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Background & objectives: Rickettsial diseases are important re-emerging infections that mostly go unnoticed or are misdiagnosed. Though few case reports of Indian tick typhus have been reported in Indian literature in the past 10 yr, prevalence surveys are few and far between. The objective of this research was to study the seroprevalence of spotted fever (SF) group rickettsiosis and its coinfection with scrub typhus (ST) in Puducherry region of south India, as these two diseases may show similar clinical presentations. Methods: During 2012-2015, paired sera of 320 febrile patients were examined for Rickettsia conorii IgM/IgG by ELISA and OX19 and OX2 agglutinins by Weil-Felix test. Additionally, patients were screened for ST IgM ELISA. Statistical analysis was performed for clinical and laboratory parameters in children and adults using Fisher's exact test and chi-square test with Yates correction. Results: Out of 320 patients, 142 (44.38%) had R. conorii IgM and/or IgG antibodies. Only IgM was present in 72 (22.5%) patients, while 36 patients were positive for IgG only and 34 were positive for both IgG and IgM. A total of 68 patients (21.25%) showed only OX19 and/or OX2 antibodies (titres ≥ 1 : 80). SF and ST coinfection was observed in 47 cases (14.69%). Interpretation & conclusion: Seroprevalence of SF in Puducherry was found to be quite high (44.38%). ST and SF coinfection was observed in 34.50% of the SG IgG positive patients, however, this require further evaluation by PCR to rule out cross-reaction or false positivity. At present ELISA seems to be an affordable alternative to highly subjective and technically demanding immunofluorescence assay (IFA) for serodiagnosis of SF.

Five IFA positive (including two qPCR positive) and 13 IFA negative patients had a history of domestic animal contact such as cattle, sheep, goat, dog or their residence situated near the abattoir [Table 1]. Laboratory definition and interpretation of acute QF[9] based on gold standard IFA is as follows: (i) IgM phase II + IgG phase II antibodies → acute QF; (ii) IgG phase II with or without IgG phase I → resolved past QF; and (iii) other combination viz., IgM/IgG phase II and/or IgM/IgG phase I → inconclusive, PCR to be performed. [...]the present study showed presence of QF in and around Puducherry. Authors thank the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, for ad-hoc task force research project to the third author (SS) (30/3/41/2008/ECD-II), and to the Chairman, Vice-Chancellor, and Dean (Research and Allied Health Sciences) of Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Puducherry, for providing financial assistance from Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University Faculty Research Fund.

Background: Listening to Quranic recitation has been claimed to enhance educational performance and cognitive functionality. Unfortunately, scientific evidence for this remains scarce. Aim: Hence, we aimed to investigate the neural mechanism underlined the psychoacoustic and cognitive enhancement effects from listening to Quranic recitation. Occipital lobe beta rhythms (14-30 Hz) were excerpted from electroencephalography (EEG) data during psychoacoustic stimulation from sham (Rest), Arabic news and the Fatihah Chapter recitation. The stimulation comes in random sequence in the same length of duration of 5,8,6,6,10, 8 and 20 seconds for verses 1 to 7, respectively. The brain’s oscillatory waveforms were pre-processed using EGI System and then were analysed by Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to derive the power spectrum in the Beta frequency band (14-30 Hz). Data were analysed by repeated-measures ANOVA and Discriminant Analysis from XLSTAT statistical package. Result: A profound and significant reduction of the power spectrum was found in the left occipital lobe while listening to theFatihah Chapter. In contrast, no significant changes were observed in the occipital lobe during listening to Arabic news. It may be postulated that listening to the Fatihah Chapter activates an oscillatory neural network associated with visual mental imagery. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol. 21 No. 03 July’22 Page: 710-716