ABSTRACT
Background: Hepatitis C is a worldwide public health problem nowadays. World Health Organization [WHO] estimates that 3 percent of the world population is infected with HCV. Voluntary blood donors have a very high prevalence of HCV infection especially in the developing world. The blood and blood components can be obtained from volunteer donors, direct donors, paid donors, or through autologous donation, hence the donors should be carefully interviewed and tested before blood donation
Objectives: To assess the incidence of false sero-negative Hepatitis-C blood donors and evaluate the costs, benefits and effectiveness of specific Tests of Hepatitis-C in public and private hospitals of city district, Faisalabad
Study Design: It was a cross-sectional hospital based study
Setting and Duration: The study was conducted in 3 public sector and 3 Private sector Hospitals of City district of Faisalabad. The study was conducted for one Year during 2010-2011
Sampling procedure: Non-probability Convenient sampling technique was employed
Sample size: The study included 600 blood donors who deposited their blood in the blood banks of the above hospitals for transfusion purposes
Results: The majority of the blood donors 70.83% were between the age of 18-25 years. Despite the fact that all the donors, in government and private hospitals groups respectively were found initially negative for hepatitis C on routine diagnostic test, yet considerable number of individuals, 14 [4.60%] and 46 [15.33%] in government and private hospitals groups, respectively were found unexpectedly positive for hepatitis C when scrutinized on ELISA diagnostic test. The results were found to be statistically significant when the P value was less than 0.05 [P<0.05]
Conclusion: All the individuals irrespective of their group were screened to be sero-negative for hepatitis -C, when tested on the routine laboratory test. But when their blood serum was tested by ELISA method, a sizeable number of individuals in both government and private hospital groups were screened as sero-positive for HCV. This state of uncertain performance of the routine laboratory test has given rise to unreliability of the diagnosis of hepatitis C by the routine test. It is, therefore, strongly recommended that only ELISA method should be ordered for authentic diagnosis of hepatitis C
ABSTRACT
To determine the prevalence of normal conjunctival flora and its types. An observational study. At Ophtha-lmological Department, DHQ/Allied Hospital, PMC, Faisalabad, from November 2006 to February 2007. This study was performed on 500 patients, aged form 20 years to 70 years with normal looking eyes. The samples of sterile stuart's swab were made on conjunctiva of patients, without touching eyelashes or lid margins. The swabs were touched with conjunctiva of both eyes and placed in stuart's transparent media to shift to microbiological laboratory. Out of 500 swabs 412 [82.4%] showed no growth while 78 [15.6%] showed microbial growth. Out of these 78 swabs, there were 44 [56.41%] having normal flora, while 34 [43.59%] had other pathogens. The normal looking eyes harbour different types of the organisms. Any trauma, accidental hurt or elective surgical procedure is not free from risk of conjunctival infection, keratits or endophthalmitis etc