The use of antimicrobial drugs in preterm newborn: the experience of creating the formulary

A serious problem of treatment of infectious disease in preterm infants is the lack of sufficient information on pharmacokinetics of antibiotics in this group of patients. This is due to the insufficient number of clinical trials with premature babies, so in practice is difficult for doctor to choose appropriate antibiotic dose and frequency of dosing him. We have summed up the experience of the American pediatric form NEOFAX, British pediatric form, some clinical trials results and selected the optimal dosing regimen of antibacterial drugs based on gestational and post-conceptual age. This will contribute to safety and efficiency in the treatment of infectious diseases in premature infants caused primarily problematic nosocomial pathogens, such as Acinetobacter spp., Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, MRSA, and reduce the risk of adverse drug reactions

Overview of anticonvulsant therapy in full-term and premature neonates

Convulsions in full-term and especially in premature newborns are observable pathologies. Selection of anticonvulsant therapy is very difficult: newborns have particular pharmacokinetics of drugs, insufficient data on doses and therapeutic concentrations of anticonvulsants in the blood (premature infants mainly). This article is an overview, with an emphasis on the features of dosing and pharmacokinetics of anticonvulsants in term and preterm infants

Earthquake loss estimation for the Kathmandu Valley

Kathmandu Valley is geologically located on lacustrine sediment basin, characterized by a long history of destructive earthquakes. The past events resulted in large structural damage, loss of human life’s and property, and interrupted the social development. In recent years, the earthquake risk in this area has significantly increased due to uncontrolled development, poor construction practices with no earthquake safety provisions, and lack of awareness amongst the general public and government authorities. In this context, this study explores the realistic situation of earthquake losses due to future earthquakes in Kathmandu Valley. To this end, three municipalities: (a) Kathmandu Metropolitan City, (b) Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City and (c) Bhaktapur Municipality are selected for a case study. The earthquake loss estimation in the selected municipalities is performed through the combination of seismic hazard, structural vulnerability, and exposure data. Regarding the seismic input, various earthquakes scenario considering four seismic sources in Nepal are adopted. For what concerns the exposure, existing literature describing the construction typologies and data from the recent national census survey of 2011 are employed to estimate ward level distribution of buildings. The economic losses due to the earthquake scenarios are determined using fragility functions. Finally, the ward level distribution of building damage and the corresponding economic losses for each earthquake scenario is obtained using the OpenQuake-engine. The distribution of building damage within the Kathmandu Valley is currently being employed in the development of a shelter model for the region, involving various local authorities and decision makers