Umar Farooq

Typhoid has become the most neglected and majorly affecting disease of tropical and subtropical countries, including India, and is among the most important global health problems, as the emergence of multidrug resistance has shut down the effect of antimicrobial agents and makes it difficult to control the bacteria inside the host. Hence, there is a great need to develop some natural-based drugs, which will be new promising natural therapeutic interventions with high efficacy and lesser side effects in comparison to synthetic drugs already available for typhoid treatment. The present study completely focused on the synergistic effect of bioactive constituents of medicinal plants in combination to synthetic drugs for enhancing the bacterial eradication mechanism. The methanolic extracts of 25 medicinal plants were screened for their antisalmonella effect and out of which only 2 plants were studied further on the basis of their high effectiveness against 17 MDR isolates using well diffusion assay and MIC/MBC determination. The synergistic activity was assessed with two nonantibiotics (ibuprofen and paracetamol) and 3 antibiotics (ceftazidime chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim) using methods of growth inhibitory indices (GIIs) and fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI). The highly effective methanolic extracts were of W. somnifera and C. roseus, and the synergism was obtained in terms of GIIs and FICI values of 0.9 and 0.3 and 0.9 and 0.5, respectively, fulfilling the criteria for both extracts, respectively. The results for combinations of plant extracts and antibiotics ceftazidime, trimethoprim, and chloramphenicol and nonantibiotics (analgesic drugs) ibuprofen and paracetamol showed good synergistic activity (100, 88, 50, 45, and 35, respectively) against the MDR isolates of S. Typhi. The present study also suggests that in the future, combined treatment with the antibiotics and the bioactive compounds can enhance the immune system to perform better action against the external pathogens as well as in the treatment of internal pathogens, and the combinations will be the successful immune modulators.

Background: Cystic echinococcosis (CE), caused by Echinococcus granulosus, is a major zoonotic disease that causes significant human morbidity and mortality. This cosmopolitan disease is difficult to diagnose, treat, and control. So far, crude extracts of hydatid cyst fluid containing antigen B or antigen 5 have been used as the primary antigenic source for its immunodiagnosis. The main issue is that it reacts with sera from people infected with other helminths. There is currently no standard, specific, or sensitive test for disease diagnosis, and no human vaccine has been reported. Aims and Objectives: Considering the need for efficient immunization and/or immunodiagnosis, six E. granulosus antigens, antigen 5, antigen B, heat shock proteins such as Hsp-8 and Hsp-90, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, and tetraspanin-1, were chosen. Materials and Methods: Using various in silico tools, T cell and B cell epitopes (promiscuous peptides) were predicted by targeting antigen 5, antigen B, heat shock proteins such as Hsp-8 and Hsp-90, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, and tetraspanin-1. Results: There are twelve promiscuous peptides with overlapping human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class-I, class-II, and conformational B cell epitopes. Such immunodominant peptides could be useful as subunit vaccines. Furthermore, six peptides specific for E. granulosus were also discovered, which may prove to be important markers in the diagnosis of CE, potentially preventing misdiagnosis and mismanagement. Conclusion: These epitopes may be the most important vaccine targets in E. granulosus because they have the most promiscuous peptides and B cell epitopes, as well as the highest affinity for different alleles, as determined by docking scores. However, additional research using in vitro and in vivo models is undertaken.

Occurrence of dengue infected patients in a tertiary care centre - IJMMTD- Print ISSN No: - 2581-4753 Online ISSN No:- 2581-4761 Article DOI No:- 10.18231/j.ijmmtd.2022.009, IP International Journal of Medical Microbiology and Tropical Diseases-IP Int J Med Microbiol Trop Dis

Background: Staphylococcus aureus (SA) is a major etiological pathogen causing multiple infections and broadly known as a serious public health challenge faced due to antibiotic resistance. It is the need of time that infection prevention and control strategies; and antibiotic stewardship policies have to be employed conjointly to minimize the extended rise of antibiotic resistance. Objectives: To determine the frequency and sensitivity patterns of Staphylococcus aureus in tertiary care setting. Study Design: Descriptive study Place & Duration of Study: Pathology Laboratory of tertiary care center from 1^st March’ 2020 till 28^th February’ 2021. Materials & Methods: A total 643 Staph. aureus isolated from various clinical specimens received in a tertiary care hospital; were processed and identified by culture, staining and bench tests. Sensitivity testing was done by Disc Diffusion method. Resistance to cefoxitin(30µg) was labelled as Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Constitutive and Inducible Clindamycin resistance was also evaluated. (CLSI, 2020-21). Results: During the study period 125 (19.44%) MRSA were recovered. Statistically, gender distribution regarding MRSA was significant, most of SA was recovered from blood (53.68%), while 46.31% from pus and wound swabs. The frequency of MRSA from Surgical and allied wards was higher (52.63%) than Medicine and allied wards (47.36%). Sensitivity to vancomycin, linezolid and tigecycline was noted 100% by all the isolates. Sensitivity to clindamycin and Doxycycline was 68.42% and 64.81% respectively; while resistance to erythromycin, ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole was 73.68%, 60% and 57.89%, respectively. Conclusion: The hazardous infections due to Staphylococcus aureus are worrisome in the present therapeutic scenario. A levelheaded prescription of sensitive antibiotics has to be ensured to minimize the rising frequency of resistant strains of SA.

