This study was conducted at the Forensic Medicine Department of Dhaka Medical College covering an eight year period from 1st Jan 2002 to 31st Dec 2009. The objective of the study was to find out the number of deaths due to Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) over an eight year period. The autopsy reports of the year 2002 to 2009 were analyzed and the deaths due to road traffic accidents were counted and tabulated year wise. The study revealed that the number of deaths due to RTA were 1129 in 2002, 1056 in 2003, 952 in 2004, 945 in 2005, 1064 in 2006, 1083 in 2007, 813 in 2008 and 652 in 2009. The total number of autopsy reports from 2002 to 2009 was 23373 out of which the number of deaths due to RTA was 7496 (32.92%). Analysis of the above data showed a declining trend in the number of autopsies on cases of death due to RTA which were brought to the mortuary of the Forensic Medicine Department from Police Stations situated within the metropolitan area of Northern Dhaka during the study period of 2002 to 2009 with minor exception in 2006 and 2007. It is the observation of this study that this decline is significant and points towards certain measures and campaigns taken by the concerned authorities and social groups on mad safety. The objective of this study was to highlight the various reasons for this improvement and suggest further areas of possible improvement whereby the situation could improve significantly in the future.

The cross-sectional descriptive study was done from December 2011 to February 2012 to determine the awareness about lifestyle in controlling diabetes mellitus among the visitors of a tertiary level hospital in Dhaka city. The data were collected by face to face interview using a structured questionnaire. The sample size was 306, which was selected randomly from visitors aged 21 years and above. The mean age of the respondents was 42.97 years, of them 53.60% were male and 46.40 % were female. 231 (75.49%) tested their blood for diabetes, of them 84.42% tested within one year; about 51(17%) respondents were diabetic. Of the diabetic 49.02% was suffering for 1-5 years, and 35.29% for more than 5 years; of the 51 diabetic respondents, 90.12% controlled diet, 88.23% did physical exercise, 72.95% took prescribed medicine and 70.55% took all the measures while 9.80% did nothing for management or control of diabetes. Of the respondents, 19.28% had family history of diabetes. Regarding risk factors for developing diabetes 77.45% mentioned excess intake of sweetmeat, 69.28% lack of exercise, 55.23% family history, 53.92% overweight, 49.02% overeating, and 39.54% mentioned about life style change; 46.73% of the respondents did exercise irregularly and 12.09% regularly; 25% of the total respondent controlled diet regularly and 26.47% occasionally; 86.80% opined excess intake of sweetmeat may increase diabetes and 50.00% said excess intake of all food may increase the diabetes. The study revealed that diabetes mellitus is a multi-factorial disease, since several risk factors appear to play contributory role in its prevalence in the community. Hence, a complex mix of interventions is required at multiple levels to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with this condition.

This cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital from September 2007 to December 2007 among the admitted patients, who received blood at that time, to assess the extent of awareness about hazards of blood wansfitsion among the blood recipients to find out the knowledge about blood grouping, cross matching. screening. quality of blood. fitness of blood donors. hazards due to blood transfission and sods demographic condition of the blood recipients. A total of 202 blood recipients were selected purposively. of them 75 were male and 127 were female. The mean age of the respondents were 41.6 years. of them mean or of the male was 46.3 years and the mean age of ihe fronale was 39.3 years. More than 93% of the respondents had some !net of education and 6.9% were illiterate; 41.6% of the respondents were house wife. 31.2% were service holder. 8.9% were business man and only 2.5% were of lower hiconte group. About the type of blood examination needed before rmisfitsion. 82.2% were aware about blood gimping. 51.5% about cross matching, 6.4% about Rh typing, 5.4% about screening and 17.8% had no idea. Regarding blood transfusion related diseases. 80.2% were aware about hepatitis 13. 60.9% about AIDS. 32.7% about syphilis, 22.3% about malaria and 20.8% of the respondents were totally unaware shoal the transfission related diseases. About reaction due to blood smut fission, 174 (86.1%) hod some idea but 28 (13.9%) were totally unaware about say reaction. Of the respondents, 196 (97%) preferred blood front unpaid vohnumv donors. friends and relatives, and only six (3%9 preferred professional donors. Only 4.5% of the respondents had idea about screening of blood before transficsion.

Exclusive beeasdeeding up to tlw completion of the sixth month of age is the national infant keding recommendation for Bangladesh. Across-sectional study was conducted in the Holy Family Red Crescent Medical Hospital. Dhaka to explore current knowledge, attitudes. skills and practices regarding optimistic exclusive breastkeding among the mothers of under 6 months child. Overall 56% of children are breastfed within one hour of birth. Although about 86% of the respmulents knew the importance of breastfeeding and different electronic and print media played as most common source (33%) of information. Only 17% of the respondent among whom practicing breasifeeding for their babies gave breast milk 4-6 times in 24 hours. Majority of the newborn babies (71%) were given breast milk as first keeling. Insufficiency of breast milk and tradition were identified as tiro factors that influenced to initiaw pre-lacteal feeding. In most cases. mother-in-laws (50%) initiated the feeding followed by their own parents 135%1 Different .forms of feeding practices beyond breast milk reported in the present study. More than half (56%) Of the respondent knew the accurate fulmination about durat urn of breast feeding whereas only 28% of the respondent who often breast fed to their babies had skill on correct attachment of breast feeding and 117( of the respondent had the skills on good positioning of breastfi•eding. Exclusive breastfreding up to six tumults is still low and the prevalence of inappropriate practices is high and skill regarding positioning and attachment are very poor.

This cross sectional study was conducted in different medical college hospitals of Dhaka city during the months of Jan-March 2009. The objective of this study was to find out the awareness level on organ transplantation amongst the teachers, doctors and nurses working in these medical college hospitals and 1 st to 5 th year students. A structured questionnaire was given to the respondents. The total number of respondents was 462 of which 103 (22.3%) were doctors, 268 (58%) were medical students and 91 (19.7%) were nurses. Among the study group 31.4% knew that there was an organ transplantation law in Bangladesh and 16.5% said that there was no such law whereas 52.2% had no idea whatsoever about the law. Of the respondents 33.8% were willing to donate their organs after death, 41.6% did not want to donate and 24.2% were not sure. This study revealed that there was a lack of understanding regarding the religious views on organ transplantation. Only 37.1% of respondents thought that were was no religious objection to organ transplantation whereas 27.1% felt that there was religious objection while 35.7% were not sure.The study shows that there is significant lack of awareness regarding organ transplantation issues among the health care professionals and medical students in Bangladesh. The dictates of religion on this matter were also not clear to most of the respondents.Ibrahim Med. Coll. J. 2009; 3(2): 55-58