Post COVID-19 workplace ostracism and counterproductive behaviors: Moral leadership.

BACKGROUND: The wide proliferation of Covid-19 has impacted billions of people all over the world. This catastrophic pandemic outbreak and ostracism at work have posed challenges for all healthcare professionals, especially for nurses, and have led to a significant increase in the workload, several physical and mental problems, and a change in behavior that is more negative and counterproductive. Therefore, leadership behaviors that are moral in nature serve as a trigger and lessen the adverse workplace effects on nurses' conduct. AIM: this research is directed to explore the impact of post-COVID-19 workplace ostracism on nurses' counterproductive behavior and examine the role of moral leadership as a mediating factor in post-COVID-19 workplace ostracism and nurses' counterproductive behavior. ETHICAL CONSIDERATION: Ethical review and approval Was received from Ethical Committee at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt. METHODS: A cross-sectional and correlation study was implemented in all units of medical, surgical, critical and intensive care units by using three tools; moral leadership questionnaire, Workplace Ostracism Instrument (WOS), and Counterproductive Work Behaviors Questionnaire (CWBs). A convenient sample of 340 from 699 bedside nurses was granted. RESULTS: This study revealed that nurses' perceived moderate mean percent (55.49 ± 3.46) of overall workplace ostracism and counterproductive behavior (74.69 ± 6.15). However, they perceived a low mean percentage of moral leadership. There was a significant positive correlation between workplace ostracism and counterproductive behavior. Otherwise, a significant negative correlation was found between moral leadership, workplace ostracism and counterproductive behavior. Also, this study proved the mediating effect of moral leadership in decreasing workplace ostracism by 79.3% and counterproductive behavior by 36.7%. CONCLUSION: Hospital administrators need to be aware of the significance of moral leadership and apply integrity in the clinical setting to reduce the drawback of isolation on nurses' conduct and increase value for the organization as a whole and nurses in particular.

Molecular prevalence and genetic diversity of Toxoplasma gondii in free-range chicken in Northeastern Libya.

Background: Toxoplasma gondii is one of the zoonotic protozoa parasites. It can prevalently infect humans and warm-blooded animals, causing human health problems and substantial economic losses to the livestock industry worldwide. Chicken is one of the potential sources of toxoplasmosis, but there is no report of the prevalence of toxoplasmosis and their genotypes in free-range chickens in Libya. Aim: This study aims to conduct a survey of molecular prevalence and identify the T. gondii genotype in free-range chickens and its association with the risk factors of age, gender, and region in Northeastern Libya. Methods: This study was conducted by examining a total of 315 free-range chicken organs (brain and heart) derived from three administrative districts in Northeastern Libya. The molecular prevalence was determined by PCR technique using B1 gene amplification. and the T. gondii genotype was determined by nested PCR-RFLP of GRA6 gene amplicon with restriction enzymes (MseI). Results: The overall molecular prevalence of T. gondii in free-range chicken in all three districts was 9.5% (30/315), and the highest (15.4%) was in the Al-Marj district (p = 0.01; x 2 = 9.238). The highest prevalence of T. gondii by age was in chickens aged more than 2 years (p = 0.001; x 2 = 15.530). The difference in T. gondii prevalence in male and female chickens was not significant (p = 0.372; x 2 = 0.798). The predominant genotype I (93.3%) had identified at position 544 and 194 bp at the GRA6 marker, and only two positives were from genotype II (6.7%) at 700 and 100 bp fragments. Conclusion: The molecular prevalence of toxoplasmosis in free-range chicken in three districts in Northeastern Libya was 9.5%, and the highest rate was shown in the Al Marj district. Chicken by age more than 2 years had more risk to transmit toxoplasmosis in human. There was no different infection risk by consuming male or female free-range chicken. It is the first report to determine the predominant genotype, which was genotype I.

