Background: Highlighting the individual, host-vector interactions, and environmental risk factors for knowlesi malaria were consequential toward more focused and effective prevention and control strategies. This study aims to identify the individual, host-vector interactions, and environmental risk factors for Plasmodium knowlesi malaria among at-risk communities in Peninsular Malaysia. Materials and Methods: A case-control study was conducted involving laboratory-confirmed cases of P. knowlesi malaria, while a locality-matched individual with no history of fever and tested negative for malaria was taken as control. Univariate and multiple logistic regression were applied to evaluate the potential risk factors among respondents using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. Results: Results showed higher cases among males as compared to females (76.1% vs. 23.9%). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed being male is 3.51 higher risk (p < 0.001) to become a case. Respondents whose place of work or study is near the forest edge have 44.0% lower risk (p = 0.030), while those living in the Orang Asli village were 56.0% lower risk as compared to the organized village to become a case (p = 0.035). Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that gender emerges as an independent individual risk factor while residing near a forest edge, in an Orang Asli village, or occupying workers' longhouses situated in hilly areas lowered the environmental risk among respondents. These findings attested that alternative directions must be considered in addressing the known risk factors associated with this type of malaria and the design of prevention and control programs should be tailored to the unique characteristics of each population.
The world's rainforests hold untold potential for drug discovery. Rainforest plants are thought to contain evolved defensive active metabolites of greater diversity compared to plants from temperate regions. In recent years, the interest and overall output from pharmaceutical companies on novel antibacterial agents has diminished at a time when there is a critical need for them to fight the threat of resistance. In this study, we have investigated the antimicrobial properties of 21 flowering plants from 16 different families against six bacterial strains consisting of two Gram negative and four Gram positive. Using the pour plate disc diffusion technique, almost all extracts from these plants were found to be active against some of the bacterial strains tested. The most interesting and active plants with broad spectrum activities include Duabanga grandiflora, Acalypha wilkesiana and Pseuduvaria macrophylla where the minimum inhibitory concentration, minimum bactericidal concentration and phytochemical analysis were carried out. This is the first report describing the antimicrobial and phytochemical properties of D. grandiflora and P. macrophylla. Our findings support the utilisation of higher plant species in the search for new antimicrobial molecules to combat new emerging infective diseases and the problem of drug resistant pathogens.