Objective: To determine the seroprevalence of B19V IgM as a measure of acute infection and associated risk factors among < 5 years children at Oyo state, Nigeria. Methods: One hundred and sixteen (116) and thirty eight (38) blood samples were individually collected from severe anaemia and age-matched non-anaemic children between 1-60 months old at Oyo state, Nigeria. EDTA anticoagulated blood was tested for their packed cell volume, while sera were tested for human parvovirus IgM antibodies using microhaematocrit centrifuge and Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay, respectively. Interviewer-based questionnaires were used to collect participants' sociodemographic variables. Results: Anti-B19V IgM was detected in 17 (14.7%) severe anaemia subjects, whereas, only 2 (5.3%) non-anaemia subjects had B19V IgM. The prevalence of parvovirus B19 IgM antibodywas higher in anaemic subjects than non-anaemic control group. There is significant association between the seroprevalence of anti-B19V IgM and family size (P=0.001), number of siblings (P=0.032) and education status (P=0.01) of anaemic children but seroprevalence of anti-B19V IgM is not significantly associated with gender, family type and age (P>0.05). Conclusions: The seroprevalence of 14.7% among anaemic children confirm that these infections are endemic in Nigeria. This level of infectivity suggests that there is a high risk of transmission to healthy children as well as children with underlying haemolytic or acquired anaemia in Nigeria.

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Endogenous endophthalmitis is a devastating infection of the eye which can lead to permanent blindness. We report two rare cases of paediatric endogenous endophthalmitis secondary to melioidosis with contrasting visual outcomes. Both patients presented with acute painful visual loss with poor vision on presentation after exposure to open water sources (swimming at two separate locations with waterfalls). Both were diagnosed to have melioidosis endogenous endophthalmitis based on the ocular features clinically and via positive melioidosis serology. They otherwise did not exhibit any symptoms and signs suggestive of systemic melioidosis infection. Even though the two children demonstrated severe ocular involvement, ocular culture from vitreous and aqueous sampling taken from one of the patients did not yield any positive results. No ocular sampling was taken from the other patient. After standard antimicrobial treatment, the first patient responded well with good visual recovery without requiring any surgical intervention for the endophthalmitis. In contrast, our second patient ended up with poor visual outcome despite undergoing multiple intravitreal antibiotic injections and early pars plana vitrectomy. This is because he developed extensive retinal detachment due to the aggressive ocular infection. The diagnosis of endogenous endophthalmitis due to ocular melioidosis remains challenging and requires a high index of suspicion in areas endemic for the causative organism. Early empirical antibiotic treatment should be initiated in suspicious cases, even though the treatment outcomes may vary greatly.

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Endemic to over 100 countries dengue virus infection has now become the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne disease in the world. Dengue symptoms range from minor flu-like symptoms to major complications like bleeding, shock, and rarely death due to organ failure. Atypical manifestations of neurological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal origin are collectively grouped into the expanded dengue syndrome. Acute motor quadriparesis have been reported in several cases of dengue infection. We report a rare and non-fatal case of motor quadriparesis due to hypokalemia complicated by associated hypomagnesemia in a dengue positive patient.

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Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disease characterized by hypertension and proteinuria, by definition, developing after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Here we present an atypical case of severe preeclampsia complicated by generalized convulsions (eclampsia) and hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count syndrome in an 18 weeks pregnant patient with chronic hypertension. Occurrence of these complications was preceded by upper right quadrant abdominal pain and severe hypertension. In this case no evidence of autoimmunity disorders or molar pregnancy was found.

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Chicken pox is a disease of childhood caused by varicella zoster virus belonging to the α-herpesvirus-3 family. But the clinical presentation in adults is uncommon and is usually associated with complications. The complications are more commonly seen in immunocompromised individuals and in people who get infected at the later age group. Since the varicella zoster virus rarely causes cerebellar disease in adults, hence here we report a non-immunized, immune-competent adult patient presented to the emergency department with unsteadiness in gait, profuse sweating, exanthematous vesicular rash. We made a diagnosis of acute cerebellar ataxia due to varicella zoster virus and treated accordingly.

