Giardia lamblia infection and associated risk factors among patients attending Kochore Health Center, Ethiopia.

OBJECTIVE: To measure the prevalence of Giardia lamblia infection and the associated risk factors among patients attending Kochore town health center, Ethiopia. METHODS: Stool samples were collected and assessed by direct microscopy, and antigen detection was performed using the ELISA technique. Data were analyzed using the Chi-Square test and a P-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Ninety-eight out of 422 (23.22%) stool samples were positive by microscopy. Using the ELISA technique in stool samples, 160 of 422 (37.91%) samples were positive. Risk factors such as health center level, occupation, monthly income, educational status, toilet availability at home, water source, drinking water treatment, container type, waste disposal system, and eating unwashed fruits and vegetables were significantly associated with G. lamblia infection. CONCLUSION: Implementation of health education campaigns and emphasis on the importance of environmental sanitation and personal hygiene will help reduce the health burden.

Behavioral surveillance survey regarding human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among high school and junior college students.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: It is necessary to know the baseline knowledge, attitude, and practices about human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among young people and the changes in these with intervention to guide prevention efforts. METHODS: A cross-sectional pre- and post-survey with health education as a method of intervention was carried out in four different randomly selected schools and junior colleges among the Class IX-XII students of both sex. Instrument developed by the World Health Organization (WHO)/UNAIDS in their best practice recommendations was used for data collection. RESULTS: Knowledge about all correct methods was present in 61.23% of the respondents. Knowledge of at least two methods of prevention was present in 70.31% of the respondents. Misconceptions about prevention were that good diet (33.42%), avoiding mosquito bite (49.71%) and avoiding public toilets (65.14%) could help in the prevention. With intervention, there was an improvement in the knowledge. However, the proportion of students with misconceptions did not come down. Correct knowledge about two methods of prevention also did not reach the WHO recommendation of 90%. CONCLUSION: It is very difficult to change the attitude and practices by a single health educational intervention and an ongoing behavior change communication is recommended.

Metabolite and enzyme profiles of glycogen metabolism in Methanococcoides methylutens.

When a buffered anaerobic cell suspension of Methanococcoides methylutens was maintained under methanol-limited conditions, intracellular glycogen and hexose phosphates were consumed rapidly and a very small amount of methane formed at 4 h of a starvation period. When methanol was supplemented after a total of 20 h of starvation, a reverse pattern was observed: the glycogen level and the hexose phosphate pool increased, and formation of methane took place after a lag period of 90 min. A considerable amount of methane was formed in 120 min after its detection with a rate of 0.18 micromol mg(-1) protein min(-1). When methane formation decreased after 270 min of incubation and finally came to a halt, probably due to complete assimilation of supplemented methanol, the levels of glycogen and hexose monophosphates decreased once again. However fructose 1,6-diphosphate levels showed a continuous increase even after exhaustion of methane formation. In contrast to the hexose phosphate pool, levels of other metabolites showed a small increase after addition of methanol. The enzyme profile of glycogen metabolism showed relatively high levels of triose phosphate isomerase. Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase reacted with NADPH with a three-fold higher activity as compared to that with NADH.

Production of 2,3-butanediol from glucose byBacillus licheniformis.

Bacillus licheniformis produced 2,3-butanediol from glucose with an optimum yield of 47 g/100 g glucose after 72 h of growth on a peptone/beef extract medium containing 2% (w/v) glucose at pH 6.0 and 37°C. This yield of 2,3-butanediol was higher than those previously reported forKlebsiella oxytoca (37 g/100 g glucose) andBacillus polymyxa (24 g/100 glucose).

Production of chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydrogenase by a strain of Escherichia coli carrying a multicopy, tyrA plasmid. Isolation and properties of the enzyme.

A multicopy plasmid that contains the tyrosine operon has been used to transform strains of Escherichia coli K-12. The resultant strains yielded levels of chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydrogenase that were up to 5000-fold higher than that given by the parent strain and about 6-fold higher than that given by a tyrR strain. The production of enzyme fell when tetracycline was omitted from the growth medium because of the loss of the plasmid. The bifunctional enzyme was isolated in good yield by a simple purification procedure and shown to possess properties identical to those exhibited by the enzyme from a tyrR strain.