Poisoning with toxic substances accidently or deliberately can be life threatening and especially in some countries that lack the essential tests and facilities to identify the types and causes of these toxic substances. In Iraq, as many other countries, poisoning is one of the chronic public health problems. However, very little literature about the pattern of poisoning cases, types and age is available in Duhok Governorate. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the most common patterns of poisoning and the related age and gender in Duhok Governorate from 2016-2018, which would possibly contribute to the early diagnosis and treatment of poisoning. The present study was conducted for three years, started from 1st of January 2016 until31st of December 2018. Data were collected from Duhok General Directorate of Health database, based on the data collected from all Duhok Governorate hospitals and health care centers concerning poisoning types, patient’s age and gender. Descriptive statistic was used to analyze the data including (frequency, mean and percentage). A total of 27831 poisoned patients admitted to Duhok city and their districts health centers. Thirteen separated pattern cases of poisoning were recorded. The most common pattern of poisoning cases was food poisoning (61%) in 2016, (75%) in 2017, and dropped to 48% in 2018. In addition to other types of poisoning such as (herbals, sagwa, allergies, metals, organophosphate, rat poising and others) (11.7% in 2016, 4.8% in 2017 and 19.7% in 2018) and scorpion bites (5% in 2016, 5.7% in 2017 and 11.5% in 2018). Poisoning by drugs was the highest in 2018 (667 cases 9.6%) compared to 2017 (574 cases 5.7%) and 2016 (476 cases 4.3%). All other poisoning pattern (insect bite, soaps and other detergents, snake bits, animal’s bits and insecticide) were about or less than 1%. No recorded cases were poisoned by illegal addictive drugs during the period of study. Out of 27831 cases of poisoning, females were much prone to be poisoned than males during the three years 2018, 2017 and 2016. Females were affected by food poisoning (80%) as compared to male (70%). The age between 15-48 years old composed about 43.8% of the total cases, which is the highest % ration among other age groups. In Duhok Governorate, patterns of poisoning in the present study were the first to be documented. The study concludes that the majority of victims were female and food poisons were the most common type. It also seems that less effort is taken from the Committee of Health and Safety Issues. Our study suggests that establishment of specialist poison health centers, and raising awareness among people help effectively to resolve this public problem.
In the present study, magnet silica-coated Ag2WO4/Ag2S nanocomposites (FOSOAWAS) were fabricated via a multistep method to address the drawbacks related to single photocatalysts (pure Ag2WO4 and pure Ag2S) and to clarify the significant influence of semiconductor heterojunction on the enhancement of visible-light-driven organic degradation. Different techniques were performed to investigate the elemental composition, morphology, magnetic and photoelectrochemical properties of the fabricated FOSOAWAS photocatalyst. The FOSOAWAS photocatalyst (1 g/L) exhibited excellent photodegradation efficiency (99.5%) against Congo red dye (CR = 20 ppm) after 140 min of visible-light illumination. This result confirmed the ability of the heterojunction be
... Show MoreAbstract: Background: Staphylococcus aureus is Gram-positive bacteria that lives as a normal flora in living organisms but can be pathogenic to humans. Although a relatively unspectacular, nonmotile coccoid bacterium, S. aureus is a dangerous human pathogen in both community-acquired and nosocomial infections. Due to the increasing emergence of new strains of this antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it has become essential to approach different methods to control this pathogen. One of these methods is the antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation process using a low-level laser, in this paper, the Photodynamic effects of Rose Bengal and LLLL on the virulence factors of S.aureus were evaluated.
Purpose Heavy metals are toxic pollutants released into the environment as a result of different industrial activities. Biosorption of heavy metals from aqueous solutions is a new technology for the treatment of industrial wastewater. The aim of the present research is to highlight the basic biosorption theory to heavy metal removal. Materials and methods Heterogeneous cultures mostly dried anaerobic bacteria, yeast (fungi), and protozoa were used as low-cost material to remove metallic cations Pb(II), Cr(III), and Cd(II) from synthetic wastewater. Competitive biosorption of these metals was studied. Results The main biosorption mechanisms were complexation and physical adsorption onto natural active functional groups. It is observed that
... Show MoreThis study uses an environmentally friendly and low-cost synthesis method to manufacture zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) by using zinc sulfate. Eucalyptus leaf extract is an effective chelating and capping agent for synthesizing ZnO NPs. The structure, morphology, thermal behavior, chemical composition, and optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles were studied utilizing FT-IR, FE-SEM, EDAX, AFM, and Zeta potential analysis. The FE-SEM pictures confirmed that the ZnO NPs with a size range of (22-37) nm were crystalline and spherical. Two methods were used to prepare ZnO NPs. The first method involved calcining the resulting ZnO NPs, while the second method did not. The prepared ZnO NPs were used as adsorbents for removing acid black 210
... Show MoreThis study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From
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