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Objective: To study the changes of cognitive function in mouse after brain-blast injury. Methods: Fourty healthy male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into model group and control group. After 24 h of injury, histopathological changesc and reactive oxygen species changes were observed under microscope; while changes of inflammatory cytokines content were determined by Western-blot. Four weeks later, Morris water maze method was used to detect the cognition impairment. Results: HE staining showed blast induced brain injury in C57BL/6 mice. Compared with normal control group, the expression of IL-1β,IL-4, IL-6 were significantly increased in brain tissue of model group whereas IL-10 was significantly decreased (P<0.05); ROS expression in the hippocampus of model group mice was significantly increased compared with that in the control group. Morris water maze showed cognition impairment in mice after brain-blast injury. Conclusions: Brain-blast injury causes cognition impairment in mice, which may be related to the occur of inflammatory change and oxidative stress in the early stage.

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Objective: To evaluate the role of regulatory T cells (Tregs) at late stages of stroke. Methods: Anti-CD25 antibody (or PBS as a control) was injected to reduce the pool of Tregs in Wistar rats; then, ischemia was induced transiently by middle cerebral artery occlusion during 60 min and reperfusion was allowed for 7 d. Then, Treg frequency was analyzed in peripheral blood, spleen and lymph nodes. Neurological score (0-6) and infarct volume were also determined. Results: Nine days after injection, the CD4⁺CD25⁺ T cells were reduced by 70.4%, 44.8% and 57.9% in peripheral blood, spleen and lymph nodes, respectively compared to PBS-treated rats. In contrast, the reduction of CD4⁺FOXP3⁺ T cells was lower in the same compartments (38.6%, 12.5%, and 29.5%, respectively). The strongest reduction of CD25⁺CD4⁺ T cells was observed in those FOXP3-negative cells in blood, spleen and lymph nodes (77.8%, 52.8%, and 60.7%, respectively), most likely corresponding to activated T cells. Anti-CD25-treated transient middle cerebral artery occlusion rats had a lower neurological deficit and did not develop tissue damage compared with PBS-treated animals. Conclusions: These findings suggest that treatment with anti-CD25 in our model preferentially reduce the T cell population with an activated phenotype, rather than the Treg population, leading to neuroprotection by suppressing the pathogenic response of effector T cells.

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The large amount of classifications about the concept of death from a medical-legal perspective leads us to think that there are still many aspects to accurately define that precise moment in which the end of our earthly existence is considered as a final and unalterable fact. An answer to such a question may come from a retrospective analysis of those victims of impending-death situations that have been rescued after both basic and advanced cardiac pulmonary resuscitation failure and their consequent medical-legal death declaration. The aim of the following work is to introduce a new phase within forensic thanatology, supported by a complementary resuscitation maneuver based upon millennial traditional Chinese medicine principles together with a detailed analysis of current global agreements on organ transplantation and an avant-garde perspective on actual knowledge about cell death. Those terms will then allow us to achieve a holistic view of said concept, still loosely defined at present. Such an innovative diagnostic-therapeutic resource can in turn enable us to evaluate and face the irreversibility of such extreme situation, analyzing the statistical feasibility of its promising results.

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Ketamine is a well-known dissociative anesthetic agent, and has been used over 50 years. Intranasal pathway is a mucosal way for absorbing agents to directly affect in brain via olfactory sheets, bypassing first pass metabolism and the blood brain barrier. The current uses of intranasal ketamine as an analgesic agent for acute pain management in emergency department are discussed in this review article. Using "ketamine", "pain or analgesia", and "intranasal" as keywords, a search of google scholar, Pubmed, web of science, and Medline database from 1970 until 2017 was performed. Finally, from 1 204 papers extracted via primary search, 1 088 papers were omitted and finally 10 studies were considered for further assessment. There were four observational studies, one case series and report and 5 clinical trials. Ketamine was used for acute pain control due to musculoskeletal trauma, burns, and painful procedures. A total of 390 cases were included in these studies. The studies used ketamine with doses ranging 0.45-1.25 mg/kg via intranasal pathway. Intranasal ketamine provides relatively rapid, well tolerated, and clinically significant analgesia for emergency department patients. Considering the lack of adequate studies and undetermined intranasal dose, it is better to conduct further high quality investigation in both adults and pediatrics.

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