Background: Radiation is a source of energy which travels through materials. The ionising radiation produce free radicals from an atom with the electron removal. X-ray is the most common ionizing radiation helping in diagnosis. There is an increase in the use of radiation in diagnosis, procedural along with surgical treatment where radiologists and the patients should be aware of the radiation hazards and its ill effects. The aim of our study is to analyse the radiation hazards awareness among females of various age groups. Materials and Methods: The study was done as an online setting; the responses were obtained from 103 female participants from the Chennai sub population. A self-structured questionnaire comprising about 18 yes or no types of questions were prepared in google forms and circulated as a link to the participants. The responses were exported to google sheets and data was retrieved and analysed in SPSS software version 26. The results were obtained from SPSS software. Results: From the results analysed, 74.76% have undergone X ray or any procedures but only few (25.24%) did not undergo any diagnostic procedures. 71.84% of them were aware that all radiation is hazardous whereas the rest (28.16%) were not aware. 88.35% of them accepted that bone marrow and child’s thyroid tissue are more sensitive to radiation but few (11.65%) did not accept it. 71.84% of the participants of females of age group 20-40 years were more aware than females of 40-60 years age group (16.50%) that bone marrow, the child's thyroid is the sensitive tissue affected by radiation. Chi square test was done and the association was found to be not statistically significant with P-value .236 (P = .05). Chi square test was done to check awareness of thyroid cancer caused mainly through radiations between the two age groups of females and the association was found to be not statistically significant with p-value is .703 (P = .05). Conclusion: Within the limits of the study, the females of age group 20-40 years have higher levels of awareness than females of age group 40-60 years.

Background:The health of the citizenry is crucial to the growth and development of any nation. Nigeria is riddled with poor health indices ranging from maternal mortality to infant mortality rates. It has been established that health-seeking behaviour has a strong influence on health status, morbidity and mortality indices of a society. It also drives utilisation of health services and is affected by predisposing, enabling and need factors. This study assessed the factors influencing health-seeking behaviour among residents of Basawa community, Sabon Gari LGA, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Method: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out in September 2017 among 125 residents of Basawa community selected by systematic sampling technique. Data was collected using asemi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire and analysed with SPSS version 21. The results were presented as tables and charts among others. Level of statistical significance was set at p <0.05. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 42±10 years. Majority of the respondents were male (60.8%) and married (90.4%). About two-thirds of the respondents delayed for more than 24 hours before seeking healthcare. Long waiting time (55.2%), the attitude of health workers (22.4%) and the high cost of drugs (22.4%) were given as barriers to health care utilisation. High cost of services, type and severity of illness and attitude of health care workers are the main determinants of health-seeking behaviour. There was a statistically significant relationship between education, monthly income and delay in seeking health care. Conclusion: The study showed several factors that influence health care seeking behaviour. In view of the multifactorial determinants of health-care seeking behaviour, there is need for health workers to be trained and retrained to improve on their attitude, and the provision of community-based social health insurance scheme by the government among others.

Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is a coccobacillus that is Gram negative, non motile, non fermentative and oxidase negative. It is the most common and successful nosocomial pathogen recognised by WHO. This dreadful pathogen causes urinary tract infections, ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP), bacteremia, etc., These infections are most common in hospital wards especially Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The infections are due to biofilm formation by the virulent genes of A. baumannii, and the common biofilm-associated genes of A. baumannii were bap, csuE, fimH, epsA, bfmS, ptk, pgaB, ompA, blaPER-1. Among these, bap, epsA and ompA genes are highly prevalent among the clinical strains of A. baumannii. Aim:  To detect the three vital biofilm-associated genes of A. baumannii by in-silico PCR analysis. Materials and Methods: 19 isolates of A. baumannii were selected and 3 target genes, namely epsA, ompA and bap gene were used for the amplification process through in-silico PCR simulation tools. Evolutionary analysis was done for the ompA gene. Results: The epsA gene was expressed in 10.52% of the total strains selected with the highest occurrence of ompA gene as 57.89%. bap gene was not observed from the study strains included. From evolutionary analysis based on ompA distributed strains, the Acinetobacter baumannii SDF and Acinetobacter baumannii BJAB0715 might be the parental strains where the evolution of strains would have started. Through successive generations, the Acinetobacter baumannii MDR-ZJ06 and Acinetobacter baumannii TYTH-1 had become the multidrug resistant strains present in the environment. Conclusion: The findings of the study confirms the distribution of epsA and ompA genes among the 19 different strains of A. baumannii. The study suggests periodical monitoring of biofilm based virulence genes among the clinical strains and to curtail the A. baumannii infections.