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Disease conditions invariably affect the activities and physiology of common buzzards irrespective of whether they are non-infectious or infectious. The impact of these diseases is further compounded by the stress of captivity in rehabilitation facilities. The aim of the study is to relate weight gain and food consumption to disease conditions in common buzzard. Fifty common buzzards were studied in five batches of 10 birds at a time. The absolute quantity of meat consumed was recorded after taking cognizance of the moisture lost by evaporation. Birds with infectious, non-infectious and those with both non-infectious and infectious diseases on the average consumed 111.9g, 116.6g and 110.3g of food daily, while their weight gain was 18.8%, 12.2% and 17.6% respectively. There were only slight differences in the amount of food consumed and percentage weight gained by the 3 categories of birds.

Aspirin, acetyl salicylic acid or 2-acetoxybenzoic acid, has the carboxylic acid functional group hence easier to quantify using a strong alkali like NaOH. In most analgesic drug formulations in tablets form, aspirin is generally bind or compounded with other excipients or substituents which are acidic in nature and has acidic groups thus reacts easily with NaOH, hence making sodium hydroxide not a suitable reagent for quantifying aspirin in multicomponent aspirin tablet formulation. Six different tablets from reputable drug manufacturing company containing aspirin as an active substance were taken. Methods using sodium hydroxide as the main reagent in quantification involves a lot of stoichiometric mathematical manipulations as in case of titrimetric method while UV-VIS spectroscopy via multivariate calibration gave values at lower limit or outside the lower limits of US & BP pharmacopeia with respect to label claims, while the hyphenated chromatographic techniques such as, GC-MS and HPLC gave a very good resolution and very precise results within the pharmacopeia limits.

A cross-sectional study was undertaken to determine the current prevalence of leptospirosis and hantaviral infections, and the socio-demographic characteristics and risk factors of infected patients, in Kandy, Sri Lanka. This report discusses the serological evidence of hantavirus infections among 105 suspected leptospirosis patients, 8 of whom had hantavirus antibodies. Serotyping ELISA showed that these 8 patients had high optical density values for Thailand virus. Most of the sera showed that the focus reduction neutralization test titer against Thailand virus was higher than that against Seoul virus, thereby suggesting that the hantaviral antibodies found in Sri Lanka are different from Seoul virus but closely related to Thailand virus. These findings imply that the hantaviral infection found in Kandy, Sri Lanka appears to be due to a virus similar to Thailand virus. Epidemiological analysis revealed that the association between hantavirus infection and socio-demographic characteristics was not statistically significant.

In this study, we examined the presence and concentrations of six polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in groundwater sources of Okrika mainland impacted by effluent discharges from a petroleum refinery into her surrounding Creeks. Sterile amber coloured bottles were used to collect 10 replicate borehole water samples from the mainland and fixed with concentrated H2SO4. Samples were transferred to the laboratory in iced coolers and analyzed using Gas chromatography coupled with Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID). The interactions of the PAH components detected was determined using the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (r) while spatial variance equality in means of concentrations was explored with the One-way ANOVA. Structure detection of observed inequalities was made with means plots. Concentrations of the PAHs were high and exceeded the WHO maximum permissible limit of 0.002mg/l in drinking water. Benzo(b)fluoranthene, with the highest mean concentration varied between 0.00037- 0.51266 (0.08117±0.03330159)mg/l, fluoranthene varied between 0.00060-0.32890 (0.0473946±0.01769877)mg/l, while benzo(k)fluoranthene with the least mean concentration varied between 0.00017-0.08478 (0.0237385±0.00610045)mg/l. However, pyrene concentration ranged between 0.00015 and 0.24757 (0.0508440±0.01859716)mg/l, benzo(a)anthracene between 0.00020-0.21972 (0.0512660±0.01688275)mg/l, and chrysene between 0.00013 and 0.16571 (0.0488975±0.01090264)mg/l. Strong associations were observed between all the PAH components measured at PFcrit(3.921478)] was recorded across the sampling locations at P

This study was carried out on phytochemicals and in vitro screening of antibacterial potentials of ethanolic, methanolic and acetonic extracts of stem bark and leaves of Neem plant (Azadirachta indica) by using the methods of AOAC; and agar diffusion technique. The extracts of the leaves and the stem bark were prepared and screened for the presence of different phytochemicals. The results obtained showed that both the leaf and stem bark extracts contain alkaloid, flavonoid, reducing sugar, tannin, saponin and polyphenol. The extracts were tested against selected pathogens; Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans by using agar well diffusion technique. In this present research work, the acetonic, ethanolic and methanolic leaves and bark extracts of Neem plant were investigated for antimicrobial activity against these selected pathogens. The Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined. The MIC for the bacterial isolates was 25 mg / ml of the leaf extracts and that for stem bark was 6.25 mg / ml. The MBC was 25 mg / ml. Results showed that the bark extract exhibited strongest antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi at different concentrations when compared with the activity of the leaf extract. The acetonic stem bark extract had the highest antibacterial activity with a zone of inhibition of 22 mm, and then followed closely by the stem bark's ethanol extract with a zone of inhibition of 21 mm. More so, the methanolic stem bark extract had the highest antifungal activities with a zone of inhibition of 22.50 mm. Thus, this work showed that both leaf and stem bark extracts had some phytochemicals and antimicrobial activity.

Serum uric acid and urea levels were determined in 27 pregnant and 17 non-pregnant blackAfrican women. Uric acid levels for the pregnant women were significantly raised, and the relationship between uric acidelevation and gestational proteinuric hypertensionwas discussed. In conclusion, we recommend that uric acid estimation should be included during routine antenatal clinics in normal pregnancy. That the use of uric acid levels should be encouraged for the diagnosis and management of gestational proteinuric hypertension in African pregnant women. The above recommendation will help to reduce prenatalmorbidity andmortality inAfrican pregnantwomen.