Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding HIV/AIDS among adult fishermen in coastal areas of Karachi.

BACKGROUND: Migrant populations are at high risk of Human Immuno Deficiency Virus infection (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Studies of HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes and practices among fishermen in developing countries have shown gaps in knowledge and fear of contagion with ambivalent attitudes towards HIV/AIDS and inconsistent universal precautions adherence. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding HIV/AIDS among adult fishermen in a coastal area of Karachi, Pakistan. METHODS: Community based cross sectional study was conducted among fishermen in coastal area of Karachi from June to September 2012. A total of 297 adult fishermen were selected by using simple random sampling technique from different sectors of coastal village. Data were collected using a structured validated questionnaire. The frequency distribution of both dependent and independent variables were worked out. Comparisons of knowledge, attitude and practices regarding HIV/AIDS by socio-demographic characteristics were made using logistic regression. RESULTS: Out of 297 fishermen, majority had in-appropriate knowledge (93.6%), negative attitude (75.8%) and less adherent sexual practices (91.6%). In univariate analysis, lower education and higher income were significantly associated (OR 2.25, 95% CI, 1.11, 4.55), (OR = 3.04 CI 1.03-9.02, p value 0.04) with negative attitude and un-safe practices towards HIV/AIDS respectively, whereas no significant association of socio-economic characteristics with knowledge, attitude and practices were observed in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that fishermen had very poor knowledge, negative attitudes towards HIV and AIDS and had unsafe sexual practices which suggest that they lack the basic understanding of HIV/AIDS infection. Extensive health education campaign should be provided to the vulnerable sections of the society for the control of HIV/AIDS

Comparison between Working And Non-Working Women in Household Activities in Decision-Making Patterns

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to find out the women’s participation in household activities. It compares the decision-making patterns among working and non-working women and evaluates the challenges and hurdles faced by them in household economic activities. Design/Methodology/Approach: We have used a purposive random sampling strategy. A total of 70 respondents from the Rawalakot AJK were purposefully chosen, including 35 working women and 35 unemployed women. The flexibility of the questions was maintained; if the respondent could not provide an accurate response, the question was rephrased. Based on the interview schedule and observation, responses were recorded. Results were presented as percentages and numbers after the data were tabulated. The schedule was split into three sections: The first section was to examine the respondents' personal histories. The second step was to understand how respondents made decisions regarding activities at home. The third section covered the challenges that both working and unemployed women faced. Findings: The results revealed that the working and non-working women differentiate from each other by different variables. The result shows that non-working women are dependent on social rituals and family decisions. On the other side, working women are comparatively stronger than non-working women in taking their own decisions facing society. Implications/Originality/Value The conclusion is working women are stronger as compared to non-working or unemployed women. It shows that non-working women need more attention. She needs more opportunities to take decisions in daily household activities. The Family members must be supportive of household activities for the working women which may reduce the stress in their lives to some extent.                                                          &nbsp

Association between maternal chronic apical periodontitis (CAP) and low birth weight preterm birth (LBWPT)

Objective: To determine the association between maternal chronic apical periodontitis and low birth weight preterm birth. Method: The case-control study was conducted at the Gynaecology Ward of the Civil Hospital, Karachi, from September 2017 to April 2018, and comprised women aged 19-48 years with singleton pregnancy delivering spontaneously. The subjects were examined for the presence of periodontitis. The mothers who delivered low birth weight preterm babies were the cases in group A and those who delivered normal birth weight babies were the controls in group B. On the delivery day, after the subject having been moved to the room, data was collected through a questionnaire to record demographic details, history of pregnancy and information about the newborn. The radiographs were assessed for the presence of chronic apical periodontitis. The association between maternal chronic apical periodontitis and low birth weight preterm birth was subsequently determined. Data was analysed using SPSS 24. Results: Of the 200 subjects, 100(50%) were in group A with a mean age of 27.17±5.11 years, and 100(50%) were in group B with a mean age of 27.08±4.90 years. Low birth weight preterm birth was associated with education level and family size (p0.05). Conclusion: There was no association between maternal chronic apical periodontitis and low birth weight preterm birth. Key Words: Low birth weight infant, Periodontitis, Preterm birth, Adverse pregnancy outcomes, Chronic apical periodontitis. Continuous..