Crisis, ethical leadership and moral courage: Ethical climate during COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic has challenged nurse leaders in ways that one could not imagine. Along with ongoing priorities of providing high quality, cost-effective and safe care, nurse leaders are also committed to promote an ethical climate that support nurses' moral courage for sustaining excellence in patient and family care. AIM: This study is directed to develop a structure equation model of crisis, ethical leadership and nurses' moral courage: mediating effect of ethical climate during COVID-19. ETHICAL CONSIDERATION: Approval was obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, Egypt. METHODS: A cross-sectional design was used to conduct this study using validated scales to measure the study variables. It was conducted in all units of two isolated hospitals in Damanhur, Egypt. A convenient sample of 235 nurses was recruited to be involved in this study. RESULTS: This study revealed that nurses perceived a moderate mean percent (55.49 ± 3.46) of overall crisis leadership, high mean percent (74.69 ± 6.15) of overall ethical leadership, high mean percent (72.09 ± 7.73) of their moral courage, and moderate mean percent of overall ethical climate (65.67 ± 12.04). Additionally, this study declared a strong positive statistical significant correlation between all study variables and indicated that the independent variable (crisis and ethical leadership) can predict a 0.96, 0.6, respectively, increasing in the dependent variable (nurses' moral courage) through the mediating impact of ethical climate. CONCLUSION: Nursing administrators should be conscious of the importance of crisis, ethical leadership competencies and the role of ethical climate to enhance nurses' moral courage especially during pandemic. Therefore, these findings have significant contributions that support healthcare organizations to develop strategies that provide a supportive ethical climate. Develop ethical and crisis leadership competencies in order to improve nurses' moral courage by holding meetings, workshops, and allowing open dialogue with nurses to assess their moral courage.

Towards Secure Big Data Analysis via Fully Homomorphic Encryption Algorithms.

Privacy-preserving techniques allow private information to be used without compromising privacy. Most encryption algorithms, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm, cannot perform computational operations on encrypted data without first applying the decryption process. Homomorphic encryption algorithms provide innovative solutions to support computations on encrypted data while preserving the content of private information. However, these algorithms have some limitations, such as computational cost as well as the need for modifications for each case study. In this paper, we present a comprehensive overview of various homomorphic encryption tools for Big Data analysis and their applications. We also discuss a security framework for Big Data analysis while preserving privacy using homomorphic encryption algorithms. We highlight the fundamental features and tradeoffs that should be considered when choosing the right approach for Big Data applications in practice. We then present a comparison of popular current homomorphic encryption tools with respect to these identified characteristics. We examine the implementation results of various homomorphic encryption toolkits and compare their performances. Finally, we highlight some important issues and research opportunities. We aim to anticipate how homomorphic encryption technology will be useful for secure Big Data processing, especially to improve the utility and performance of privacy-preserving machine learning.

Design-Time Reliability Prediction Model for Component-Based Software Systems.

Software reliability is prioritised as the most critical quality attribute. Reliability prediction models participate in the prevention of software failures which can cause vital events and disastrous consequences in safety-critical applications or even in businesses. Predicting reliability during design allows software developers to avoid potential design problems, which can otherwise result in reconstructing an entire system when discovered at later stages of the software development life-cycle. Several reliability models have been built to predict reliability during software development. However, several issues still exist in these models. Current models suffer from a scalability issue referred to as the modeling of large systems. The scalability solutions usually come at a high computational cost, requiring solutions. Secondly, consideration of the nature of concurrent applications in reliability prediction is another issue. We propose a reliability prediction model that enhances scalability by introducing a system-level scenario synthesis mechanism that mitigates complexity. Additionally, the proposed model supports modeling of the nature of concurrent applications through adaption of formal statistical distribution toward scenario combination. The proposed model was evaluated using sensors-based case studies. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed model from the view of computational cost reduction compared to similar models. This reduction is the main parameter for scalability enhancement. In addition, the presented work can enable system developers to know up to which load their system will be reliable via observation of the reliability value in several running scenarios.

