Background: Immunization has significant health benefits particularly for children. Despite the rigorous efforts, immunization coverage in Pakistan has stagnated over the last decade.Methods: 42 in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted in polio high-risk areas of Pakistan involving mothers, fathers, polio workers and vaccinators to identify influencing and non-influencing factors that serve as a cue to action for childhood immunization using the heuristic approach contributing to journey to vaccination.Results: Participants shared different underlying fears and psychosocial factors concerning vaccines such as painful neonatal experiences, doubts, fear of vaccine-related side effects, distrust, treatment, morbidity and mortality of their children. Parents in favour of vaccinating their children, when afflicted with traumatic experiences, skipped vaccines for the time being. When counselled by the health-care providers they started vaccination again.  While refusal parents were very rigid and after witnessing any harrowing vaccine-related experience, their decision not to vaccinate became stronger.Conclusions: Vaccination uptake is significantly influenced by vaccine-related traumatic life experiences which need to be explored and addressed timely as vaccine-hesitancy can become a more serious threat to global health.

To evaluate the frequency of Helicobacter pylori in individuals with functional dyspepsia. Study Design: Cross sectional descriptive study. Period: Six months from 01-May-2014 to 31-10-2014. Setting: Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi. Materials and Methods: All the patients between 18 to 70 years of age diagnosed as functional dyspepsia for more than 03 months duration were admitted and evaluated for Helicobacter pylori infection through histopathological examination. Results: Total 121 subjects with functional dyspepsia were screened for Helicobacter pylori infection. The mean ±SD for age of subjects with functional dyspepsia was 41.74±08.87. The mean age ±SD of Helicobacter pylori infected individuals was 40.70±7.82 while the mean ±SD of age in helicobacter pylori negative patients was 40.55±10.63. Majority of the subjects were out-patients, 30-39 years of age with male predominance. The most common duration of disease observed was 6-9 months with epigastric pain and burning the predominant symptoms. The Helicobacter pylori infection was observed in 78(64.4%) individuals, of which 55 were males and 23 were males (p=<0.01). Conclusion: The functional dyspeptic patients are prone to acquire Helicobacter pylori infection therefore present study reported 64.4% prevalence for H. pylori infection with male gender predominance.

Background: H. pylori is a microaerophilic Gram-negative bacterium, spiral in shape. It infects approximately half of the population across the world. Aims: to assess the antibiotic resistance of H. pylori as well as the potential of medical plant extracts to inhibit resistant strains. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in Microbiology Institute, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur Mir’s from January 2019 to December 2019. Endoscopy was used to obtain samples from the gastrointestinal ward of teaching hospital of KMC, Khairpur. H. pylori was isolated, identified and inoculated. From the local market, ginger roots, garlic roots, kalonji seeds, and mint leaves were acquired and extracts were prepared. RESULTS: Antimicrobial sensitivity of extracts (Garlic, ginger, kalonji and mint) against H. pylori was tested by agar well-diffusion method. All herbal extracts showed more sensitivity extracted in ethanol as compared to distilled water. In contrast mint did not give any results. Ethanol extracts are found to be very effective against H. pylori as compared to distilled water extracts. Conclusion: Garlic, ginger, and kalonji all demonstrated antibacterial property towards H. pylori. Keywords: Helicobacter pylori, Antimicrobial Sensitivity, Plant Extracts, Inhibition Zone