Epidemiology of Diarrhea in Two Major Cities in Saudi Arabia

The epidemiological pattern of diarrheal diseases, causative agents, and risk factors of their occurrence in two referral hospital of Saudi Arabia was investigated in this study. Stool specimens from 1726 admitted diarrheal cases were examined for parasites, yeast, enteropathogenic bacteria and rotavirus using the ELISA test. Two-fifth of cases were due to rotavirus (RVGE) while 53.1% of cases showed no causative pathogens. Mean age of all cases was 20.2 months and RVGE cases showed a steady rise from the neonatal period onward, reaching a peak between 6-14 months. Males were of higher percentage in diarrheal cases. Mothers of diarrhea cases were mostly house wives with low educational level. Bottle fed children showed higher proportion {53.1 %) of diarrhea than other types of feeding suggesting the feco-oral route of infection and the effect of poor sanitation. A pattern of higher RVGE cases was seen in warmer months in Al-taif and in cooler months in Jeddah. Our findings demonstrated the interaction between host, pathogen and environmental factors m the epidemiology of infectious diarrhea in developing countries and the areas of possible prevention

Genotoxicity of Air Borne Particulates Assessed by Comet and the Salmonella Mutagenicity Test in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Fine airborne respirable particulates less than 10 micrometer (PM10) are considered one of the top environmental public health concerns, since they contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are among the major carcinogenic compounds found in urban air. The objective of this study is to assess the genotoxicity of the ambient PM10 collected at 11 urban sites in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The PM10 extractable organic matter (EOM) was examined for its genotoxicity by the single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) comet assay and the Salmonella mutagenicity (Ames) test .Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to quantify 16 PAH compounds in four sites. Samples from oil refinery and heavy diesel vehicles traffic sites showed significant DNA damage causing comet in 20-44% of the cells with tail moments ranging from 0.5-2.0 compared to samples from petrol driven cars and residential area, with comet in less than 2% of the cells and tail moments of < 0.02.In the Ames test, polluted sites showed indirect mutagenic response and caused 20-56 rev/ m3, mean while residential and reference sites caused 2-15 rev /m3. The genotoxicity of the EOM in both tests directly correlated with the amount of organic particulate and the PAHs concentrations in the air samples. The PAHs concentrations ranged between 0.83 ng/m3 in industrial and heavy diesel vehicles traffic sites to 0.18 ng /m3 in the residential area. Benzo(ghi)pyrene was the major PAH components and at one site it represented 65.4 % of the total PAHs. Samples of the oil refinery site were more genotoxic in the SCGE assay than samples from the heavy diesel vehicles traffic site, despite the fact that both sites contain almost similar amount of PAHs. The opposite was true for the mutagenicity in the Ames test. This could be due to the nature of the EOM in both sites. These findings confirm the genotoxic potency of the PM10 organic extracts to which urban populations are exposed