Greedy Firefly Algorithm for Optimizing Job Scheduling in IoT Grid Computing.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is defined as interconnected digital and mechanical devices with intelligent and interactive data transmission features over a defined network. The ability of the IoT to collect, analyze and mine data into information and knowledge motivates the integration of IoT with grid and cloud computing. New job scheduling techniques are crucial for the effective integration and management of IoT with grid computing as they provide optimal computational solutions. The computational grid is a modern technology that enables distributed computing to take advantage of a organization's resources in order to handle complex computational problems. However, the scheduling process is considered an NP-hard problem due to the heterogeneity of resources and management systems in the IoT grid. This paper proposed a Greedy Firefly Algorithm (GFA) for jobs scheduling in the grid environment. In the proposed greedy firefly algorithm, a greedy method is utilized as a local search mechanism to enhance the rate of convergence and efficiency of schedules produced by the standard firefly algorithm. Several experiments were conducted using the GridSim toolkit to evaluate the proposed greedy firefly algorithm's performance. The study measured several sizes of real grid computing workload traces, starting with lightweight traces with only 500 jobs, then typical with 3000 to 7000 jobs, and finally heavy load containing 8000 to 10,000 jobs. The experiment results revealed that the greedy firefly algorithm could insignificantly reduce the makespan makespan and execution times of the IoT grid scheduling process as compared to other evaluated scheduling methods. Furthermore, the proposed greedy firefly algorithm converges on large search spacefaster , making it suitable for large-scale IoT grid environments.

Prevalence, Laboratory Findings and Clinical Characteristics of Campylobacteriosis Agents among Hospitalized Children with Acute Gastroenteritis in Lebanon / 대한소아소화기영양학회지

Purpose@#Campylobacter species are currently the most common cause of bacterial gastroenteritis. In Lebanon, Campylobacter infection occurrence is underdiagnosed owing to the lack of specific culture and rapid test kits, particularly among children. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence, laboratory findings, and clinical characteristics of Campylobacter infection in hospitalized children with acute gastroenteritis in South Lebanon. @*Methods@#We conducted a 6-month retrospective cohort study between January and June 2018, including 291 children aged between 1 month and 12 years, who were admitted to a tertiary healthcare center in South Lebanon. The medical files of the patients were reviewed to retrieve the required clinical information, including clinical and laboratory data. @*Results@#The prevalence of campylobacteriosis agents in pediatric patients with acute gastroenteritis is 12.02%. Patients infected with Campylobacter had more severe acute gastroenteritis than Campylobacter-negative patients and often presented with high-grade fever, diarrhea episodes more than six times per day, diarrhea lasting for more than five days, and dehydration. Indeed, children with high-grade fever (≥38.5°C) were five times more likely to test positive for Campylobacter than those with low-grade fever. In addition, the results showed a higher Vesikari score for the majority of Campylobacter-positive patients with severe acute gastroenteritis compared to a moderate profile for Campylobacter-negative patients. @*Conclusion@#The present study findings highlight that Campylobacter infection is frequent among children with acute gastroenteritis. Therefore, the detection of Campylobacter should be carried out for the diagnosis of human gastroenteritis in Lebanon, along with the detection of routine enteropathogens.

Prevalence, Laboratory Findings and Clinical Characteristics of Campylobacteriosis Agents among Hospitalized Children with Acute Gastroenteritis in Lebanon / 대한소아소화기영양학회지

