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In Pakistan large number of population is using surface and groundwater for drinking purposes. The contamination of these water bodies by toxic metals and providing safe drinking water to public is a big challenge for the government especially in areas where there is geological control on ground water. The present study was conducted to assess the drinking water quality of Islampur area, Swat, in the close vicinity of mélange zone. Forty samples were collected from different ground water sources such as tube wells, springs, dug well sand hand pumps. These samples were analyzed for physical and chemical parameters including heavy metals (Pb, Zn, Ni and Cr).The results were compared with international standards, which show that most of the physico-chemical parameters such as total suspended solids, pH, salinity, total dissolved solids, chloride, sodium, potassium and zinc are within the permissible limits. Whereas electrical conductivity, alkalinity, hardness, lead, chromium, nickel, calcium and magnesium were above their permissible limit. In this respect the drinking water quality of the Islampur area, district Swat is unsafe for drinking purposes. This study indicates that the heavy metal contamination in the study area could be attributed to the mélange zone rocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the leading cause of chronic hepatitis worldwide and its subtypes/genotypes are clinically important for clinical management and vaccine development. The present study describes frequency distribution of different HCV genotypes and their treatment status in HCV RNA positive patients from district Swat. A total of 185 HCV infected sera were analyzed by molecular genotyping assay. The most prevalent genotype was 3a (34.1%), followed by 2a (8.1%), 3b (7%) and 1a (5.4%). The samples found untypable by the present method of genotypes was 37.8% while, patients with mixed genotype infections were 7.6%. More than 80% of untypable cases were from those HCV patients who had received interferon plus ribavirin standard therapy in the past and either were non-responders and were relapsed thereafter or were under treatment. In conclusion, genotype 3a is the most prevalent HCV genotype in the region. A high prevalence rate of untypable genotypes is present in treated patients that need further investigation for the successful genotyping by developing new assays or using viral sequencing method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]