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The global burden of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is increasing and its believed to be one of the leading causes of hepatocellular carcinoma and a major cause of chronic liver disease. The present study aimed at evaluating the prevalence of HCV genotype in association with viral load of infected individuals. A total of one hundred and seventy three (173) HCV seropositive patients were included in the study. RNA extraction was performed using Accuprep RNA extraction kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions.After running the HCV cDNA on 1.5% agarose gel, genotyping was completed using Beckman Coulter sequencing machine based on chain termination method.Accupower HCV-1111 (IVD) was used for the preparation of master mix and light cycler real time PCR machine version 5.2 was used for viral load. The result of the current study revealed that 93 (54%) patients were infected with the viral genotype 1b, followed by 1a with 64 (39%), 1c, 2a and 2b with 2 (1%), 9 (5%) and 5 (3%) respectively. Conclusively, genotype 1b has the highest prevalence, while 1c with lowest number of infected individuals.Moreover, in all the ranges of viral loads in the study, 1b was found to have highest prevalence.

Computers are ubiquitous and have been shown to be contaminated with potentially pathogenic bacteria in some communities. There is no economical way to test all the keyboards and mouse out there, but there are common-sense ways to prevent bacterial contamination or eliminate it if it exists. In this study, swabs specimens were collected from surfaces of 250 computer keyboards and mouse and plated on different bacteriological media. Organisms growing on the media were purified and identified using microbiological standards. It was found that all the tested computer keyboards and mouse devices, were positive for microbial contamination. The percentages of isolated bacteria (Staphylococcus spp., Escherichia spp., Pseudomonas spp. and Bacillus spp.) were 43.3, 40.9, 30.7, 34.1, 18.3, 18.2, 7.7 and 6.8% for computer keyboards and mouse respectively. The isolated bacteria were tested against the 6 different disinfectants (Dettol, Isol, Izal, JIK, Purit and Septol®). Antibacterial effects of the disinfectants were also concentration dependent. The agar well diffusion technique for determining Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) was employed. The Killing rate (K) and Decimal Reduction Time (DRT) of the disinfectants on the organism were also determined. The overall result of this study showed that Dettol®, followed by JIK® was highly effective against all the bacterial isolates tested while Septol and Izal® were least effective. Isol and Purit® showed moderate antibacterial effects. Keyboards and mouse should be disinfected daily. However, it is recommended that heightened surveillance of the microbial examination of computer keyboards should be undertaken at predetermined intervals.

Enteric fever is caused by antigenic variant group of bacteria known as Salmonella species. The disease is common in most developing countries being contacted though contaminated water, food and poor personal hygiene. The most significant challenge in the treatment of infected patients is misdiagnosis leading to high morbidity and mortality rate. We devised a time efficient technique which has been compared with tube agglutination method and culture and found it to be very efficient, sensitive and reliable. Blood samples from patients clinically diagnosed of enteric fever were collected and a 1:4 dilution of serum in saline was used for direct agglutination test. Results with visible agglutination were considered as significant and it compared favorably with tube agglutination and culture result. A total of two thousand two hundred and fifty specimens were tested. Among this, 1390 were positive for the

Urinary tract infection is common in the tropics especially in third world countries. In most regional laboratories the volume of urine specimens requested for culture and sensitivity are so overwhelming that it poses a great pressure on the laboratory staff and also consumes a lot of reagent. Evidence abound to support the fact that less than 50% of all such specimen are positive hence the need for a screening method that will reduce the large quantity of urine specimen that will undergo culture. The screening for significant bacteriuria will therefore obviate the wastage of materials, reagent, hospital manpower and time. The modified methylene blue screening technique was performed by adding 20 μl of methylene blue stain to 10 ml of well mixed urine sample and allowed to stand at room temperature for 5 minutes before reading the absorbance at 540 nm wavelength against water blank. The absorbance of the sample is compared with that of the cut-off value and those that exceed this value are recorded as being positive for significant bacteriuria while those with absorbance below the cut-off value are recorded as being negative and should not be cultured. The results obtained from the screening technique were compared with semiquantitative urine culture results. A total of 2683 samples were assayed, among this 984 (36.68%) had absorbance above the cut-off value and so were recorded as being positive for significant bacteriuria whereas 1699 (63.32%) had absorbance below the cut-off value and were recorded as being negative for significant bacteriuria. When compared with the semiquantitative culture, a total of 933 (34.85%) had isolates with significant bacterial growth of ≥105 CFU/ml while 1748 (65.15%) had either no bacterial growth or non-significant bacterial isolates. The technique showed a sensitivity of 94.82% and a specificity of 97.17%. The difference in significant bacteriuria between the urinary screening technique and culture isolate was statistically significant (p