ABSTRACTQuestionnaires were administered to a hundred and thirty- two mothers (132) selected at random at four (4) mother and child welfare clinics in Accra in order to obtain their views and expectations of cowpea-fortified weaning formulations. Majority of these mothers (>80%) prepared infant weaning porridges from raw ingredients, eg. fermented maize dough, and were willing to incorporate cowpea into their infant porridges and other foods if it was available as a raw or pre-cooked flour on...
ABSTRACT Buruli ulcer remains a neglected tropical disease endemic in Africa especially Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. It is a necrotizing skin and soft tissue infection caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans which produces mycolactone which causes adverse effects associated with disease in humans. Other mycolactone producing bacteria (MPMs) have been identified to cause granulomas in fish and frog. There are limited advanced genetic tools for studying transmission of the diseases and for carrying out...
ABSTRACTStudies have established the presence of some species including fish, in highly polluted water bodies. In order to develop a better understanding of their ability to survive in such environments, this work was undertaken to ascertain the extent of microsomal cytochrome P450 induction, the modification of other proteins and the impact of the pollutants on the genetic material of the surviving organisms. In these studies, hepatic microsomal and cytosolic fractions were prepared from Cla...
ABSTRACT Background: Malaria is one of the leading vector-borne infectious diseases in the world with alarming death rates, which is of public health concern. Only 0.1-1 gametocyte per µL blood is sufficient to spread malaria; however microscopy which is the gold standard for detection has a detection limit of 8 gametocytes per µL. Therefore, some individuals who may be diagnosed by microscopy as negative for gametocyte may be possible reservoirs of malaria transmission. Main Objective: Thi...
ABSTRACTStudies were carried out under ambient laboratory conditions of 32 °C ± 2 and 74 - 87 % r.h. to determine the suitability of sorghum grain as a substrate that would support both the feeding and breeding of Prostephanus truncatus (Horn). Three sorghum varieties (Framida, Mankaraga and Naga-White) and one maize variety (Obatanpa) grown in Ghana were used in thestudy. Three forms of the substrates: Whole grain, Coarsely-ground grain and Grain flour were used for bioassays. The Fj proge...
ABSTRACT Food safety and the occurrence of diarrhoea are a challenge in the management of food systems in Africa. Infections arising from diarrhoea can be very devastating on the population, especially children. The traditional fermented maize dough systems have been identified as being able to reduce considerably the growth of diarrhoeal causing organisms and improve safety The study was set up to investigate: 1. The survival of selected diarrhoeal causing bacteria (Salmonella, Shigella and ...
ABSTRACT The use of X-ray equipment in diagnostic radiography increases with demographic growth of population and Benin is not an exception. Achieving good quality image while keeping workers, public and patient exposure to ionizing radiation at an acceptable level has become a prerequisite for radiology department in their effort to comply with radiation protection principle of optimization. The present research work undertook quality control measurement of seven diagnostic radiography equip...
ABSTRACT The monitoring of the current global strategy for the elimination of lymphatic filariasis (LF) can be confounded if other parasites indistinguishable from Wuchereria bancrofti also occur in endemic areas. An incidental examination of cattle blood revealed microfilariae that were morphologically similar to W. bancrofti. This study was therefore conducted to characterize these cattle filarial parasite. A total of 284 cattle from Somanya, Winneba and Axim were screened randomly for fila...
ABSTRACT Tomato is one of the most important vegetable crops in the world which is either consumed fresh or as a paste. The high cost of chemical fertilizers has led to farmers turning to alternative methods of cultivation like the use of organic manure. Most organic waste can be turned into fertilizer at low cost for crop production. Information on the effects of different extraction duration methods on seed quality and the costs involved have not been documented under production conditions ...
ABSTRACT Exploration activities have intensified in the Tano basin following the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities at the Jubilee fields. The analogue Accra-Keta Basin is still under explored but found to be highly prospective. In this context, this research utilized a twenty (20) two dimensional (2D) seismic line and well data comprising of gamma ray log, density log, sonic log, spontaneous potential and resistivity logs. These data sets were used to evaluate the hydrocarbon ...
ABSTRACT Within persons infected with HIV worldwide, almost 10% have chronic HBV infection, and about 6% of all HBV infected patients are co-/superinfected with HDV, resulting in accelerated progression of hepatitis towards end stage liver disease. Even though within HIV/HBV infected patients, an increase in HDV infection has been observed, there is inadequate information on HDV prevalence as well as virologic profile in Ghana. This study sought to determine the presence of HDV in HIV/HBV co-...
ABSTRACT Depletion rates of three triazine herbicides, atrazine, simazine and ametryne and two urea base herbicides, diuron and metobromuron, under laboratory conditions have been investigated in soil samples collected from GAEC, a coastal savannah soil, and KNUST, a forest zone soil. Two hundred grammes of the soil samples were treated with herbicides standard solution to generate herbicide-soil concentration of 10 pg/g and incubated at room temperature for 12 weeks. TLC methodology was used...
Mushroom is a macro-fungus with a unique fruiting body, that can be easily seen with the naked eye and large enough to be picked by hand, which can be either epigeous or hypogenous (Chang and Miles, 2004) Macrofungi are lower plants that lack flowers and fruits of the higher orders (Adejumo and Awosanya, 2005; Ayodele and Akpaja, 2007). There are two major groups of macrofungi which are toadstools and mushrooms. Mushrooms locally known as ‘olu’ in the Southwestern Nigeria are a grou...
ABSTRACT Fermentation of sugared tea with a symbiotic culture of acetic acid bacteria and yeast (tea fungus) yields kombucha tea which is consumed worldwide for its refreshing taste and beneficial effects on human health. It is claimed to prevent various types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, promote liver function, and stimulate the immune system. The antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of tea kombucha and unfermented tea were, therefore, investigated in this study. The cytoto...
ABSTRACT Introduction: Despite being thought to be a group of rare disorders, the incidence of autoimmune conditions like Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune thyroiditis are on the rise in Ghana. Autoimmune disorders result from a breakdown of immunologic tolerance leading to an immune reaction against self-autoantigens. Antinuclear antibodies are a group of autoantibodies that mediate the pathogenesis of several autoimmune conditions es...