Association between Parental Smoking and Pneumonia among Children Less Than 5 Years of Age

Introduction: Pneumonia continues to be the biggest killerworldwide of children under five years of age. Although theimplementation of safe, effective and affordable interventionshas reduced pneumonia.Objective: The objective of this study was to find associationbetween parental smoking and pneumonia in children under 5years of age presenting to tertiary care hospitals in Peshawarcity, Pakistan.Methodology: It was Unmatched Case Control Study with aratio of 1:1. Cases were children less than five years of agepresenting to four major tertiary care hospitals with Pneumoniainfection. Controls were selected from same hospital withmedical condition other than respiratory infection.Results: Among the total sample of 248 children, 67 (27%) ofthe children’s parents were smokers while 181 (83%) were notsmoking. Pneumonia infections were twice likely to developamong those children who were exposed to parental smokingat home with an odd ratio of 2.02 (95% C: 1.14-3.60)Conclusion: Children exposed to second hand smoking are athigh risk of developing respiratory problems like asthma later inlife. More effective policies and strategies are required to limitthe second hand smoking exposure at homes.

Evaluation of the analgesic activity of the water soluble extract of stem of Tinospora cordifolia in experimentally induced pain in albino rats

Background: Pain and pyrexia are the warning signals, primarily protective in nature, that cause discomfort and suffering and may even be unbearable and incapacitating. The modern drugs (like opioids, NSAIDs, corticosteroids) currently used for the management of pain, fever and inflammatory conditions, present with many known adverse effects. Tinospora cordifolia known as Giloe, widely used in folk medicine due to its property to cure a number of diseases. Hence the present study was undertaken to explore the analgesic activity of water-soluble extract of stem of T. cordifolia in albino rats in experimentally induced pain.Methods: Present study was done in the department of pharmacology, albino rats were used to study the analgesic activity of T. cordifolia aqueous extract at the dose of 1.25g/kg,2.5g/kg and 5g/kg p.o. Various methods like Eddy’s hot plate, tail flick test and acetic acid induced writhing were used for the anti- nociceptive study.Results: In Eddy’s hot plate and tail flick test an increase in reaction time was observed with peak effect at 90min. Results were similar to the standard drug Tramadol in acetic acid induced writhing increase in time of onset, decrease in number and duration of writhing was observed.Conclusions: Aqueous extract of T. cordifolia was effective in all the three models of pain suggesting its possible action by central and peripheral mechanisms. Activity of T. cordifolia can be attributed to various phytoconstituents viz. protoberberine alkaloids, terpenoids, glycosides and polysaccharides. It can be developed as potent analgesic agent in future.

Development of rapid phenotypic system for the identification of Gram-negative oxidase-positive bacilli in resource-limited settings.

Rapid and accurate identification of bacterial pathogens is a fundamental goal of clinical microbiology. The diagnosis and surveillance of diseases is dependent, to a great extent, on laboratory services, which cannot function without effective reliable reagents and diagnostics. Despite the advancement in microbiology diagnosis globally, resourcelimited countries still struggle to provide an acceptable diagnosis quality which helps in clinical disease management and improve their mortality and morbidity data. During this study an indigenous product, Quick Test Strip (QTS) NE, was developed for the rapid identification of biochemically slower group of Gram-negative oxidase-positive bacilli that covers 19 different bacterial genera. Some of the members belonging to these groups are well-established human pathogens, e.g. various species of Vibrio, Pseudomonas, Burkholderia, Aeromonas, Achromobacter and Stenotrophomonas. This study also evaluates the performance of QTS-NE by comparing with genotypic characterization methods. A total of 232 clinical and reference bacterial isolates were tested by three different methods. QTSNE provides 100% concordant results with other rapid identification and molecular characterization methods and confirms the potential to be used in clinical diagnosis.