Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease

253-262

Authors: Saurabh RamBihariLal Shrivastava, Prateek Saurabh Shrivastava, Jegadeesh Ramasamy

Ebola virus disease (EVD), previously known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a severe illness caused by Ebola filovirus, and is often fatal if left untreated. The first case of the current EVD was diagnosed in Guinea in March 2014, and since then it has spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal. The current review has been performed with an objective to explore the magnitude of the current Ebola virus epidemic and identify the multiple determinants that have resulted in the exponential growth of the epidemic. An extensive search of all materials related to the topic was done for almost two months (August-October) in Pubmed, Medline, World Health Organization website and Google Scholar search engines. Relevant documents, reports, recommendations, guidelines and research articles focusing on the different aspects of Ebola virus and its current outbreak, published in the period 2002-2014 were included in the review. Keywords used in the search include Ebola virus, Ebola virus disease, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Ebola vaccine, and Ebola treatment. The current EVD epidemic has turned out to be extensive, severe, and uncontrollable because of a delayed response and ineffective public health care delivery system. In fact, multiple challenges have also been identified and thus a range of interventions have been proposed to control the epidemic. In conclusion, the 2014 epidemic of EVD has shown to the world that in absence of a strong public health care delivery system even a rare disease can risk the lives of millions of people. The crux of this epidemic is that a large scale and coordinated international response is the need of the hour to support affected and at-risk nations in intensifying their response activities and strengthening of national capacities.

264-270

Authors: Rashed Noor, Nagma Zerin, Kamal Kanta Das

Pharmaceutical industrialization in Bangladesh, both by multinational and local companies, has increased significantly in the last two decades. Most of the pharmaceutical products are found to be therapeutically competent to meet the demands of general population satisfactorily. However, complaints regarding the compromised quality of the products stored in markets are also reported very often. In order to ensure the overall drug user safety, the present review discussed the prime requirements for maintaining the desired microbiological quality of the commonly used pharmaceutical products in Bangladesh. Information relating to the prevalence of bacteria, fungi and the specific pathogens has been collected mostly from the recent researches conducted on an array of finished pharmaceutical medicaments. All data, achieved by means of traditional microbiological and biochemical analyses as described in the published papers cited in this review, have been further critically analyzed in context to the recommended microbial limits, user safety and the legislative aspects. Microbial contamination usually degrades the product quality as well as the product stability, which in turn creates treatment complications. Moreover, through microbial spoilage within the medicament, active drug constituents may be transformed to less potent or chemically inactive forms. Contamination by bacteria and fungi generally occur either from raw materials, manufacturing environment or at the storage stage which may hinder the consumer safety. This review article presented some valid evidences for microbial contamination in the pharmaceutical finished products in Bangladesh and discusses about possible remedies to improve the overall management of public health.

279-283

Authors: Krit Sonkong, Pornnapa Suggaravetsiri, Sunisa Chaiklieng

Objective: To investigate treatment seeking behaviour and the prevalence of treatment delay of malaria patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with malaria patients along the ThailandMyanmar border in Tak province, Thailand. Results: Most of patients (70.0%) were treated for fever before receiving treatment at a malaria clinic or public hospital. The sources of initial treatments were self-treatment (64.0%), malaria clinics (20.0%), public hospital (11.0%), sub-district health promotion hospital (3.3%), and malaria posts (1.1%). Prevalence of patients delayed more than one day after onset of symptoms was 79.4%, but doctor delay of more than one day occurred in only 1.3%. The prevalence of treatment delay (total delay) of more than one day was 79.6%. Patient delay and treatment delay were found to be significantly higher among hill tribe than Thai subjects (P=0.004 and 0.003, respectively) but, there was no significant association between ethnicity and doctor delay (P=0.669). Conclusion: Patient delay in seeking treatment is a major problem along the ThailandMyanmar border in Tak province, especially in hill tribe people. Self-treatment accounted for most of initial treatment sought by patients.

289-292

Authors: Samita Adhikari, Biswas Neupane, Komal Raj Rijal, Megha Raj Banjara, Bishnu Prasad Uphadhaya, Prakash Ghimire

Objective: To determine the burden of dengue in the patients visiting National Public Health Laboratory, Kathmandu. Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out at National Public Health Laboratory, Kathmandu from May to December, 2013. Serum samples were collected from patients suspected of dengue virus infection and tested by ELISA. Results: Among 266 patients suspected of dengue virus infection, 45 (16.9%) showed antidengue immunoglobulin M antibodies in serum. Males and economically active people were more infected and the maximum number of cases was during the month of October. Conclusions: This study revealed that the proportion of dengue was more in Kathmandu, especially among the economically active males. So, the control measures should be initiated targeting these groups of people.

