Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology 

About: Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology is an academic journal published by Dr. M.N. Khan. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Medicine & Microbiology. It has an ISSN identifier of 0973-7510. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 2016 publications have been published receiving 5675 citations. The journal is also known as: JPAM & Journal of pure and applied microbiology.

Covid-19 - Knowledge, attitude and practice among medical and non-medical university students in Jordan

Abstract: The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on the 11thof March 2020. Since then, many efforts are being carried out to contain the virus. Knowledge and attitude of people should be directed towards strict preventive practices in order to halt the spread of the virus. The aim of the current cross-sectional study is to assess the knowledge, practice and attitude of university students from medical and non-medical colleges in Jordan using a structured questionnaire involving a total number of 592 students. A positive response regarding the overall knowledge about the symptoms of COVID-19 was observed in more than 90% of the students. In response to the attitude and practice, a good number of students nearly 99.7% agreed that hand washing is necessary for prevention of infection whereas 68.4% believed that mask wearing would prevent the infection. Around 6-7% students considered the virus as a stigma hence would not visit hospital. Also, around 10% students believed that their religious beliefs and body immunity might protect them from infection. More dangerously, 20.6% and 19.2% students believed antibiotics and smoking to be a protective measure against the infection respectively. Also, 96.8% do avoid hand shaking, 98.8% wash their hands and 93.3% use alcoholic rub, 95.8% cough or sneeze in a tissue and dispose it in waste bin, 51% will drink ginger with honey and 42.7% eat garlic for infection prevention. The main sources of knowledge were social media, internet and television. No significant difference was noticed between medical and non medical colleges. Thus, there is a need for more detailed and directed measures and awareness campaigns to improve the knowledge, attitude and practice in some critical aspects to contain the virus.

Food Safety Control Measures to Address Emerging Omicron SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern

Abstract: The recent emergence of the novel Omicron SARS-CoV-2 Variant, first detected in Gauteng Province of South Africa in mid- November 2021, has become a global concern. Several countries witnessed rapid transmission of omicron in the past months. This variant can increase the rate of virus transmission, risk of reinfection and enable omicron to continue its spread in the community. There is no evidence that COVID-19 can spread through food, and people can catch up with this virus through food materials. This virus can not survive and multiple on the surfaces of food packaging. The main routes of this virus transmission and spread may be during close contact and directly from an infected person to a healthy person. Touching a contaminated surface and objects such as doorknobs, table surfaces, everyday use equipment, touching screens and shaking hands and then touching the mouth, nose, or eyes may also be a source of infection.1 Recent research reported that the COVID-19 virus could survive and remain viable on plastics for up to 72 hours, 4 hours on stainless steel and copper and up to 24 hours on cardboard. Since the food sector has complex processing and manufacturing processes with a series of operational steps, starting from food intake, receiving, preparation, production, processing, packaging, storage and delivery to market and customers. At each stage, food handlers are directly involved, there is a more likelihood of food handlers touching the food or food surfaces directly. In this case, food workers are not following proper food safety control and protective actions, e.g., hand washings, cleaning and disinfection, sanitization, and social distancing. If not vaccinated, it can be a possible source of omicron transmission. To prevent the potential transmission of emerging Omicron SARS-COV-2 Variant of Concern, the food sector should ensure compliance with food safety control measures and prerequisites to safe and protect food workers from omicron variants to mitigate the risks of transmission of the virus by adopting good hygienic practices (GHPs), good manufacturing practices (GMPs), appropriate cleaning and disinfection by approved chemicals and sanitizers to endure the production and consistent stream of safe food. Since all the food workers may well be aware of the precaution’s measures, it is still needed to refresh their information. The staff working in food premises should be provided with frequent refresher training, proper personal protective equipment (PPEs), and written instructions on how to contain the transmission of Omicron and COVID-19 variants.2 One of the most critical steps to restrict the spread and transmission of the COVID-19 during food service processes is to wash and sanitize frequently. Frequent hand washing should be obligatory for Food workers directly involved in food production and preparation activities. The staff should avoid touching the food contact surfaces of tables, utensils, small wares, cutting boards and knives and surfaces of food menu, kiosks, dispensers, door handles, freezers and cooler handles, tablets, computers and equipment controller surfaces, buttons, and touchpads. There is a possibility that the virus can transfer from unwashed hands to other cleaned and sanitized surfaces during food production, preparations, cooking, storage, serving to customers and then moving to other food staff and eventually to customers. Frequent disinfection and sanitization with approved sanitizer to reduce the microorganism’s loads to a safe level determined by food safety authorities and public health codes are crucial to mitigating the risk of virus transmission. Social distancing to keep a space of at least 2 meters during operation hours at food premises to limit the close staff contacts inside food preparation and production areas is critically important to limit the spread.2 It is also recommended by CDC and other food safety authorities. The staff Should avoid unnecessary gatherings and crowds during shift changes, breaks and staff training. The food premises should optim ze the number of food workers to occupy maximum capacity at food premises and ensure fewer food workers are available than normal staff to a smaller amount of COVID-19 transmission risks.3,4 The food facilities should also provide appropriate personnel protective equipments (PPEs) for staff while receiving incoming materials and during deliveries, which can enhance the staff protection from the virus. Finally, the food amenities should look for staff health and monitor the visitors, suppliers, and contractors to recognize any sick person, maximize protection, and report to related health authorities if someone's symptoms are identical to emerging COVID-19 omicron variant concern. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Pure & Applied Microbiology is the property of Dr. M. N. Khan and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Covid-19, an emerging coronavirus infection: Current scenario and recent developments - An overview

