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Background and objective: Vaginal candidiasis is a common infection among pregnant women. The current study aimed to investigate the etiologic species of vaginal candidiasis and the genotypes of C. albicans isolated from vaginal samples among pregnant women in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Methods: Vaginal swabs were collected from pregnant women admitted to the Maternity hospital in Sulaymaniyah and Erbil cities from March 2016 to December 2018. Candida isolates were identified on CHROMagar medium, then confirmed with PCR depending on ITS region. All C. albicans isolates were confirmed using chitin synthase gene (CHS1) and subjected to genotypic analysis based on the transposable intron in 25S rDNA with using CA25S and CA-INT primers. DNA sequencing of 25S rDNA region was done by using CA and CA-INT primers. Results: Among 340 women tested, 114 (33.53%) were positive for vaginal candidiasis. Five Candida species were identified, where they are C. albicans (56.14%), C. glabrata (24.56%), C. kefyr (11.40%), C. tropicalis (5.27%) and C. krusei (2.63%). It has been found that C. albicans significantly (P

Background Nowadays food allergy is the public health problem worldwide and prevalence of food allergy was increased that causes morbidity, there is no prevalence study to determine and reported most of the food allergen in Erbil City. Aims To determine the prevalence of most common food allergy in Erbil City, and determination of intensity of allergic response among allergic patients against 36 identified food allergens items. Methods A total number of 170 patients with suspected of food allergy were checked in the present study. The study was carried out for patients who visited the private clinical sectors in between (2018–2020), in Erbil Province, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Determination of specific IgE (s-IgE) antibody was examined for suspected patients using “Food Iraq1” kit (Catalog no: DP 3436-1601-1 E, IVD-approved, and CE-certified EUROLINE immunoblot), contains strip for 36 different allergens. Results The present study illustrated that the food allergy prevalence (measured by specific IgE concentration). The rate of occurrence of food allergy is 10% among males and 12.35% among females. Furthermore, data also revealed that allergy prevalence was 12.35% among individuals aged 13–30 and 10% among those 31–52 years. Seafood mix (13.15%), grain mix (9.21%) and soybean (6.57%) in both male and female patients are the highest allergic response to food allergens often reported among these products respectively with different percentages. The most susceptible food allergens are the combination of fish (12.76%), chicken (7.44%), garlic and sesame (5.31%). Seafood mix, chicken and grain mix showed the highest incidence of food allergies respectively, with regard to aged groups. Conclusions Based on the results in present study, we conclude that, the prevalence of food allergy was differing in between males and females in different age groups. Our study reached to that, there are no association between food allergens in males and age group of 13–30 years, but in other hand the association between food allergens in females and age group 31–52 years observed.

Nowadays in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the number of patients have common symptoms with COVID-19 infection rapidly increased. 123 patients which they had common symptoms with COVID-19 and 94 healthy control individuals (non-COVID-19) were subjected for quantitative analysis for each one of the following biochemical parameters, Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Creatine Phosphokinase (CPK), and C-reactive protein (CRP) in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We analyze clinical features and compared the differences between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 symptoms. Among the healthy control individuals, the absolute value of LDH, CPK Creatine Kinase and CRP were determined in between the normal range, and in compare with patients with COVID-19 symptoms their values were smaller and, the P value was (P ＜0.05). All three biochemical parameters increased among patients with COVID-19 symptoms, but more significantly, steadily increase was observed only in LDH value in age above and under 40 years (284.43±10.29 and 321.23±16.32 U/L), and p-value was (0.0488). Male patients had higher levels of LDH (299.32±11.42 U/L), CPK Creatine Kinase (195.90±26.65 mg/L), and C-Reactive Protein (5.86±3.96 mg/L) in compared with the female patients. Our study suggested that among patients who have COVID 19 symptoms, increased LDH is the advised and helpful biochemical marker among routine panel for COVID-19 infection evaluation. Also, CRP levels were positively correlated with male patients when compared with the healthy control.