Purpose@#Campylobacter species are currently the most common cause of bacterial gastroenteritis. In Lebanon, Campylobacter infection occurrence is underdiagnosed owing to the lack of specific culture and rapid test kits, particularly among children. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence, laboratory findings, and clinical characteristics of Campylobacter infection in hospitalized children with acute gastroenteritis in South Lebanon. @*Methods@#We conducted a 6-month retrospective cohort study between January and June 2018, including 291 children aged between 1 month and 12 years, who were admitted to a tertiary healthcare center in South Lebanon. The medical files of the patients were reviewed to retrieve the required clinical information, including clinical and laboratory data. @*Results@#The prevalence of campylobacteriosis agents in pediatric patients with acute gastroenteritis is 12.02%. Patients infected with Campylobacter had more severe acute gastroenteritis than Campylobacter-negative patients and often presented with high-grade fever, diarrhea episodes more than six times per day, diarrhea lasting for more than five days, and dehydration. Indeed, children with high-grade fever (≥38.5°C) were five times more likely to test positive for Campylobacter than those with low-grade fever. In addition, the results showed a higher Vesikari score for the majority of Campylobacter-positive patients with severe acute gastroenteritis compared to a moderate profile for Campylobacter-negative patients. @*Conclusion@#The present study findings highlight that Campylobacter infection is frequent among children with acute gastroenteritis. Therefore, the detection of Campylobacter should be carried out for the diagnosis of human gastroenteritis in Lebanon, along with the detection of routine enteropathogens.

The impact of intervention strategies and prevention measurements for controlling COVID-19 outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization announced the novel coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic due to the rapid growth in the number of cases worldwide. The ability of countries to contain and mitigate interventions is crucial in controlling the exponential spread of the novel virus. Several social distancing and control measurements have been applied in Saudi Arabia to mitigate COVID-19 epidemic such as quarantine, schools closure, suspending travels, reducing crowds, people movement restrictions, self-isolation and contacts tracing. This research aims to study the country interventions in Saudi Arabia and their impact on decreasing the spread of COVID-19. This paper examined different control measurements scenarios produced by a modified SEIR mathematical model with an emphasis on testing capacity expansion and number of critical cases. The modified SEIR mathematical model is solved numerically using Rung-Kutta analysis method for solving the modified SEIR system of ordinary differential equations. The simulation results revealed that the interventions are vital to flatten the virus spread curve. Early implementation of country interventions can delay the peak and decrease the population fatality rate.

Platelet-rich plasma in treatment of patients with idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common entrapment neuropathy in the upper extremity. Treatments for CTS alternate from conservative strategies to surgical decompression of median nerve. Few studies have applied platelet-rich plasma (PRP) for treating idiopathic CTS, with acceptable success rates. Further studies are needed to reach concrete conclusion. OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of PRP injection in treatment of mild to moderate idiopathic CTS. METHODS: This is a randomized controlled trial in a cohort of Egyptian patients suffered from mild to moderate CTS. They were randomly divided into two groups. Group 1: patients received ultrasound guided PRP injection and group 2 patients received ultrasound guided corticosteroid injection. The outcome measures were assessed via Visual Analog Scale, the Boston Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Questionnaire, electrophysiological findings in sensory and motor functions of median nerve and morphological changes of median nerve detected by ultrasound. RESULTS: This study included 150 patients suffered from mild to moderate idiopathic CTS 15 did not provide the written consent and 37 participants were excluded from the study based on the exclusion criteria leaving only 98 patients to participate in the study they were divided into two groups PRP Injection Group (PRP-inj-G) - this group included 49 patients (40 females and 9 males) steroid injection Group (St-inj-G) - included 49 patients (41 females and 8 males). At the beginning of study there was no significant difference between both groups in all parameters. (a) PRP injection had significantly improved the clinical manifestations, the electrodiagnostic examination (EDX) parameters of the median nerve (MN), and the median nerve cross sectional area (m-CSA) at 1 month and 3 months post-injection evaluation in comparison to baseline recordings; (b) local steroid injection had significantly improved the clinical manifestations, the EDX parameters of the MN, and the m-CSA at 1 month and 3 months post-injection evaluation in comparison to baseline recordings and (c) PRP injection was superior to the local steroid injection in the improvement of clinical manifestations as well as the MN motor conduction velocity along the wrist-elbow segment, the sensory latency (SL) and the MN sensory conduction, this superiority was observed in third month follow-up suggesting better outcomes in long-term follow-up. CONCLUSION: Platelet-rich plasma could be effective treatment of mild to moderate idiopathic CTS and superior to corticosteroid in improving pain, function, and distal sensory latency of median nerve. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical Trials.gov Identifier: NCT03863873Key Points:• PRP is effective treatment of mild to moderate CTS.• PRP is superior to corticosteroids in improving pain and function in CTS.

