Objective: Lisinopril is the drug of choice in hypertension. Bioavailability of the drug is 25% of orally administered dose. An attempt was made to provide safe medicine meeting pharmacokinetics requirement of plasma concentration by formulating a sublingual tablet of Lisinopril. The Objective of present study is to develop the sublingual tablet of Lisinopril and improve its bioavailability, in view to maximize therapeutic effect of the drug. Method:The directly compressed tablet of Lisinopril was formulated using Mannitol, Micro Crystalline Cellulose and Kyron T-314 as super disintegrant. Formulation (F1-F7) was evaluated for disintegration time and in vitro release study. Further the optimized sublingual formulation (F6) and marketed formulation was subjected to in-vivo comparative bioavailability study using white New Zealand rabbits. Results: It was observed that concentration of Micro Crystalline Cellulose, Kyron T-314 has significant effect on the disintegration time of Lisinopril sublingual tablet formulations. The super disintegrant concentration 5% w/w (Kyron T-314) was found optimum in all tablet formulations. AUC of optimized sublingual tablet and oral tablet are 925.35μg×h/mL and 641.97 μg×h/mL with Cmax of 60.80 μg/mL and 41.21 μg/mL and Tmax of 4 h and 4 h respectively. The bioavailability of optimized sublingual tablet of Lisinopril was improved by 1.44 times as compared to conventional oral marketed tablet of Lisinopril. Conclusions: The present approach of formulating sublingual tablet of Lisinopril would definitely improve bioavailability leading to reduced conventional dose of this drug. The administration of sublingual tablet becoming easy and it will improve patient compliance to therapy for hypertension for pediatrics, geriatric and bed ridden patient.

Breast cancer is now the leading cause of mortality from cancer in Women in Fiji. State of the art diagnostic measures such as MRI, PET scanning and advanced tumour markers are unavailable in many LMIC countries including Fiji, but CT is becoming more widely available. The aim of the study was to determine the association between CT/anatomical staging and prognosis in a resource-limited setting, and its role in planning appropriate treatment strategies. This was a retrospective, analytical study of the data from the Colonial War Memorial Hospital Oncology department tumour register recorded between 2013 and 2018. The mean age of the breast cancer patients with confirmed diagnosis was 54.93 years with SD of 12.4 years. There was a 40% 3 year mortality rate. CT reports were available for 196 patients. Poor prognosis was very closely associated with Tumour size (p=0.002, OR 0.26 (0.10-0.63)), Nodes (p<0.001, OR 0.25 (0.13-0.48.)) and Metastases (p<0.001, OR 0.13 (0.07- 0.25)).The lungs were the most frequent site of metastases. CT staging enables accurate TNM classification, which is closely associated with prognosis. In the absence of advanced cytopathological and imaging modalities CT staging has an important part to play in planning appropriate treatment.

The alkaloid securinine was assessed against spore germination of some plant pathogenic and saprophytic fungi (Alternaria alternata, Alternaria brassicae, Alternaria brassicicola, Curvularia lunata, Curvularia maculans, Curvularia pallenscens, Colletotrichum musae, Colletotrichum sp., Erysiphe pisi, Helminthosporium echinoclova, Helminthosporium spiciferum, Heterosporium sp.). Spore germinations of all the tested fungi were inhibited. Alternaria brassicicola, C. lunata, C. pallenscens and H. spiciferum were highly sensitive as complete inhibition of spore germination was observed at very low concentrations (200 ppm).
Alternaria ; Azepines ; Brassica ; Colletotrichum ; Fungi ; Germination ; Helminthosporium ; Heterocyclic Compounds, Bridged-Ring ; Lactones ; Musa ; Phyllanthus ; Piperidines ; Plants ; Spores

Lamivudine has been widely used in the treatment of HIV disease. A reliable, sensitive reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method was developed and validated for lamivudine in rabbit plasma. The method was developed on Hypersil BDS C-18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) using a mobile phase of 0.25％ Triethylamine buffer (pH 3.0):acetonitrile (70:30, v/v). The efficient was monitored by UV detector at 256 nm. The total run time was 15 min with a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. Calibration curve was linear over the concentration range of 25-2000 ng/mL. The retention times of lamivudine and internal standard (Nelfinavir) were 8.78 min and 10.86 min, respectively. The developed RP-HPLC method can be successfully applied for the quantitative pharmacokinetic parameters determination of lamivudine in rabbit model.

Antibiotics are the chemotherapeutic agents that kill or inhibit the pathogenic microorganisms. Re-sistance of microorganism to antibiotics is a growing problem around the world due to indiscriminate and irrational use of antibiotics. In order to overcome the resistance problem and to safely use antibiotics, the correct measurement of potency and bioactivity of antibiotics is essential. Microbiological assay and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method are used to quantify the potency of antibiotics. HPLC method is commonly used for the quantification of potency of antibiotics, but unable to determine the bioactivity; whereas microbiological assay estimates both potency and bioactivity of antibiotics. Additionally, bioassay is used to estimate the effective dose against antibiotic resistant microbes. Simultaneously, microbiological assay addresses the several parameters such as minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC), minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC), mutation prevention concentration (MPC) and critical concentration (Ccr) which are used to describe the potency in a more informative way. Microbiological assay is a simple, sensitive, precise and cost effective method which gives reproducible results similar to HPLC. However, the HPLC cannot be a complete substitute for microbiological assay and both methods have their own significance to obtain more realistic and precise results.

Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) are the back bone of primary health care services in India. The horizontal integration of various national health programmes has increased their responsibility and workload. So a need was felt to conduct a study to assess the workload and performance of ANMs. The objective of the study was to explore the workload and performance of ANMs in selected health care settings in North India. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted in two selected health care settings of North India. The study was conducted on all the 7 ANMs working in the selected health care settings. Data was collected by observing the activities of ANMs using time activity record sheet. The nursing care procedures performed were observed and scored by using performance check list. T-test was used to compare actual time against standard time for performing procedures. ANMs spent 2/3rd of their time in indirect care activities. Direct care and personal activities accounted for 19 % of their time. Their performance was rated as good. Majority of the time spent by ANMs was utilized in performing indirect care activities. This study recommends that more time is needed to be devoted to direct care by ANMs.​

The seroprevalence of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) among equines was evaluated from January 2006 to December 2009 in 13 different states of India by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test and virus neutralization test (VNT). Antibodies against JEV were detected in 327 out of 3,286 (10%) equines with a maximum prevalence reported in the state of Manipur (91.7%) followed by Gujarat (18.5%), Madhya Pradesh (14.4%), and Uttar Pradesh (11.6%). Evidence of JEV infection was observed in equines in Indore (Madhya Pradesh) where a 4-fold or higher rise in antibody titer was observed in 21 out of 34 horses in November 2007 to October 2006. In March 2008, seven of these horses had a subsequent 4-fold rise in JEV antibody titers while this titer decreased in nine animals. JEV-positive horse sera had a JEV/WNV (West Nile virus) ratio over 2.0 according to the HI and/or VNT. These results indicated that JEV is endemic among equines in India.
Animals ; Encephalitis, Japanese/blood/epidemiology/*veterinary ; *Equidae ; India/epidemiology ; Neutralization Tests ; Seroepidemiologic Studies ; Time Factors

The effect of methanolic extract of cashewnut (Anacardium occidentale) shell extract was seen on conidial germination of Erysiphe pisi and powdery mildew development in pea (Pisum sativum). Maximum conidial germination inhibition of E. pisi on glass slides was observed at 300 ppm. Similar effect on floated pea leaves was observed after 48 h at the same concentration. Conidial germination on intact untreated pea leaves was also assessed on II and IV nodal leaves while IV and II nodal leaves were treated with the extract and vice versa. There was tremendous reduction in conidial germination on all the nodal leaves. The disease intensity of pea powdery mildew was significantly reduced by methanolic extract of cashewnut shells. Maximum reduction was observed with 200 ppm where 39% disease intensity was recorded in comparison to 96.53% in the control. The phenolic acid content of pea leaves following treatments with this extract varied and no definite pattern was observed. Out of several phenolic compounds, namely, gallic, ferulic, chlorogenic, and cinnamic acids, only gallic acid was found to be present consistently in all the treatments with varied amounts.
Anacardium ; Gallic Acid ; Germination ; Glass ; Hydroxybenzoates ; Methanol ; Peas ; Phenol

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is an important vector-borne viral disease of humans and horses in Asia. JE outbreaks occur regularly amongst humans in certain parts of India and sporadic cases occur among horses. In this study, JE seroprevalence and evidence of JE virus (JEV) infection among horses in Haryana (India) is described. Antibodies against JEV were detected in 67 out of 637 (10.5%) horses screened between 2006 and 2010. Two foals exhibiting neurological signs were positive for JEV RNA by RT-PCR; JEV was isolated from the serum of one of the foals collected on the second day of illness. This is the first report of JEV isolation from a horse in India. Furthermore, a pool of mosquitoes collected from the premises housing these foals was positive for JEV RNA by RT-PCR. Three structural genes, capsid (C), premembrane (prM), and envelope (E) of the isolated virus (JE/eq/India/H225/2009) spanning 2,500 nucleotides (from 134 to 2,633) were cloned and sequenced. BLAST results showed that these genes had a greater than 97% nucleotide sequence identity with different human JEV isolates from India. Phylogenetic analysis based on E- and C/prM genes indicated that the equine JEV isolate belonged to genotype III and was closely related to the Vellore group of JEV isolates from India.
Animals ; Antibodies, Monoclonal ; Cloning, Molecular ; Culex/virology ; Encephalitis Virus, Japanese/*genetics/*isolation & purification ; Encephalitis, Japanese/epidemiology/*veterinary/virology ; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay/methods/veterinary ; Female ; Genes, Viral ; Genotype ; Horse Diseases/epidemiology/*virology ; Horses ; India/epidemiology ; RNA, Viral/genetics/isolation & purification ; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction/veterinary ; Seroepidemiologic Studies