Prevalence and factors related to dental caries among pre-school children of Saddar town, Karachi, Pakistan: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Dental caries is highly prevalent and a significant public health problem among children throughout the world. Epidemiological data regarding prevalence of dental caries amongst Pakistani pre-school children is very limited. The objective of this study is to determine the frequency of dental caries among pre-school children of Saddar Town, Karachi, Pakistan and the factors related to caries. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 1000 preschool children was conducted in Saddar town, Karachi. Two-stage cluster sampling was used to select the sample. At first stage, eight clusters were selected randomly from total 11 clusters. In second stage, from the eight selected clusters, preschools were identified and children between 3- to 6-years age group were assessed for dental caries. RESULTS: Caries prevalence was 51% with a mean dmft score being 2.08 (±2.97) of which decayed teeth constituted 1.95. The mean dmft of males was 2.3 (±3.08) and of females was 1.90 (±2.90). The mean dmft of 3, 4, 5 and 6- year olds was 1.65, 2.11, 2.16 and 3.11 respectively. A significant association was found between dental caries and following variables: age group of 4-years (p-value ² 0.029, RR = 1.248, 95% Bias corrected CI 0.029-0.437) and 5-years (p-value ² 0.009, RR = 1.545, 95% Bias corrected CI 0.047-0.739), presence of dental plaque (p-value ² 0.003, RR = 0.744, 95% Bias corrected CI (−0.433)-(−0.169)), poor oral hygiene (p-value ² 0.000, RR = 0.661, 95% Bias corrected CI (−0.532)-(−0.284)), as well as consumption of non-sweetened milk (p-value ² 0.049, RR = 1.232, 95% Bias corrected CI 0.061-0.367). CONCLUSION: Half of the preschoolers had dental caries coupled with a high prevalence of unmet dental treatment needs. Association between caries experience and age of child, consumption of non-sweetened milk, dental plaque and poor oral hygiene had been established

Pattern of unintentional burns: a hospital based study from Pakistan

Background: Burns are major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Better understanding of the nature and extent of injury remains the major and only available way to halt the occurrence of the event. The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of by self and by other unintentional burn, their comparison and the possible mode of acquisition by obtaining the history of exposure to known risk factors. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire based survey was conducted in Burns Centre of Civil Hospital Karachi, Pakistan and 324 hospitalized adult patients with unintentional burns were consecutively interviewed during August 2013 to February 2014. Information was collected on socio-demographic profile. The source of burn, affected body part and place of injury acquisition in terms of home, outside or work were also noted. Logistic regression model was conducted using SPSS software. Results: Out of 324 patients, 295 (91%) had unintentional burn by self and 29 (9%) had unintentional burn by others. Male gender were 2.37 times and no schooling were 1.75 times more likely to have self-inflicted unintentional burn. Lower limb and head and neck were less likely to involve in unintentional burn by self. Conclusion: The burden of unintentional burn by self was considerably higher. Male gender and no schooling were found more at risk to have unintentional burn by self

Active case finding of sputum positive pulmonary tuberculosis in household contacts of tuberculosis patients in Karachi, Pakistan

