The Community Health Posting teaching module is incorporated in the fourth year medical curriculum at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). The integration of Islamic principles and values in the medical curriculum is emphasized during the Community Health Posting. The Community Health curriculum allow students to appreciate and understand the medical and fiqh aspects of health and disease, the social issues in medical practice and research and to inculcate the practice of Islamic professional etiquettes. The teaching module illustrates the relevance of humanities in understanding illness and medical care within the community. Teaching and learning activities include components that enable the students to explore a wide range of influencing factors and how these affect the patients and their families. Issues pertaining to psychosocial and ecological perspectives of the community are also discussed. This posting utilizes various teaching and learning techniques such as lectures, tutorials, seminars, group discussions, educational visits, practical sessions and patient bedside teaching. In addition, the students are equipped with Islamic knowledge through the integration of Naqli and Aqli components in the Community Health Posting curriculum.

Background and Objective: Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) shares certain features with multiple sclerosis (MS). Similar phenotypes, wide spectrum and the differential prevalence of NMO among ethnic backgrounds pose diagnostic challenges. NMO-IgG antibodies are specific biomarker for NMO and facilitate its differentiation from other demyelinating diseases. This study aimed to assess the frequency of NMO and NMO-IgG seropositivity in Saudi patients with demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system. Methods: One hundred and four patients from neurology database at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh underwent clinical and laboratory examination, neuroimaging and NMO-IgG antibodies screening. Results: The mean age at presentation was 32 (±9) years and there was an excess of females (female:male – 3:1). The mean duration of illness was 4.6 (±3.2) years. During the illness, 48.1% of patients had clinical evidence of spinal cord involvement, 29.8% had optic neuritis and 14.4% had both features. A large majority (75.8%) of brain lesions fulfilled MRI criteria for MS and 17% had lesions extending over ≥3 vertebral segments. NMO-IgG antibodies were present in only one patient – a frequency of 0.96% in our study cohort. Conclusion: Prevalence of NMO and NMO-IgG seropositivity is rare in Saudis with demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system. Hence, routine NMO-IgG testing is likely to have a low diagnostic yield

Rapid detection of Burkholderia pseudomallei, the etiologic agent of melioidosis, allows for timely initiation of appropriate treatment and better clinical outcomes. In the current gold standard, the culture method is time consuming and suffers from low sensitivity. Meanwhile, previously reported molecular assays are fast and sensitive, but their performance on isolates from Malaysia, an endemic region of melioidosis is under reported. This study designed oligonucleotides targeting orf2 of Type III secretion system (TTSS) genes cluster for the detection of Malaysian B. pseudomallei isolates and evaluated the assay on 95 local B. pseudomallei strains, 58 other microorganisms and 71 clinical specimens from patients. The developed assay exclusively detected all tested B. pseudomallei isolates with a detection limit of 20 fg per reaction (equivalent to ~2.5 copies). Subsequent testing on clinical samples showed that the assay detected all confirmed specimens with the growth of B. pseudomallei (n = 10/10). None of the negative specimens had a detectable signal of our TTSS-orf2 assay (n = 0/61). In conclusion, the present study provides crucial preliminary data for a subsequent study and should be considered as a potential alternative to current time-consuming culture method for the detection of B. pseudomallei.