Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding antimicrobial use and resistance among community members of Mtendere Township in Lusaka, Zambia: findings and implications on antimicrobial stewardship

Background: Antibiotic resistance is a public health problem affecting all countries and leads to an increase in morbidity and mortality rates. In Zambia, there is little information on the knowledge, attitude, and practices of community members about antibiotic use and resistance. This study assessed the knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) regarding antimicrobial use (AMU) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among community members in Mtendere township of Lusaka Zambia. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that was conducted from May 2020 to August 2020 using a structured questionnaire among 369 Mtendere residents. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. Results: Of the 369 participants, 50.9% were male and 62.1% were aged between 18 and 29 years. Overall, this study found a poor KAP (38% good knowledge, 58% positive attitudes, and 52% good practices) regarding AMU and AMR. More than half of the participants 66.7% (246/369) had heard of antibiotics, 33.6% heard of AMR, and 23% heard of antimicrobial-resistant infections. Most of the participants 48.2% were not aware that AMR is a public health issue. A total of 52.8% (195/369) of the participants said they did not take antibiotics without consulting a doctor or pharmacist, translating into a prevalence of self-medication of 47.2%. Conclusions: This study showed that Mtendere residents had poor KAP towards antibiotic use and resistance. There is a need to implement community-based interventional campaigns including antimicrobial stewardship programmes address the gaps in KAP identified in this study

Drug Resistance Profile among Post CAT II Sputum Positive Patients: Critical Analysis

INTRODUCTION : Since the first appearance of Tuberculosis in humans probably some 8000 years ago its control has continued to elude the brightest minds and to challenge both the human and economic resources of the countries around the world. Several authors have estimated the magnitude of the problems in the last two decades. All these publications represent estimates but they all indicate very clearly that Tuberculosis is still one of the major killer diseases in the world wide. It is estimated that one third of the worlds population (1.7 billion) are infected with Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. 1% of the worlds population are infected every year among these 95% of the affected individuals are in developing countries and 98% deaths due to Tuberculosis are also found to be in developing countries. These deaths accounts for 25% of all avoidable deaths in developing countries. Among the affected people 75 % are in the economically productive age. India has 28.4 % of entire world’s Tuberculosis burden. Every second one Indian above the age of 20 years is infected. There are about 14 million cases among which 3.5 million are sputum positive. Every year 2.2 Million people contact Tuberculosis. One Indian dies every minute which accounts for 5 lakhs per year. Estimates of prevalence of drug resistance in the community will be useful for formulating policies of the treatment with highly effective regiments to ensure cure and good drug compliance by patients and prevent emergence of drug resistance. Drug resistance Tuberculosis adds to the burden of illness in the community with the several constraints in the managements of patients. Highly efficacious treatment regimens utilizing drugs that have not been prescribed previously and known to possess good anti-mycobacterial activity need to be employed which could increase the operational costs in terms of drugs monitoring of toxicity to drugs and supervision of administration of drugs to ensure drug regularity. AIM OF THE STUDY : Evaluating drug resistance profile among patients reporting at institute of Thoracic Medicine Chennai with sputum positivity after taking cat II under RNTCP and either failed/relapsed or defaulted from category II. MATERIALS AND METHODS : 1. The study was conducted at Institute of Thoracic Medicine Chennai. 2. Patients who had reported with sputum positivity with the H/O treatment under RNTCP with cat II and subsequently failed/defaulted/relapsed were included in the study. 3. All of them were subjected to sputum AFB culture and sensitivity studies. 4. Sensitivity pattern were evaluated with their previous ATT prior to cat II. Total of 140 patients were included, 34 were excluded based on the exclusion criteria. The study conducted during 2004 & 2005. The remaining 106 patients were evaluated in this study. 5. It is a retrospective study cohort. The culture sensitivity obtained were analyzed retrospectively. INCLUSION CRITERIA : Patients who had reported with sputum positivity with history of treatment under RNTCP with Cat II and subsequently failed / defaulted / relapsed were included in the study. EXCLUSION CRITERIA : The following were the exclusion criteria; 24 1. Those who had diabetes mellitus (18 patients) at the time of enrollment into the study. 2. Those who had HIV positivity (6 patients) at the time of enrollment into the study. 3. Those patients whose AFB sputum cultures were contaminated (10 patients). CONCLUSION : The drug resistance profile among patients reporting Institute of Thoracic Medicine Chennai with sputum positivity after taking CAT II regimen under RNTCP and either failed / relapsed or defaulted from CAT II were evaluated and the following conclusions were made. 1. Possibility of MDR TB is found to be 87% when a patient fails with cat II under RNTCP. 2. Possibility of having MDR TB is to the tune of 90% when a patient fails with CAT II preceded by a failure in CAT I. 3. It is preferable to have culture and sensitivity study when the patient fails with cat I or atleast when the patient does not get converted at the end of intensive phase of cat II. By doing so unnecessary time delay in initiating appropriate reserve regimen can be avoided and can prevent the diseases transmission to others