Background: Pakistan holds rank 8 th among the world countries in which high prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) is present. There is evidenced that up to 30% of close contacts of TB patients become infected and at least half of them progress to active disease. The aim of this study was to screen active contacts of sputum positive pulmonary TB (SS +ve PTB) among household contacts (HHCs) of TB patients in Karachi, Pakistan. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional study, which was conducted at chest clinics of Karachi. Total 750 HHCs were screened out of which 135 diagnosed smear positive TB patients was registered as index cases (ICs) from July 2012 till March 2013. Logistic regression analysis was carried out to estimate the odds ratio (OR) of different associated factors. Results: Prevalence among males (6.1%) compared with female (5.6%). The crude OR for age less than 15 years was 0.28 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.14-0.55). Eighty-eight HHCs (11.73%) were found to have SS +ve TB. Disease frequency was significantly higher in HHCs who were smokers (adjusted OR 36.41; 95% CI 12.07, 109.79), had age less than 12 years (adjusted OR 3.63; 95% CI 1.68, 7.86), and who lived in houses less than 80 square yards (adjusted OR 3.77; 95% CI 1.27, 6.05). Conclusion: The IC with positive sputum smear constitutes great risk for TB infection and disease in HHC. There is needed for contact tracing strategy in the high-risk population

Effect of recombinant follicular stimulating hormone and human menopausal gonadotrophins on the oocytes number in patients undergoing assisted reproductive technique

Background &amp; Objective: The data regarding the effectiveness of various protocols used for controlled ovarian stimulation (COS) in assisted reproductive techniques (ART) in our own population is scant. This study compares recombinant follicular stimulating hormone (rFSH) and human menopausal gonadotrophins (HMG) in terms of follicular numbers and oocytes retrieved in Pakistani women undergoing ART. Methods: A total of 300 patients were selected out of 1,950 patients who visited the hospital for in vitro fertilization/intra cytoplasmic sperm insemination (IVF/ICSI) from June 2018 to December 2020. These patients were further divided into two categories: first category (1) was given long protocol and the second category (2) was given short antagonist protocol. Each category was further sub-divided into two groups; group A who received HMG, and group B who received rFSH for COS. Results: There was a significantly higher number of follicles and oocytes retrieved in category 1, with rFSH (20.01 &plusmn; 4.91, 15.19 &plusmn; 9.18) versus. HMG (16.07 &plusmn; 5.67, 11.10 &plusmn; 5.07) with a p-value (0.00, 0.004). On the other hand, in category 2, the number of follicles was insignificant (p-value = 0.319) in both groups. Contrary to that the number of oocytes retrieved was significantly higher with a p-value of &le; 0.05 in both groups. Conclusion: In COS in ART, long protocol with rFSH has much better results both in terms of follicular numbers and retrieved oocytes. While for the short protocol with the antagonist, rFSH has been demonstrated to be superior to HMG but that is limited to the number of oocytes.</p

Prioritizing and modelling of putative drug target proteins of Candida albicans by systems biology approach

Candida albicans (Candida albicans) is one of the major sources of nosocomial infections in humans which may prove fatal in 30% of cases. The hospital acquired infection is very difficult to treat affectively due to the presence of drug resistant pathogenic strains, therefore there is a need to find alternative drug targets to cure this infection. In silico and computational level frame work was used to prioritize and establish antifungal drug targets of Candida albicans. The identification of putative drug targets was based on acquiring 5090 completely annotated genes of Candida albicans from available databases which were categorized into essential and non-essential genes. The result indicated that 9% of proteins were essential and could become potential candidates for intervention which might result in pathogen eradication. We studied cluster of orthologs and the subtractive genomic analysis of these essential proteins against human genome was made as a reference to minimize the side effects. It was seen that 14% of Candida albicans proteins were evolutionary related to the human proteins while 86% are non-human homologs. In the next step of compatible drug target selections, the non-human homologs were sequentially compared to the human microbiome data to minimize the potential effects against gut flora which accumulated to 38% of the essential genome. The sub-cellular localization of these candidate proteins in fungal cellular systems indicated that 80% of them are cytoplasmic, 10% are mitochondrial and the remaining 10% are associated with the cell wall. The role of these non-human and non-gut flora putative target proteins in Candida albicans biological pathways was studied. Due to their integrated and critical role in Candida albicans replication cycle, four proteins were selected for molecular modeling. For drug designing and development, four high quality and reliable protein models with more than 70% sequence identity were constructed. These proteins are used for the docking studies of the known and new ligands (unpublished data). Our study will be an effective framework for drug target identifications of pathogenic microbial strains and development of new therapies against the infections they cause