Abstract: During December 2019, a novel coronavirus virus (2019-nCov) emerged in China, which posed an International Public Health Emergency in a couple of weeks, and very recently attained the position of a very high-risk category by World Health Organization (WHO). This virus was named the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), and the disease referred to as Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19). Till March 8, 2020, the virus has claimed the lives of nearly 3,600 humans out a total of approximately 110,000 confirmed cases affected by this infection. The present editorial is a brief overview highlighting the most salient features and facts with regards to COVID-19, an emerging coronavirus infection, its causative virus (SARS-CoV-2), the current worldwide scenario, recent developments and currently ongoing progresses to contain and control this disease which have now spread to more than 100 countries across the globe. Of note, worldwide researchers and various health agencies are all together doing their best to halt the spread of this virus and avoid any possible pandemic situation to be faced, which otherwise would threaten the lives of millions of human beings.

Proline Accumulation and its Defensive Role Under Diverse Stress Condition in Plants: An Overview

Abstract: Adverse environmental conditions impose stress in the plant, like heat, cold, salinity, heavy metal, nutrient, droughtstress; play a very prominent role to limit the plant growth and development. During the exposure of these wide ranges of stresses, plant itself changing or developing at morphological, biochemical or molecular level. During the morphological changes, plant not only reduceduration of life but also reducing plant body skeletons like shortening of plant height, while the adjustment of ion transport, carbon metabolism and synthesis of osmoregulatory compound or compatible moleculeslike proline, glycinebetaine, sorbitol takes place at molecular level.Different kinds of compatible solutes enable to the plant to tolerate abiotic stress. Proline is one the most effective compatible molecule that produces in the wide range of organism including plant under the adverse conditions. A transcriptional characteristic known as up and down regulation of gene expression may be observed during osmotic stress. These changes may be facilitating directly by various stress condition. The up regulation in the plants result,proline accumulation under osmotic stress while down regulation result deterioration process.

Correlation between temperature and COVID-19 (suspected, confirmed and death) cases based on machine learning analysis

Abstract: Currently, the whole world is struggling with the biggest health problem COVID-19 name coined by the World Health Organization (WHO). This was raised from China in December 2019. This pandemic is going to change the world. Due to its communicable nature, it is contagious to both medically and economically. Though different contributing factors are not known yet. Herein, an effort has been made to find the correlation between temperature and different cases situation (suspected, confirmed, and death cases). For a said purpose, k-means clustering-based machine learning method has been employed on the data set from different regions of China, which has been obtained from the WHO. The novelty of this work is that we have included the temperature field in the original WHO data set and further explore the trends. The trends show the effect of temperature on each region in three different perspectives of COVID-19 - suspected, confirmed and death.