The Kinetics Of Gas Hydrate Formation Using Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate As The Promoter

This final year project will be studying on the kinetic formation of gas hydrates using sodium dodecyl sulphate as the promoter. This report encompasses of background study, problem statement, objectives and scope of study, literature review on gas hydrates and SDS, proposed methodology for carrying out the experiment, project timeline management and lastly conclusion. Our main problem statement is the increasing greenhouse gas emission and the energy intensive carbon dioxide capture calls for a cheaper and more effective alternative. Furthermore, depleting fossil fuels also seeks for alternative energy source. Gas hydrate is seen to have a high potential for carbon dioxide capture and as well as an energy source but unfortunately the current rate of hydrate formation is not in favour of time. Hence, this project studies gas hydrate formation kinetics to increase its formation rate by using promoters. This project is mainly about identifying the optimum concentration of Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate as the promoter for gas hydrate formation. The gas involved in this experimental work is carbon dioxide and methane. This is identified by calculating the induction time of gas hydrate formation and apparent rate of formation of gas hydrate at different SDS concentrations. At the end of the experiment, the data collected will enable us to understand better on how carbon dioxide and methane hydrate can be produced and are believed to be used for in-situ carbon dioxide sequestration through methane hydrate dissociation. Through two semesters of experimental work, which the first half denotes a deeper understanding of the theories of kinetics of gas hydrate whilst the second half will encompass the experimental work to address the problem statements identified

Characterizing Key Stakeholders in an Online Black-Hat Marketplace

Over the past few years, many black-hat marketplaces have emerged that facilitate access to reputation manipulation services such as fake Facebook likes, fraudulent search engine optimization (SEO), or bogus Amazon reviews. In order to deploy effective technical and legal countermeasures, it is important to understand how these black-hat marketplaces operate, shedding light on the services they offer, who is selling, who is buying, what are they buying, who is more successful, why are they successful, etc. Toward this goal, in this paper, we present a detailed micro-economic analysis of a popular online black-hat marketplace, namely, SEOClerks.com. As the site provides non-anonymized transaction information, we set to analyze selling and buying behavior of individual users, propose a strategy to identify key users, and study their tactics as compared to other (non-key) users. We find that key users: (1) are mostly located in Asian countries, (2) are focused more on selling black-hat SEO services, (3) tend to list more lower priced services, and (4) sometimes buy services from other sellers and then sell at higher prices. Finally, we discuss the implications of our analysis with respect to devising effective economic and legal intervention strategies against marketplace operators and key users.Comment: 12th IEEE/APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime 2017

Kajian mengenai proses pengurusan sistem keselamatan dan kesihatan pekerja di tapak bina

