traditional and dogmatic attitude towards the utilization of available limited health facilities. Delivery of baby under the supervision of untrained birth attendants at home was also responsible factor for high incidence of morbidity among children

Cutaneous Candidiasis

Cutaneous candidiasis is a multipicture infection of the skin, generally caused by yeast like fungus c.albicans or other species of genus candida such as candida parapsilosis, candida tropicalis, candida glabrata but these species are unusual, secondary to skin diseases. Candida is flora of gut microbiota, rather than skin, although it is present on skin at some instances. Certain factor of candida species such as ability to evade host defense by biofilm formation, filamentous form and presence of tissue damaging enzyme phospholipase are attributed to pathogenicity. Cutaneous candida infection may occur in patient HIV/AIDS, cancer receiving chemotherapy, antibiotics, steroids therapy and in organ transplantation. Vesicles, pustules, maceration and fissuring are common symptoms on perineum, axilla and interriginous areas. Systemic and topical therapies are common treatment with different drugs. Single drug therapy as combination of anti-fungal, antibacterial and topical corticosteroid has marvelous results. Nystatin, Clotrimaziole and miconazole are efficiently reviewed topical drugs with 73–100% cure

Efficient synthesis of 2-amino-6-arylbenzothiazoles via Pd(0) Suzuki cross coupling reactions : potent urease enzyme inhibition and nitric oxide scavenging activities of the products

In general, benzothiazole derivatives have attracted great interest due to thier pharmaceutical and biological importance. New 2-amino-6-arylbenzothiazoles were synthesized in moderate to excellent yields via Suzuki cross coupling reactions using various aryl boronic acids and aryl boronic acid pinacol esters and the antiurease and nitric oxide (NO) scavenging activity of the products were also examined. The most active compound concerning urease enzyme inhibition was 6-phenylbenzo[d]thiazole-2-amine 3e, with an IC50 value of 26.35 µg/mL. Compound 3c, 6-(4-methoxyphenyl) benzo[d]thiazole-2-amine, exhibited the highest nitric oxide percentage scavenging at 100µg/mL