Management of children with acute respiratory infections [ARI] by general practitioners in Multan - an observational study

A knowledge, attitude and practices [K.A.P.] survey was conducted among doctors working as general practitioners [GP] in Multan, for diagnosis and management of acute respiratory infections [ARI] in children under five years of age. GPs in Multan were not familiar with national ARI control programme and rational drug use guidelines. They rarely asked about symptoms describing severity of disease while taking patient histories and did not look for signs of severe pneumonia during physical examinations. Most patients diagnosed as URTI [upper respiratory tract infection] received oral antibiotics and those with pneumonia received injectable antibiotics. Other drugs prescribed included cough syrups, antihistamines and antipyretics. The average number of drugs prescribed per patient was 3.4. The doctors were deficient in providing home care advice for sick children to the caretakers. Average time spent by doctors on each patient was two minutes and twenty-three seconds. A combination of biomedical and social factors help to perpetuate this irrational prescribing behaviour of the GPs. Continuing education programmes for doctors in general practice about ARI management in children and rational use of drugs and health education of the public may improve the current prescribing practices

survey of the analyses of human remains from Ikaros

During the 1984-1988 excavation campaigns of the combined French Archaeological Mission in Kuwait and the Kuwait National Museum, 12 human skeletons were discovered. They has been interred among the ruins of a pre-Hellenistic Bronze Age building approximately 100 m north of a Hellenistic for tress on the island of Failaka off the coast of Kuwait. Radiocarbon dating showed that the skeletal material dated from the Hellenistic Period. During this period, the island was known by the name of lkaros. Physical anthropological analysis of the human remains at the Department of Anatomy of Kuwait University revealed that, a single jar burial excepted, the buried men had been Greek/Seleucid soldiers/mercenaries or local warrior/mercenaries. A survey is given of the gross anatomical, ultrastructural and paleopathological findings from these human remains. By far the most interesting conclusions were related to bone changes due to penetrating lesions of the skull, healed fractures, sickle cell anaemia, and bone preservation and decay