Aset atau modal utama dalam industri pembinaan ialah sumber manusia.Isu keselamatan pekerja di tapak bina menyebabkan pekerja terdedah kepada pelbagai risiko kemalangan. Kajian ini dijalankan bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti tahap keberkesanan amalan keselamatan dan kesihatan di tapak pembinaan. Pengurusan sistem kselamatan secara menyeluruh akan membantu mewujudkan persekitaran kerja yang selamat dan selesa kepada pihak yang terlibat dalam industri pembinaan terutama pekerja di tapak bina.Kajian dijalankan dengan melaksanakan kajian ilmiah seterusnya dengan kaedah pemerhatian dan juga temubual. Amalan keselamatan dan kesihatan di tapak pembinaan di negara ini perlu ditingkatkan lagi kerana kejayaan daripada amalan ini dapat membantu ekonomi Negara ini dan turut membantu untuk mencapai wawasan 2020

Genetic and clinical demographics of adult cystic fibrosis patients in a middle eastern population

OBJECTIVE: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the commonest life-limiting inherited illness in the Caucasian population but is uncommon in the Middle East, and so the genotypes and clinical course of disease in this population is not well known. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this retrospective observational study, we collected and reviewed the data on CF mutations, body mass index (BMI), lung function, microbiology, and the demographics in adult CF patients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). RESULTS: Data was reviewed for 39 adult CF patients. The median age of adult CF patients presenting to our clinic was 25 years (inter-quartile range (IQR) 22-31), the median BMI was 19 (IQR 17-22), and the median percentage predicted forced expiratory volume at 1 second (FEV1) was 49.5% (IQR 38.5-62.5). S549R was the commonest mutation (n = 11, 28%) followed by ∆F508 (n = 9, 23%). Only 5 (13%) out of 39 patients were heterozygote for CF mutations which reflects the high level of consanguinity in the region. Twelve (30%) patients were diagnosed after the age of 16, and in total, 19 (48%) were diagnosed after the age of 10. Thirty-two (82%) of patients are pseudomonas colonized, and 31% had 3 or more exacerbations in the last 12 months. CONCLUSION: The CF mutation patterns in the UAE are different from western populations with low ∆F508 prevalence, with the presence of rare mutations more specific to this region and a high rate of homozygosity. Late diagnosis, high pseudomonas colonization rate, and exacerbation frequency remain a problem in this region and lead to poor long-term outcomes

2-Chloro-N′-(5-hydr­oxy-2-nitro­benzyl­idene)benzohydrazide

The mol­ecule of the title Schiff base compound, C14H10ClN3O4, exists in a trans configuration with respect to the acyclic C=N bond. The dihedral angle between the two benzene rings is 62.37 (9)°. An intra­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bond is observed. In the crystal structure, adjacent mol­ecules are linked into a ribbon along [10] by O—H⋯O and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

2-Chloro-N′-(4-nitro­benzyl­idene)benzo­hydrazide

The title Schiff base compound, C14H10ClN3O3, exists in a trans configuration with respect to the C=N bond. The dihedral angle between the two benzene rings is 15.9 (2)°. In the crystal, the mol­ecules are linked into chains along [101] by inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

Recycled concrete aggregate as a medium for horizontal filter for removal of phosphorus in greywater

The process of phosphorus removal from greywater in conventional methods require a combination of tertiary-level treatment system because the removal of phosphorus required a complex process. Therefore, this study is focus to identify percentage of phosphorus that can be removed through horizontal filter system by using recycled concrete aggregate (RCA). RCA was used in this study as the main materials for removing phosphorus. The concrete cube was taken from concrete laboratory and was crush by crushing machine which the sizing between 5 mm to 20 mm. In this study, it is found that excessive phosphorus was cause to eutrophication phenomena. The inclusion of phosphorus on the surface of air increasing due to industrial, domestic and agricultural activities. The effect of this condition has led to diversity of aquatic species that was be affected as well as lack of dissolved oxygen and lighting as the water surface is covered by water plants and algae. In this study, the aggregate size of 5 mm at most removal of phosphorus in greywater by 97.8% in the period to 12 days of treatment while the aggregate size 20 mm only able to get rid of phosphorus of 55.5% by dosage of RCA of 20 kg in horizontal filter. The horizontal filter can be used as alternative method for removing phosphorus in greywater