Iranian Journal of Health Sciences
Volume:7 Issue: 3, Summer 2019

Viral hepatitis has been declared as one of the major health problems by World Health Organization. Hepatitis B surveillance system is one of the most important tools for managing the disease and achieving the targets of disease elimination. Despite its high efficiency, hepatitis B surveillance system has always been faced with many challenges. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the core functions of the hepatitis B surveillance system in southeastern region of Iran.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 hepatitis B surveillance experts in five counties of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, southeast Iran. The data were analyzed using content analysis method, based on the structure of the disease surveillance system. Purposeful sampling method was carried out and continued until saturation of the themes was achieved.

The main studied themes were case finding, case reporting, case registration, case confirmation, data analysis, sending feedback, and implementing interventions. The results of this study showed that all of the core functions of the hepatitis B surveillance system were running in the studied counties, although they did not meet the relevant standards in some cases.

It seemed that, despite the numerous efforts and activities, it was still far from reaching the targets of the program. Considering the goal of World Health Organization to eliminate hepatitis B by 2030, it is essential to address these challenges and make attempt to overcome them.

This study was undertaken, first, to investigate the hydrogeological setting of the study area and geophysical data, second to examine the general nature of the groundwater quality. In this regard, ordinary Kriging, Co-Kriging, and Inverse Weighted Distance (IWD) strategies were applied to develop spatial variability maps, and study the fluctuations in groundwater quality parameters in Zarin Abad plain, Zanjan Province, Iran in 2017-2018.

To inquire the groundwater quality parameters, samples were provided from 61 shallow and deeply drilled observed wells in Zarin Abad Goltapeh plain. The studies were carried out by using geostatistical methods to find out the most applicable method, which can be used to develop spatial variability maps in order to study the changes in groundwater quality parameters (Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, SO42-, HCO3-, Cl- and EC).  The local geophysical, geological, and hydrogeological surveys were precisely accomplished to specify the architecture of various subsurface geological horizons. In addition, a geophysical investigation with a Schlumberger configuration was performed in the study region for the purpose of field data generation.

Based on key results, the values of electrical conductivity (EC) were recorded within the range of 480 and 6580 μS/cm. The order of major cations and anions were Na+>Ca2+>Mg2+ and SO42->Cl->HCO3-, respectively. It is worthwhile mentioning that groundwater salinity was found to be dependent upon factors, such as water long residence time and minerals dissolution.

To assess the spatial distribution in groundwater parameters, the variable mode was used. The results obtained from Kriging, Co-Kriging, and IDW methods were then evaluated by the error indices of RMSE and MAE. Co-Kriging Model was the most optimal approach in studying the spatial variation of groundwater quality parameters.

In Iran, cancer kills 30,000 people, annually. The epidemiology of cancer is gradually changing as a result of the demographic and epidemiological transition in Iran. This study aimed at presenting a geographical distribution of cancer mortality in Southeast area of Iran, and comparing proportional mortality and age-adjusted mortality rates.

The present study was a descriptive study that was performed on mortality data recorded in the Center for Statistics Management of Health Ministry at Kerman and Rafsanjan Universities of Medical Sciences in the period 2012-2016. This information was used to determine the age-standardized mortality rate per 100,000 people and proportional mortality for each district in Kerman Province.

The proportional mortality for all cancers in Kerman and Rafsanjan Universities were 11.54% and 18%, respectively. Standardized mortality rates for all cancers in males in Kerman and Rafsanjan universities were also 81.9 and 81.3 per 100,000, respectively, while for females, it was 57.3 and 51.6 per 100,000 people, respectively.

Our results presented a general picture of the mortality due to cancer in one of the widest provinces of the country with more than 1.5 million habitants .Standardized mortality rates for all cancers in males and females in Rafsanjan universities was lower than Kerman. In spite of higher proportional mortality in Rafsanjan, the rate of death by cancer in Rafsanjan was lower than Kerman.

According to the importance of managerial skills in both public and private pharmacies, this study aimed to investigate the managerial skills of technical officers of pharmacies in south of Iran.

This was a cross-sectional study on 124 technical officers and 113 personnel working in the pharmacies in Shiraz in 2017. A researcher-made questionnaire was developed containing demographic questions (age, sex, and work experience), place of study, pharmacy ownership, and type of pharmacy, and 17 other questions to evaluate the managerial skills of the technical officers from their own self-assessment and their personnel viewpoints. The validity of the questionnaire was verified by experts, and its reliability was confirmed by a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.85. Data was analyzed applying SPSS23 through descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney, and Chi-square tests (α=5%).

 This study showed that from the perspective of the personnel working in pharmacies, the skill of “time management” was in a desirable condition, and the skill of “conflict management” was in an undesirable condition. Based on the results of the self-assessment of technical officers, their managerial skills were significantly related to gender, age, work experience, and pharmacy ownership. Accordingly, the female technical officers under 30 years of age, with a work experience of less than 16 years, who were working in public pharmacies assigned better scores to their managerial skills.

Based on the findings, it is necessary to improve the managerial skills of technical officers specially their ability of conflict management through appropriate training, and examine the impact of demographic factors and the characteristic of pharmacies on their managerial skills.

 One of the most important united nation Millennium Development Goals is to control Tuberculosis (TB). This study aimed to identify the high-risk areas of TB and other related factors of it in an epidemiological study.

 In this retrospective study, the records of 1566 TB infected patients in healthcare centers of 17 cities of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences were investigated during 2009-2013 years. Information of patients was gathered using a check list. The collected data was then analyzed using chi-square.

The mean age of the patients was 46.17± 20.6 years. The 5-year incidence rate was 12.14 in 100,000 populations. Cities in the east of Province (Sari, Behshahr, and Neka) had highest incidence rate (about 16 cases in 100,000 population). The incidence rate was different based on gender as, 15.3 % of the men and 10.2 % of the women were infected. The median delay time in the diagnosis was 34 days.

The incidence rate of TB in Mazandaran was found to be almost similar to the previous reported rate in Iran. High incidence rate in east of province may be due to bordering to the Golestan Province as the immigrant province. The short delay time of TB diagnosis during this period indicated the well health services practices in this province. More attention should be paid to high risk areas for identification and giving education to those patients.

Geographical distribution of ABO blood groups affects by race, ethnicity, migration and some infectious agents, such as Plasmodium species. P. falciparum is the major causative agent of death in malaria that can affect ABO blood group distribution in different populations. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to determine the effect of p. falciparum on ABO blood group distribution in Iran.

The present study was conducted on the database of Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO) in 30 provinces of the country about ABO and Rh blood groups of the people who referred to health centers from June 2011 to August 2012.  

A total number of 2124560 individuals were referred to IBTO in 30 provinces. The highest and lowest rates of O blood group were observed in Sistan & Baluchestan (64.6%) and Lorestan (37.7%), respectively. P. falciparum was the most common species of malaria in Sistan & Baluchestan (53215) and the rarest infection agent in Semnan province (20). The results showed statistically significant relationship (p < 0.05) between prevalence of P. falciparum with O blood group, while this relationship for A blood group was not significant (p > 0.05).

Our results revealed a significant relationship between prevalence of P. falciparum and geographical distribution of ABO blood. There was also found more susceptibility and risk to malaria infection and cerebral malaria in A blood group compared to other groups. In addition, this was the first comprehensive study on the ABO blood group system and Plasmodium infection in Iran.