Publications by authors named "Omer A Shaikh"

Background: Despite an increasing incidence of Staphylococcus aureus infection and dissemination in Pakistan, the epidemiology of different Staphylococcus aureus research clones has been the subject of only a small number of investigations. By analyzing the collected data sequence, this study was designed to study the epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus in the area using multilocus sequence typing (MLST).

Methods: A total of 1015 staphylococcus strains collected from the city's tertiary care facilities were biochemically screened, followed by antimicrobial susceptibility testing against a panel of 13 antibiotics.

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Background: The atlantoaxial joint has a complex anatomical configuration and has a wide range of mobility. Traumatic, inflammatory, and neoplastic joint pathologies frequently affect this joint. The aim of this retrospective cross-sectional study was to evaluate the atlanto-dental intervals (ADI) in patients who underwent computed tomography (CT) scans of the neck and cervical spine in at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.

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Personalized medicine entails tailoring medical care to an individual's unique genomic and molecular characteristics. AI holds significant promise in advancing the field of personalized medicine. The challenge lies in effectively analyzing vast amounts of data to create tailored treatment approaches.

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Typhoid fever, caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi, is an often-fatal illness prevalent in Africa and South Asia. The illness has seen an alarming rise in multi-drug-resistant (MDR) and extensive drug-resistant (XDR) strains, particularly in Pakistan. The MDR strain links to the H58 haplotype, and its XDR variant exhibits fluoroquinolone resistance due to an IncY plasmid.

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Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) following COVID-19, a condition primarily diagnosed in children, has also been observed less frequently in adults. It usually presents with a multitude of symptoms, mimicking a shock-like state characterized by multiple organ failure. Diagnosis often involves ruling out other conditions and timely management to mitigate morbidity and mortality.

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a global humanitarian crisis. Despite ongoing research, transmission risks and many disease characteristics remained unclear. Most patients have displayed elevated levels of certain inflammatory markers, which we sought to investigate further in relation to disease severity.

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A rise in the incidence of water-borne, communicable illnesses, and viral outbreaks in Pakistan follows periods of heavy rainfall. Due to climate change, floods and droughts have had devastating effects on human health by facilitating the spread of infectious illnesses including cholera, malaria, typhoid, dengue fever, and viral hepatitis A. Food instability, starvation, malnutrition, and a lack of potable water are only some of the indirect effects of flooding on health.

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Science is digging for the varied presentation of COVID-19 patients exposed to the same risk factors, and medical conditions may be influenced by the presence of polymorphic genetic variants. This study investigated the link between ACE2 gene polymorphisms and the severity of SARS-CoV-2. This cross-sectional study recruited COVID-19 PCR-positive patients by consecutive sampling from Ziauddin Hospital from April to September 2020.

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As the world is still fighting to combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus, the United Republic of Tanzania has been confronting yet another bacterial infection called leptospirosis (LS). It is caused by the spirochete bacteria of genus , and has been known to infect several people, already claiming a number of lives. It infects 1 million people annually with ~60 000 deaths having a fatality rate of 6.

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Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a chronic, one of the commonest and persistent gastrointestinal (GI) disorder. Previously, the management plan for IBS-D included enhancing awareness; first line treatment included an increased dietary fiber intake, opioids for diarrhea and antispasmodics for pain management. A recent treatment guideline by the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) suggests a modified approach to treating patients with IBS-D.

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Jejunal diverticula are often asymptomatic and rare, so they can go unnoticed until serious complications like obstruction, bleeding, perforation, volvulus, or diverticulitis occur. Elderly people over 60 are more likely to have this condition.

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Acute liver failure (ALF) is a potentially fatal illness marked by the abrupt development of jaundice, coagulopathy, and hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in persons having no previous history of hepatic disease. It is a relatively uncommon illness, having an incidence of 1 to 8 per million people. Hepatitis A, B, and E viruses have been documented as the most prevalent etiologies of acute liver failure in Pakistan and other developing nations.

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With over 500 million confirmed cases and 6.2 million deaths worldwide, the novel coronavirus has highlighted the underlying disparities in healthcare, unpreparedness to deal with a new disease and the need for monitoring and surveillance for a post-infectious syndrome as well as complicated diseases. Initially, children were thought to be spared but reports of a new phenomenon manifesting as Kawasaki-like disease, toxic shock syndrome, and multi-system inflammatory syndrome, which developed after a few weeks of severe COVID-19 infection, emerged in the pediatric population.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Treatment for AS includes NSAIDs and TNF inhibitors, which have shown significant improvement in symptoms, with drugs like Etanercept and Adalimumab being commonly used.
  • * Upadacitinib has emerged as an effective treatment for active non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis, especially considering the limitations of current oral therapies and the strong hereditary nature of the disease, marking progress toward internationally approved treatment options.
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This editorial highlights the alarming increase in pediatric cases of severe acute hepatitis of unknown etiology. Global strategies should be implemented to prevent the current high workload of the healthcare system from getting worse.

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