Relationship between ethical ideology and moral judgment: Academic nurse educators' perception.

BACKGROUND: Ascertaining the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision among academic nurse educators at work appears to be a challenge particularly in situations when they are faced with a need to solve an ethical problem and make a moral decision. PURPOSE: This study aims to investigate the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision as perceived by academic nurse educators. METHODS: A descriptive correlational research design was conducted at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. All academic nurse educators were included in the study (N = 220). Ethical Position Questionnaire and Questionnaire of Moral Judgment and Ethical Decisions were proved reliable to measure study variables. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: Approval was obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Privacy and confidentiality of data were maintained and assured by obtaining subjects' informed consent. FINDINGS: This study reveals a significant positive moderate correlation between idealism construct of ethical ideology and moral judgment in terms of recognition of the behavior as an ethical issue and the magnitude of emotional consequences of the ethical situation (p < 0.001; p = 0.031) respectively. Also, there is a positive significant moderate correlation between relativism construct of ethical ideology and overall moral judgment (p = 0.010). Approximately 3.5% of the explained variance of overall moral judgment is predicted by idealism together with relativism. DISCUSSION: The findings suggest that variations in ethical position and ideology are associated with moral judgment and ethical decision. CONCLUSION: Organizations of academic nursing education should provide a supportive work environment to help their academic staff to develop their self-awareness and knowledge of their ethical position and promoting their ethical ideologies and, in turn, enhance their moral judgment as well as develop ethical reasoning and decision-making capability of nursing students. More emphasis in nursing curricula is needed on ethical concepts for developing nursing competencies.

The human muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist, Dicyclomine targets signal transduction genes and inhibits the virulence factors in the human pathogen, Candida albicans.

Dicyclomine is a human muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist used for the treatment of abdominal cramps. We are reporting here that dicyclomine can inhibit the in vitro growth and virulence factors of the human pathogen Candida albicans very effectively. Dicyclomine inhibited adhesion, early biofilm, mature biofilm, and planktonic growth. Yeast to hyphal form transition of C. albicans in various inducer media such as serum, proline, glucose, and N-acetylglucosamine was inhibited. Dicyclomine also could kill C. albicans cells within 15 min of exposure. Dicyclomine appears to inhibit the yeast to hyphal conversion by affecting signal transduction pathway. The expression of selected genes associated with yeast to hyphal form transition in serum in presence of dicyclomine was studied using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RtPCR). The RtPCR analysis showed that dicyclomine targets both cAMP pathway as well as MAPK cascade. Eight genes were upregulated. Out of these, three major upregulated genes were Bcy1, Tup1, and Mig1. Dicyclomine downregulated Ume6, Ece1, and Pde2 genes which are involved in cAMP signaling pathway and also downregulated the DNA binding protein gene, Rfg1. Dicyclomine significantly upregulated the master negative regulator of hyphal formation, Tup1. Based on this study we suggest that the muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist, dicyclomine could be repositioned as a potential anti-Candida albicans as well as anti-virulence agent.

