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Objective: The present study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of 3 rd - and 4 th -year medical, dental, and pharmacy students about hepatitis B (HB) infection at a private medical university, Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 482 medical, dental, and pharmacy students of 3 rd - and 4 th -year degree program of Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University to assess their KAP about HB infection using 34 prevalidated questions by convenient sampling method. A questionnaire was administered to the students, and their responses were measured at “yes” and “no” scale. Students' responses were entered in SPSS version 22, and quantitative analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests at P < 0.05. Findings: The medical, dental, and pharmacy students had good knowledge and practice with positive attitude about HB infection. Mann–Whitney U-test determined a significant difference in knowledge ( P < 0.001) and practice ( P < 0.001) scores between medical and pharmacy, attitude ( P < 0.001) scores between medical and dental, and attitude ( P < 0.001) and practice ( P < 0.001) scores between pharmacy and dental students. Students' age was correlated with their attitude, practice, and KAP scores and family income with their knowledge, attitude, practice, and KAP scores. Conclusion: Although students' knowledge and practice were good with positive attitude, all the students did not participate in health education program, screening, and vaccination of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection which makes them more vulnerable to occupational HBV infection. Hence, it is recommended to organize a regular health education program for the students on screening and vaccination against HBV to prevent its infection.

The synthesized ZnO NPs using durian rind in solution has shown maximum absorption at 355.5 nm with the bandgap of 3.33 eV, spectrophotometrically. SEM and TEM studies revealed that the shape of the synthesized ZnO NPs was spherical with an average size of 280 and 283 nm, respectively. However, DLS analysis of ZnO NPs revealed the average particle size of 456 d.nm. The presence of [100], [002], [101], [102], [110], [103], [200], [112] and [201] planes in XRD corroborate the formation of pure wurtzite structure of ZnO NPs. Synthesized ZnO NPs showed remarkable photocatalytic activity on degradation of methylene blue and sulfanilamide, antioxidant activity, considerable antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, and considerable cytotoxic activity against brine shrimp. The sulfanilamide degradation was found to be 96.70%, under natural sunlight and in the presence of 0.1% ZnO NPs at pH 10 with a time of 3 h. The dye degradation was found to be 84% under sunlight in the presence of 0.01% ZnO NPs at pH 10 with a time of 40 min. The synthesized ZnO NPs may be explored furthermore in the fields of wastewater treatment, biomedicine, biosensor, and nanotechnology.

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Background: Herbal medicine mostly contains wide range of chemical compounds responsible for medicinal therapeutic use. Costus woodsonii is commonly called as Red Button Ginger and synonyms of the botanical name are Costus spiralis, Alpinia spiralis and Costus pisonis. In Malay, it is known as Setawar Halia Merah. In Chinese, it is known as Hong Bi Qiao Jiang. Objective: This research was conducted to study the pharmacognostical, phytochemical, antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of C. woodsonii leaf extracts. Method: Macroscopy, microscopy, phytochemical analysis, thin layer chromatography, antioxidant activity and antimicrobial activity of C. woodsonii leaf were carried out. Total flavonoids were estimated in the leaf extract. The total phenolic content of C. woodsonii leaf was determined using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent. The antioxidant activity of leaf extract of C. woodsonii was determined by performing DPPH radical scavenging. The microbial activity was determined by Well diffusion test, MIC (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) test and MBC (Minimum Bactericidal Concentration) test. Result and Discussion: C. woodsonii belongs to costaceae with elliptical green leaves. Till now are no extensive studies on C. woodsonii. Preliminary phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of flavonoid, steroid, fat, phenol, tannin and mucilage in leaf extract. Physicochemical studies further revealed the ash value of leaf as 8.7%. Among the three extractions, alcohol extractive values showed the highest as 13%. Loss on drying at 105 degree Celsius in leaf was found to be 12.67%. The plant extract showed total phenolic content of 7.941 mg GAE/g at concentration of 5µg/ml. As for flavonoids content, plant extract showed 21.7 mg RE/g at concentration of 200µg/ml and 43.4 mg RE/g at concentration of 400µg/ml. For antioxidant activity, the plant extract showed weak antioxidant activity in DPPH scavenging activity assay. For antimicrobial test, the leaf extract of C. woodsonii showed weak antimicrobial activity. Conclusion: From this study, it can conclude that C. woodsonii leaf extract possess weak antioxidant activity and weak antimicrobial activity which need to be further validated by using more antioxidant assays and antimicrobial tests.