299-306

Authors: Fouad Ouanaimi, Samia Boussaa, Ali Boumezzough

Objective: To study the sandflies distribution within their climatic and ecological context in three transects of Morocco: Ouarzazat-Mhamid, Foum Zguid-Marrakesh and Erfoud-Nador. Methods: In total, twenty-nine stations were prospected, through 1800 Km, including four zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis foci (Ouarzazat, Zagora, Tata and Errachidia). Sand flies were collected using sticky paper traps for one night. Results: Overall, 7 140 sandflies were collected along the three transects. In the combined collections, nine Phlebotomus species: Phlebotomus papatasi (27.6%), Phlebotomus longicuspis (19%), Phlebotomus sergenti (18.2%), Phlebotomus perniciosus (6.2%), Phlebotomus bergeroti (2.9%), Phlebotomus alexandri (1.4%), Phlebotomus chadlii (0.8%), Phlebotomus chabaudi (0.5%) and Phlebotomus ariasi (0.5%) and five Sergentomyia species: Sergentomyia minuta (10.4%), Sergentomyia fallax (8.1%), Sergentomyia dreyfussi (2.1%), Sergentomyia christophersi (1.7%) and Sergentomyia africana (0.5%) were detected. Conclusions: We update the entomological data in zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis foci and discuss the possible effect of many ecological factors as bioclimate, biotopes and altitude on the diversity and distribution of caught species.

313-315

Authors: Mahesh Bandappa Manke, Shashikant Chaburao Dhawale, Prasad Govindrao Jamkhande

Objective: To evaluate anthelmintic potential of Helicteres isora (H. isora) bark extract in Indian adult earthworms. Methods: The H. isora bark and Indian adult earthworms (Pheretima posthuma) were collected and authenticated by approved taxonomist. Earthworms were grouped and treated with extract at concentration of 10, 20 and 50 mg/mL, albendazole of 10 mg/mL as standard and normal saline as a control. The paralysis time and death time was considered as indicator of anthelmintic activity. Results: All the extracts showed concentration dependent activity but significant activity was observed at 50 mg/mL. The extract showed better activity at concentration of 50 mg/mL with paralysis time (12.54 min) and death time (16.55 min) when compared to standard albendazole. Conclusions: The study revealed that the methanolic extract of H. isora bark have potent anthelmintic activity against Indian adult earthworms.

322-328

Authors: Uzma Saleem, Bashir Ahmad, Mobasher Ahmad, Khalid Hussain, Nadeem Irfan Bukhari

Objective: To evaluate anti-nociceptive, anti-inflammatory and anti-pyretic activities of latex and leaves methanol extract of Euphorbia helioscopia against chemical (acetic acid induced writhing and formalin tests) and thermal pain stimuli (hot plate test), carrageenan induced paw edema and brewer’s yeast induced pyrexia in mice respectively. Methods: Pain, inflammation and pyrexia were induced in mice. Leaves methanol extract and latex were administered to mice, orally at doses, 100, 200 and 300 mg/kg. Results: Leaves methanol extract at all used doses had 100% pain protection against peripherally induced pain pathway (investigated by acetic acid induced writhing test and late phase of formalin test). While central anti-nociceptive effect (measured by hot plate test and early phase of formalin test) was found dose dependent with extract and latex. Similarly a dose dependent trend was observed in anti-inflammatory and anti-pyretic effects and leaves methanol extract showed maximal anti-inflammatory (81.25%) and anti-pyretic (45.36%) effects at 300 mg/kg dose. Conclusions: From the data obtained, it can be concluded that Euphorbia helioscopia possesses marked anti-nociceptive, anti-inflammatory and anti-pyretic activities that can be attributed to the inhibition of synthesis of prostaglandins and other mediators responsible for pain, inflammation and pyrexia.

334-336

Authors: Suman Suryanarayana Karanth, Krishna Chaitanya Marupudi, Anurag Gupta, Mukhyaprana Prabhu

Leucocytoclastic vasculitis (LCV) is a small-vessel vasculitis affecting the postcapillary venules presenting as papules, purpura and maculopapular rash, occurring as a primary disorder or secondary to malignancies, drugs, infections and connective tissue diseases. The causative agents implicated are Streptococcus spp., Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium leprae, Mycobacterium lepromatosis, and viruses, e.g., hepatitis, influenza and HIV. Scrub typhus has rarely been associated with LCV. We reported a rare case of anti-neutrophilic cytoplasmic antibody-positive LCV due to scrub typhus in a 56 year old male who presented with fever and purpuric lesions and was successfully treated with oral steroids.