Prevalence And Associated Factors Of Muscoskeletal Disorders Among Arabic Calligraphers Living In Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

@#Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) represent a significant occupational problem. Only limited research is available about the impact of MSD on the active Calligraphers. Uncertainty remains about MSD prevalence and associated factors among Arabic calligraphers in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 124 Arabic calligraphers in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected by telephonic interviews using a structured questionnaire that consisted of the validated Standardized Nordic Questionnaire, socio-demographics and working characteristics. A total of 124 completed questionnaires were analyzed. The majority were men (96.8 %), worked for less than 10 hours/week (63.7%). The majority had musculoskeletal pain (59.7%) and about half of them worked for less than 15 years. The most commonly reported MSD was back pain (26.6%) followed by neck pain (21.0%) and shoulder pain (12.1%). In multiple logistic regression the significant predictors in the model were: not exercising (OR=7.1, 95% CI 2.6-19.2), age ≤40 (OR=2.8, 95% CI 1.1- 7.3), worked for ≤20 years (OR=3.4, 95% CI 1.3 -9.1) and being a professional calligrapher (OR=2.3, 95% CI 1.1 – 6.2). The total model is significant (p<0.001) and the adjusted r square= 0.37.MSDs among Arabic calligraphers in Saudi Arabia is relatively high; further clinical assessment is needed. We recommend that health authority in Saudi Arabia should increase the awareness among calligraphers about MSDs and its prevention.

Correction: Technique for Early Reliability Prediction of Software Components Using Behaviour Models.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163346.].

Technique for Early Reliability Prediction of Software Components Using Behaviour Models.

Behaviour models are the most commonly used input for predicting the reliability of a software system at the early design stage. A component behaviour model reveals the structure and behaviour of the component during the execution of system-level functionalities. There are various challenges related to component reliability prediction at the early design stage based on behaviour models. For example, most of the current reliability techniques do not provide fine-grained sequential behaviour models of individual components and fail to consider the loop entry and exit points in the reliability computation. Moreover, some of the current techniques do not tackle the problem of operational data unavailability and the lack of analysis results that can be valuable for software architects at the early design stage. This paper proposes a reliability prediction technique that, pragmatically, synthesizes system behaviour in the form of a state machine, given a set of scenarios and corresponding constraints as input. The state machine is utilized as a base for generating the component-relevant operational data. The state machine is also used as a source for identifying the nodes and edges of a component probabilistic dependency graph (CPDG). Based on the CPDG, a stack-based algorithm is used to compute the reliability. The proposed technique is evaluated by a comparison with existing techniques and the application of sensitivity analysis to a robotic wheelchair system as a case study. The results indicate that the proposed technique is more relevant at the early design stage compared to existing works, and can provide a more realistic and meaningful prediction.

Hazards analysis, within departments and occupations, for hepatitis B virus among health care workers in Public Teaching Hospitals in Khartoum State; Sudan.

BACKGROUND: Infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) can lead to a range of clinical illnesses. OBJECTIVES: To examine hazards of hepatitis B virus associated with clinical departments and occupations; among health care workers in Public Teaching Hospitals in Khartoum State, Sudan. METHODS: The study was a cross sectional, facility-based study. It was conducted on stratified two-stage cluster random sample of 843 subjects of whom 324 were at high-hazard, 445 at moderate hazard, and 74 at low hazard; depending on degree of exposure to blood and body fluids of patients. To assess hazards of HBV among departments and occupations of HCWs, non-parametric Methods of Chi-square test, was used. RESULTS: For Anti-HBc vulnerable departments was Renal Dialysis (100%); while for occupations was midwives (73.3%). For carrier rate (+ve HBsAg), highest rate found in department of Management (6.8%); while for occupations was Midwives (6.7%). Regarding immunity (+ve Anti-HBs), the highest percentage found in the department of Dentistry (25.9%); while for occupations was associated with Doctors (14.8%). For a profile of high infectivity (+ve HBeAg), the most vulnerable department in terms of HBV hazards was the Surgery (1.4%); while for occupations was nurses (0.9%). CONCLUSION: There was a significant association for infection rate of HBV with occupation and type of department. The most hazardous departments, was Surgery with a profile of high infectivity rate, followed by other departments (medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry & ophthalmology). As for occupations, the most hazardous group was nurses group with a profile of high infectivity rate.

Socio-demographic characteristics of health care workers and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in public teaching hospitals in Khartoum State, Sudan.

