Objective: This study was aimed to establish the prevalence of overweight, obesity and related its factors among the citizens of Karachi. Methodology: From Jan 2018 to August 2018. This cross-sectional analysis was conducted to obtain information from 772 persons using a validated questionnaire and traditional height and weight evaluation methods have been used. Overweight and obesity were described by South Asian cut-off points as 23 ≥ BMI (Normal), 25.0 - 29.9 BMI (Overweight) and 30 ≤ BMI (Obese) respectively. For data processing, version 21.0 of SPSS was used. Results: In this sample study men was 44.5% and women was 55.5%.Age group 20-39 was the most numerous group which was 55.70%. Among Overweight and obesity were found to be higher in men than in women. About 23.3% of the people were smokers, 1.42% was alcohol consumer, while 20.3% had vegetarian diet, 55.8% had semi-vegetarian diet, and 23.8% had non-vegetarian diet. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among individuals with co-morbidities is 33.96 %, p=0.000. There were 38.5% of people who performed physical activity for at least 30 minutes every day. Conclusion: Overweight and obesity prevalence was found to be high among Karachi individuals, particularly in men than in women. The predictors of obesity were sedentary lifestyle, including diet and lack of physical exercise, smoking, alcohol intake, and presence of co-morbidities. Preventive steps to avoid overweight and obesity may be recommended for people.

Pediatric is the medicine specialization concerned with the health of infants, children, and adolescents. Worldwide, many infectious diseases were controlled in the 20th century by improving living standards, public health, and various antimicrobial agents. Antibiotics, in particular, cephalosporin, are amongst the most widely dispensed medications in Pediatric departments worldwide, especially in countries where there are no strict guidelines to regulate their use. A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted at 150 Bedded Pediatric ward of Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women (PUMHSW), Nawabshah, Shaheed Benazirabad to assess the utilization pattern of cephalosporin among all admitted in-patients. Patients' demographic details were recorded from the Patient's Bedside File (PBF). Data were analyzed by using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft SPSS 20. Among all admitted patients, 1285 patients met the inclusion criteria, and their PBF were evaluated for cephalosporin. A total of 2863 antibiotics were prescribed among 1932 patients. The most commonly prescribed class of antibiotics among the study population was Cephalosporin 1971 (68.83%), followed by Cefotaxime (20.39%). 76.20% of pediatric patients were prescribed antibiotics through the parenteral route and 23.8% through the oral route. The most common diagnosis was Pneumonia (23.4%), diarrhea (11.6%), and Bronchitis (11.2%), following other indications. Antibiotics were being prescribed without national antibiotic guidelines or institutionally approved protocols, which are currently unavailable. The study findings shall help the hospital administration and government design and implement official policies to promote rational utilization of antibiotics.

BackgroundArboviruses are a cause of acute febrile illness and outbreaks worldwide. Recent outbreaks of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in dengue endemic areas have alarmed clinicians as unique clinical features differentiating CHIKV from Dengue virus (DENV) are limited. This has complicated diagnostic efforts especially in resource limited countries where lab testing is not easily available. Therefore, it is essential to analyse and compare clinical features of laboratory confirmed cases to assist clinicians in suspecting possible CHIKV infection at time of clinical presentation. MethodologyA prospective point prevalence study was conducted, with the hypothesis that not all patients presenting with clinical suspicion of dengue infections at local hospitals are suffering from dengue and that other arboviruses such as Chikungunya, West Nile viruses, Japanese Encephalitis virus and Zika virus are co-circulating in the Sindh region of Pakistan. Out-patients and hospitalized (in-patients) of selected district hospitals in different parts of Sindh province of Pakistan were recruited. Patients with presumptive dengue like illness (Syndromic diagnosis) by the treating physicians were enrolled between 2015 and 2017.Current study is a subset of larger study mentioned above. Here-in we compared laboratory confirmed cases of CHIKV and DENV to assess clinical features and laboratory findings that may help differentiate CHIKV from DENV infection at the time of clinical presentation.

BackgroundThe study analyzed microbiological and antimicrobial susceptibility profile of organisms isolated from patients with infective endocarditis (2015–17) and compared disease outcomes in cohorts of endocarditis patient with history of prior invasive vascular intervention (high risk group) vs those without (native valve group). We hypothesized that high risk group would be more likely to have severe disease outcomes.MethodsThis was a prospective cohort study (2015–17). All blood and cardiac tissue samples of enrolled patients suspected of endocarditis according to modified Duke’s criteria were followed for microbiological and antimicrobial susceptibility profile. The high risk group was compared with the native valve group with 90 day follow up to determine difference in clinical course and outcome in terms of disease severity (defined as any patient with endocarditis undergoing surgical management, readmission or dying). The data was analyzed using SPSS 21.0 software and chi-square test. 90 day mortality was calculated using Kaplan Meier survival curves.ResultsTotal 104 patients with endocarditis were enrolled. Overall culture positivity rate was 71.2%. Streptococcus species were the most common isolate (36.7%), followed by S. aureus (17.3%) cases. In Streptococcus species, 14.2% showed intermediate susceptibility to penicillin. Thirty six patients were included in the cohort analysis. A poor outcome was seen in 85.7% high risk group as compared to 50% of native valve group. The overall mortality rate was 19.4%.ConclusionsWe found Streptococcus species to be the predominant pathogen for endocarditis overall. However Staphylococcus aureus predominated native valve group. High risk group showed more complicated clinical course.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13019-018-0781-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

SUMMARY:Sudan-positive atherosclerotic lesions preferentially occur at downstream and lateral margins of arterial branch ostia in human neonates and weanling rabbits but tend to develop at lateral and upstream margins in old subjects. We investigated (i) the pattern of sudanophilic lesions at aortic ostia of cholesterol-fed adult rabbits and (ii) determined any differences in lesion distribution between descending thoracic and abdominal aorta. Ten adult males, New Zealand white rabbits were fed 2% high cholesterol diet. After six weeks, aortas were excised, opened longitudinally and stained with Sudan-IV for gross examination of atherosclerotic lesions. A total of 156 descending thoracic and 90 abdominal ostia were examined. Mean lesion frequencies upstream, downstream and at lateral margins of the affected ostia were calculated and compared. Sudanophilic lesions were detected around 32% ostia of descending thoracic aorta and 25% those of abdominal aorta. At ostia of descending thoracic aorta, lesion frequencies were significantly higher (P<0.001) downstream (95%) and at lateral margins (92%) than upstream (2%). In abdominal aorta, lateral (100%) and upstream (43%) margins were significantly (P<0.05) more affected while minimal lesion frequencies were seen at downstream branch points (9%). Comparison between descending thoracic and abdominal aorta showed an insignificant difference of lesion frequencies at lateral margins (P>0.05) but a highly significant difference at upstream versus downstream of ostia (P<0.001). We concluded that in cholesterol-fed adult rabbits, juvenile pattern of downstream lipid deposition persists at ostia of descending thoracic aorta while a switch towards the upstream pattern of old subjects occurs at ostia of abdominal aorta.