| Reduction in cost of production to make agriculture profitable is a major challenge and all out efforts have been made by successive government in Pakistan to pass benefits to the farmers by reducing input prices through reduction in GST, providing cash subsidy and supplying inexpensive feed gas for fertilizer industry. Currently, cash subsidy on urea is costing Rs. 12 billion to national exchequer and total tax relief (all products inclusive) costing around Rs. 40 billion to the national exchequer, respectively. Thus, total financial implication of subsidy and tax relief is Rs. 52 billion. In the existing tax regime tax rates vary greatly from 3.55% (SSP) to 11.73% (NPK). Due to these distortions farmers prefer to use higher dosages of Urea and low grade P-based fertilizers. This anomaly is negatively affecting productivity of major crops in general and high value crops in particular. Presently average weighted tax rate on all fertilizers is 5.83 percent. The imposition of uniform tax rate of 5% on all fertilizers, without cash subsidy on urea will reduce financial implication to Rs. 43 billion and at 2% tax rate financial implication will be Rs. 53.7 billion per annum. Imposition of uniform tax rates will result into decrease in market prices of fertilizers, consequently their use will be higher and balance among nutrients application will improve. The Imposition of uniform tax rate of 2% will reduce fertilizer cost for production of major crops by; 18% for wheat, 13% for rice, 20% each for cotton and sugarcane. Modest increase in crop productivity by just 5% could result in additional production of major crops (wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane and maize) of worth Rs. 111.57 billion. While, existing production levels of major crops can be obtained by reducing area under these crops by 859 thousand hectares, and spared area can be brought into cultivation under high value crops to diversify the cropping systems.

Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) is an expensive source of macronutrients which are required for proper nutrition of Leishmania parasite in the culture medium. An alternative, cost effective source of macronutrients which can replace the use of FBS in tissue culture medium is required. The potential of Soy Protein Isolate (SPI) to replace FBS in RPMI-1640 medium for the in vitro cultivation of Leishmania donovani was evaluated. Commercially available SPI powder was used in RPMI-1640 medium as a substitute of FBS to cultivate L. donovani promastigotes. The growth, multiplication and morphology of cultivated parasites was observed in conventional RPMI-1640 with 10% FBS (v/v) and RPMI-1640 containing 10% SPI (v/v) by using light microscopy, measurement of absorbance and cell counting. The growth of Leishmania promastigotes in the medium containing 10% SPI was slower in initial phase; however, the parasites were morphologically larger as compared to those in RPMI-1640 medium containing 10% FBS. Cell count in the SPI-containing RPMI-1640 medium was 2.3 × 108 cells/ml whereas it was 1.9 × 107 cells/ml in RPMI-1640 with 10% FBS. This study concludes that RPMI-1640 may be supplemented with SPI instead of FBS for the in vitro cultivation of Leishmania donovani promastigotes to decrease the culture maintenance cost in developing countries.

Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein-1 (Pfemp-1), a variant adhesion molecule, can act as a key component of immunity against malaria. In the current selection of malaria vaccines, no efficient vaccines are available that can be employed for its proper treatment. Unfortunately, resistance to post-infection treatments is increasing and therefore there is a pressing need to develop an efficient vaccine. Peptide-based vaccines can be effective tools against malaria but HLA restriction is a major hindrance which can be conquered by using promiscuous peptides. In this work, we employed a combined in silico and experimental approach to identify promiscuous peptides for the treatment of malaria. At first, using the immunoinformatics approach, promiscuous peptides were predicted from two conserved domains, CIDR-1 and DBL-3γ, of the Pfemp-1 antigen. These peptides were selected on the basis of their predicted binding affinity with different HLA class-I & class-II alleles. A total of 13 peptides were selected based on their predicted IFN-γ and IL-4 induction ability as well as their hydrophobicity. Out of these 13, the peptide C6 was synthesised and experimentally evaluated for further rationalization, HLA–peptide complex modelling and binding interaction analysis. Interestingly, the peptide C6 (SFIHIYLYRNIRIQL) showed an encouraging immunological response and T-cell proliferation in the immunological assay. This valuable content can aid the better design of more potent and selective vaccine candidates against infectious diseases.