Introduction: During recent years, occurrence of terroristic attacks throughout the Middle East and occasionally in Iran have proposed that bioterrorists have the ability to disseminate biologic agents in the region and cause widespread social panic. Medical, health and laboratory personnel have a serious responsibility towards their public community in terms of the prevention, detection and treatment of potential bioterrorism attacks. To fulfill their responsibilities, they need to be trained by taking part in the relevant courses during their undergraduate education. In case of potential bioterrorism attacks, an appropriate level of knowledge and preparedness is essential for medical, health and laboratory personnel to ensure a proper medical response to such outbreaks. This study aimed to evaluate the level of knowledge, preparedness and attitude of medical, dentistry, nursing, and laboratory science technology students in Birjand University of medical sciences, Birjand, Iran on a potential bioterrorism attack. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional analytical study. A total of 182 students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences in medicine (Med), nursing (Nurse), laboratory science technology (Lst) and dentistry (Dent) who had just passed their microbiology courses took part in this study, in 2017. Students who were not willing to complete the questionnaire were excluded from the study. A non-probabilistic sampling method was used. Data were collected using a licensed questionnaire. The data were extracted from the questionnaires, corrected and analyzed in SPSS software (version 24). All data were analyzed by the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney Tests. P-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The result of the study showed that the mean scores (out of 100) of knowledge and preparedness of medicine , dental , laboratory science technology, and nursing students were obtained as 45.

Background: Emerging infectious diseases are contagious illnesses made of a newfound lineage of a microorganism. Objectives: This survey aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of health science students regarding emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted on 462 randomly selected students from several constituent colleges of Birjand University of Medical Sciences, including nursing, medicine, dentistry, and paramedical colleges (from October to March 2019) who had just passed their microbiology courses. A simple random sampling method was used to avoid bias that could influence the validity of the results. Moreover, participation was entirely voluntary. For data collection, a structured knowledge, attitude, and practice questionnaire was used, whose validity was checked by experts. In the end, the collected data were analyzed by SPSS V.19 using the independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: Totally, 462 medical science students (mean age = 20.27 ± 3.69 years) participated in this survey. According to the collected data, the mean scores for KAP were at a medium level, which was not ideal, and showed that there were several weaknesses in the curriculum. The mean knowledge scores for medicine, dentistry, laboratory science, and nursing students were 42.53 ± 15.78, 46.24 ± 20.99, 39.63 ± 15.35, and 40 ± 19.43, respectively. The mean attitude scores were 60.25 ± 6.13, 59.68 ± 5.86, 58.60 ± 5.06, and 57.77 ± 6.59, and the practice mean scores were 58.99 ± 25.11, 67.80 ± 25.72, 62.46 ± 24.48, and 62.29 ± 21.08, respectively. Conclusions: According to the collected data, paying more attention to the microbiology courses is recommended in all medical and paramedical disciplines. Moreover, it is necessary to provide further education for the students to prepare them to take appropriate measures to prevent the spread of infection.

Objectives Teucrium polium (TP) has been traditionally used for treatment of the diabetes mellitus, kidney and liver diseases, and inflammations but some studies have reported the hepatotoxicity effects of this plant. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of TP aqueous extract on the liver of the diabetic rats. Methods Adult male Wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups: (Control) Normal rats that were gavaged with normal saline (1 mL), (TP100) Normal rats (Non-diabetic) that were gavaged with TP (100 mg/kg), (DM) diabetic model rats, which became diabetic by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (50 mg/kg), (DTP100) diabetic rats that were gavaged with TP (100 mg/kg), and (DTP200) diabetic rats that were gavaged with TP (200 mg/kg). The effects of the aqueous extract on the blood glucose, body weight, the activities of enzyme markers of liver damage (Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST) and Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT)) were investigated in the serum of the control and treated groups. At the end of study liver histopathology and the total antioxidant activity (TAA) test were evaluated. Finally, obtained data were analyzed by the SPSS software (version 16). Results Results showed that the AST and ALT levels were significantly increased in the diabetic rats (p<0.001). A comparison of 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg doses of TP administration in diabetic rats also showed a significant difference (p=0.01), indicating a better performance of 100 mg/kg dose. No significant difference was found between the control group and rats treated by the TP (TP100) (p=0.382). Also, triglyceride (TG) and cholesterol levels were significantly decreased in the treated groups compared to the diabetic untreated group. Conclusions Findings of the study revealed no hepatotoxicity, and the hepatoprotective effects of the TP were proved in the present study.

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