Prevalence and Factors Associated with Hepatitis C Virus Infection among Myanmar Blood Donors

We studied the prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection among blood donors from 3 hospitals of Central Myanmar and 7 hospitals of Lower Myanmar in the Yangon area, and analyzed the factors associated with the infection. The study period was from November, 2005 to June, 2007. A pre-tested questionnaire was used to obtain information on age, ethnic group, marital status, tattooing, body piercing, history of receiving transfusions, and liver diseases in self and in sexual partners. Data on seropositivity to hepatitis C, hepatitis B and human immunodeficiency virus infections were recorded. A total of 65,240 blood donors participated in the study. Their ages ranged from 18 years to 60 years (mean±SD＝29.5±9.3). The male-to-female ratio was 6：1. The prevalence of the antibody to hepatitis C was found to be 0.95% with varying rates (0.34 to 2.03) among hospitals. Females had a slightly higher rate (1.06%) than males (0.93%) (p＝0.237). Multivariate analyses revealed the following factors to be related to HCV infection:HIV infection, odds ratio (OR)＝3.0 (p＝0.003);history of liver disease, OR＝8.9 (p＝0.001);and age 30 years and above, OR＝2.6 (p＝0.001). We discuss the varying prevalences of HCV around the world

Information Security System Based on English and Myanmar Text Steganography

Due to the growth in frequent exchange of digital data over public channel, information security plays an important role in daily part of communication. Hence, various techniques like steganography are applied in information security area for more efficient information security system. This paper proposes two new text steganographic approaches using two different languages which are based on Unicode standard for secure data transfer over the public channel. The main aim is to overcome the limited embedding capacity, suspiciousness, and data damaging effect due to modification of existing steganographic approaches. The first approach conceals a message, without degrading the cover, by using four specific characters of words of the English cover text. The second approach performs message hiding by using the three specific groups of characters of combined words in Myanmar cover text while maintaining the content of the cover. The structure and operation of the proposed approaches based on the idea of existing text steganographic technique: Hiding Data in Paragraph (HDPara) algorithm. In this work, an empirical comparison of the proposed approaches with HDPara approach is presented. According to the comparison results, the proposed approaches outperform the existing HDPara approach in terms of embedding capacity.

Prevalence of High-Risk Human Papillomavirus (HR-HPV) Infection among Women with Normal and Abnormal Cervical Cytology in Myanmar

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of normal and abnormal cervical cytology in women who attended the cervical cancer screening clinic of the Department of Medical Research in Lower Myanmar, and to determine the proportion of high-risk (HR) human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and HPV genotypes in women with normal and abnormal cervical cytology. A total of 1,771 women were screened from 2010 to 2011. Among them, 762 women (43.0%) had a normal smear, and 866 (48.9%) and 87 (4.9%) were diagnosed with inflammatory smears and atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS), respectively. Diagnoses of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) numbered 42 (2.3%) and 11 (0.6%) respectively. Three cases of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (0.2%) were detected. Cervical swabs were collected from 96 women with abnormal cervical cytology and 20 with normal cytology. HR-HPV DNA testing was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with pU1M/pU2R primers. HR-HPV were identified in 35.5% (22/62) of inflammatory smears, 60% (6/10) of ASCUS, 86.7% (13/15) of LSIL, 50% (3/6) of HSIL, 100% (3/3) of SCC and 5% (1/20) of normal cytology. In PCR-positive cases, HPV genotyping was analyzed by the cleaved amplification polymorphism method. The most prevalent HPV genotypes were HPV-16 (60.4%) followed by HPV-31 (14.6%), HPV-18 (12.5%) and HPV-58 (12.5%). Women with abnormal cervical cytology were 10 times more likely to be HR-HPV positive than those with normal cytology (p＝0.0001). This study suggests that the implementation of a cervical cytology screening program and routine vaccination against HPV in preadolescent and adolescent groups are needed to reduce the burden of HPV-associated cervical cancer

An Information Security System Based on Optimized Pixel Mapping Method

In the field of communication system and internet, the information security is playing a crucial role. At the present time, communication through Internet is becoming popular and it should be accurate and secure. To make it reality, cryptography is very useful tool to protect the content of confidential data in many research areas. Another one, steganography is also commonly used to hide the existence of data into cover media known as text, image, audio and video. In this work, it is considered that the two most popular techniques (Cryptography and Steganography) should be combined to develop the strong and robust security system. At first, confidentiality and message authentication requirements are fulfilled with the help of Byte-Rotation Encryption Algorithm (BREA) and Secure Hash Algorithm-512(SHA-512). On the other hand, a new data hiding approach based on the optimization of Pixel Mapping Method (OPMM) also provides the system the higher embedding capacity with minimum degradation of stego image quality. To analyze the performance of the proposed OPMM, the comparison is also presented in terms of embedding capacity and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) values

Correlates of male involvement in maternal and newborn health: a cross-sectional study of men in a peri-urban region of Myanmar