BACKGROUND: HBV is second to tobacco as a known human carcinogen and the 10th leading cause of death worldwide. OBJECTIVES: To examine the socio-demographic characteristics of health care workers and hepatitis B virus in Public Teaching Hospitals in Khartoum State, Sudan, in 2004. METHODS: It was an observational, cross sectional, facility-based study. A total of 843 subjects were selected. It was conducted through multistage cluster sampling. The clustering was based on: type of hospital (Federal or State) and degree of exposure (type of department). For the analysis, Z-test for single proportion and some non-parametric tests such as Chi-Square test were used. RESULTS: Among the 843 subjects tested for HBV markers (Anti-HBc, HBsAg, HBsAb, and HBeAg), the prevalence of Anti-HBc, HBsAg, HBsAb, and HBeAg was found to be 57%, 6%, 37% and 9% respectively. Seroprevalence of all HBV markers was found to be statistically significant with demographic factors (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Infection rate, carrier rate and a profile of high infectivity rate were found to be high. The immunity rate was low. There is a significant association between HBV markers and socio-demographic characteristics. Highest rate of infection was found in State Hospitals, South and West regions, married HCWs and HCWs of age group 30-49.

Past Medical History of Blood Transfusion; Surgical Operation; Vaccination against HBV; Cutter Scar and Tattoo; and HBV Infection Among Health Care Workers in Public Teaching Hospitals in Khartoum State; Sudan

Background:Infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) can lead to a range of clinical illnesses. Hepatitisis a general term meaning inflammation of the liver and the most common cause is infection with a variety of different viruses. All of these can cause an acute disease and symptoms lasting several weeks includingyellowing of the skin and eyes; dark urine; extreme fatigue; nausea; vomiting and abdominal pain.Aim:This study examined the prevalence of sero-epidemiologic markers of hepatitis B virus (HBV)among health care workers (HCWs) in Public Teaching Hospitals in Khartoum State; in the year 2004. Itattempted to determine the relation of the past medical history of blood transfusion; surgical operation;vaccination against HBV; cutter scar and tattoo with HBV infection among HCWs.Method:The study is anobservational; cross sectional; facility-based study. It was conducted on stratified two-stage cluster randomsample of 843 subjects. The study followed multivariate analytical techniques; using Multiple DiscriminantAnalysis (MDA); and some non-parametric tests using Chi-square test results:Among the 843 subjectstested for all HBV markers (Anti-HBc; HBsAg; HBsAb; and HBeAg); the prevalence of Anti-HBc; HBsAg;HBsAb; and HBeAg was found to be 57 (CI95:53-60); 6 (CI95:4.0-8.0); 37 (CI95:34-40) and 9 (CI95:7-11) respectively. The prevalence rate differs according to past medical historyfactors. Significant association of past medical history factors was found with seroprevalence of HBsAgmarkers (P0.05). No significant association was found with any of the past medical history factors forseroprevalence of Anti-HBc and HBeAg and HBsAb markers (P0.05).Conclusion:Tattooing and itsduration had shown significant result with HBsAg

Efficacy of five chemicals on Fasciola gigantica encysted metacercariae infectivity.

The efficacy of treating encysted metacercariae (EMC) of Fasciola gigantica with different concentrations (conc.) of acetic acid, citric acid, cetrimide, potassium permanganate and sodium hydroxide, for 15 & 30 minutes was evaluated. The efficacy of these chemicals on the vitality and infectivity of the EMC was evaluated by the development of fascioliasis infection, and the histopathological changes in the livers of experimentally infected Albino rabbits. The results showed that 1% sodium hydroxide had a lethal effect on EMC, 10% to 40% potassium permanganate destroyed the infectivity power of EMC, and acetic acid gave an adverse effect on the EMC in conc. more than 2.5%. But, neither citric acid nor cetrimide affected the vitality or infectivity of EMC and all rabbits acquired fascioliasis.