Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from May to June 2017 in the private medical college in Malaysia.
Materials and Methods: We purposively selected the final year (semester 10) medical students and a total of 124 students participated in this study. We collected data using a self-administered, structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, and one-way analysis of variance.
Results: Among the final year medical students, 47.5% had moderate knowledge but 4.2% had good knowledge of mandatory infectious disease notification. Only 3.2% of the students correctly answered all the notifiable diseases listed in the questionnaire. Most of the students had positive attitude toward communicable diseases reporting, rewards, and penalty for notification. There was no significant relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and knowledge and attitude of infectious disease notification.
Conclusions: The majority of the final year medical students had moderate level of knowledge and positive attitude of infectious disease notification; however, there were some deficiencies. Better instruction and training on infectious disease notification procedures of Malaysia should be provided to the final year medical students which could not only reduce underreporting but also improve timely and effective reporting in future.
AREAS COVERED: In Central Asia, the number of new AIDS cases increased by 29%. It is more endemic in the poor population with variations in the cost of illness. Dengue is prevalent in more than 100 countries, including the Asia-Pacific region. In Southeast Asia, the annual economic burden of dengue fever was between $ 610 and $ 1,384 million, with a per capita cost of $ 1.06 to $ 2.41. Globally, 2.9 billion people are at risk of developing malaria, 90% of whom are residents of the Asia and Pacific region. The annual per capita cost of malaria control ranged from $ 0.11 to $ 39.06 and for elimination from $ 0.18 to $ 27.
EXPERT OPINION: The cost of AIDS, dengue, and malaria varies from country to country due to different health-care systems. The literature review has shown that the cost of dengue disease and malaria is poorly documented.
Aim: This study was designed to determine whether the phenotypic antibiotic resistance pattern of B. pseudomallei is associated with the source of isolates and the genotype.
Materials and Methods: A collection of 111 B. pseudomallei isolates from veterinary cases of melioidosis and the environments (soil and water) were obtained from stock cultures of previous studies and were phylogenetically characterized by multilocus sequence typing (ST). The susceptibility to five antibiotics, namely meropenem (MEM), imipenem, ceftazidime (CAZ), cotrimoxazole (SXT), and co-amoxiclav (AMC), recommended in both acute and eradication phases of melioidosis treatment were tested using minimum inhibitory concentration antibiotics susceptibility test.
Results: Majority of isolates were susceptible to all antibiotics tested while few resistant strains to MEM, SXT, CAZ, and AMC were observed. Statistically significant association was found between resistance to MEM and the veterinary clinical isolates (p<0.05). The likelihood of resistance to MEM was significantly higher among the novel ST 1130 isolates found in veterinary cases as compared to others.
Conclusion: The resistance to MEM and SXT appeared to be higher among veterinary isolates, and the novel ST 1130 was more likely to be resistant to MEM as compared to others.