Background: Evidence suggests that increasing male involvement in maternal and newborn health (MNH) may improve MNH outcomes. However, male involvement is difficult to measure, and further research is necessary to understand the barriers and enablers for men to engage in MNH, and to define target groups for interventions. Using data from a peri-urban township in Myanmar, this study aimed to construct appropriate indicators of male involvement in MNH, and assess sociodemographic, knowledge and attitude correlates of involvement. Methods: A cross-sectional study of married men with one or more children aged up to one year was conducted in 2012. Structured questionnaires measured participants’ involvement in MNH, and their sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge and attitudes. An ordinal measure of male involvement was constructed describing the subject’s participation across five areas of MNH, giving a score of 1–4. Proportional-odds regression models were developed to determine correlates of male involvement. Results: A total of 210 men participated in the survey, of which 203 provided complete data. Most men reported involvement level scores of either 2 or 3 (64 %), with 13 % reporting the highest level (score of 4). Involvement in MNH was positively associated with wives’ level of education (AOR = 3.4; 95 % CI: 1.9-6.2; p \u3c 0.001) and men’s level of knowledge of MNH (AOR = 1.2; 95 % CI: 1.1-1.3; p \u3c 0.001), and negatively correlated with number of children (AOR = 0.78; 95 % CI: 0.63-0.95; p = 0.016). Conclusions: These findings can inform the design of programs aiming to increase male involvement, for example by targeting less educated couples and addressing their knowledge of MNH. The composite index proved a useful summary measure of involvement; however, it may have masked differential determinants of the summed indicators. There is a need for greater understanding of the influence of gender attitudes on male involvement in Myanmar and more robust indicators that capture these gender dynamics for use both in Myanmar and globally

Trend of Human Papillomavirus Genotypes in Cervical Neoplasia Observed in a Newly Developing Township in Yangon, Myanmar

Persistent infection with oncogenic types of human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most important risk factor associated with cervical cancer. This study detected the oncogenic HPV genotypes in cervical neoplasia in relation to clinicopathological findings using a cross-sectional descriptive method in 2011 and 2012. Cervical swabs and colposcopy-directed cervical biopsy tissues were collected from 108 women (median age 45 years;range 20-78) showing cervical cytological changes at Sanpya General Hospital, Yangon, Myanmar. HPV DNA testing and genotyping were performed by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism. HPV was identified in women with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 1 (44.4%), CIN2 (63.2%), CIN3 (70.6%), and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (74.1%). The association between cervical neoplasia and HPV positivity was highly significant (p＝0.008). Most patients infected with HPV were between 40-49 years of age, and the youngest were in the 20- to 29-year-old age group. The most common genotype was HPV 16 (65.6%) with the following distribution:70% in CIN1, 41.7% in CIN2, 91.7% in CIN3, and 60% in SCC. HPV-31 was the second-most frequent (21.9%):30% in CIN1, 33.3% in CIN2, 8.3% in CIN3, and 15% in SCC. The third-most frequent-genotype was HPV-18 (7.8%):8.3% in CIN1, and 20% in SCC. Another genotype was HPV-58 (4.7%):16.7% in CIN1 and 5% in SCC. The majority of CIN/SCC cases were associated with HPV genotypes 16, 31, 18, and 58. If oncogenic HPV genotypes are positive, the possibility of cervical neoplasia can be predicted. Knowledge of the HPV genotypes distribution can predict the effectiveness of the currently used HPV vaccine

Long-Term Management of Hepatitis C-Seropositive Subjects with AntiOxidant Biofactor (AOB®), a Fermented Food Supplement

The efficacy of AntiOxidant Biofactor (AOB(R)) for the management of apparently healthy subjects with chronic hepatitis C infection was investigated. A total of 60 subjects (35 males, 25 females) participated in the trial. AOB was given orally in 2 packs (3g per pack) 3 times per day. 17 subjects had taken AOB for 3 years, 31 subjects up to 2 years, and 41 subjects up to one year. The initial mean (SD) serum alamine aminotransferase (ALT) level was 46.3+/-35.4IU/L, and significant (p0.05, paired t-test) reductions in the mean serum ALT levels were observed at 6 months (38.6+/-21.5IU/L), 18 months (31.9+/-18.1IU/L), 2 years (31.2+/-14.6IU/L), and 3 years (28.0+/-15.9IU/L). Those presenting with high serum ALT levels (30 subjects) demonstrated significant levels (p0.05, paired t-test) of reduction in the mean serum ALT levels at 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months of treatment. No side effects were observed and the AOB treatment was well tolerated by all subjects

Effect of leucaena forage and silage substitution in concentrates on digestibility, nitrogen utilization and milk yield in dairy cows

This experiment was conducted to determine the effect of feeding leucaena forage and silage substitution in concentrate on the performances of dairy cows. Nine cross-bred Holstein Friesian cows (410±12kg) in the 12th week of lactation were randomly allocated to one of three treatment groups with three replicates/treatments in a completely randomized design. The three treatments were control diet without substitution of leucaena forage and silage (DLFS0), diet with substitution of leucaena forage 10% (DLF10) and diet with substitution of leucaena silage 10% (DLS10). Cows were fed treatments for 60 days. Although nutrient intakes were not significantly different (p>0.05) each other, digestibility of DLFS0 was significantly higher (p<0.05) than others. Conversely, nitrogen utilization and average milk yield of cows offered DLFS0 were significantly lower (p<0.05) than those of cows fed on DLF10 and DLS10. The highest feed cost (p<0.05) per kg of milk was found in DLFS0 and the lowest cost was observed in DLF10. Therefore, although the leucana forage and silage could be substitute up to 10% of concentrates without adverse effects on the performances of dairy cows, the substitution of leucaena forage gave the better performances than that of leucaena silage