Irrational prescription of antibiotics by clinicians might lead to drug resistance. Clinicians do prescribe antibiotics for either prophylactic or therapeutic reasons. The decision of when and what to prescribe leaves room for misuse and therefore it is imperative to continuously monitor knowledge and pattern of prescription. The aim of the present study was to determine the knowledge of antibiotic use and the prescription pattern among dental health care practitioners in Uganda. A structured and pretested questionnaire was sent to 350 dental health care practitioners by post or physical delivery. All the questionnaires were sent with self-addressed and prepaid postage envelopes to enable re-spondents to mail back the filled questionnaires. Chi-squared test was used to test for any significant differences between groups of respondents based on qualitative variables. The response rate was 40.3% (n=140). Of these 52.9 % were public health dental officers (PHDOs) and 47.1% were dental surgeons. The males constituted 74.3% of the respondents. There were statistically significant differences be-tween dental surgeons and (PHDOs) in knowledge on prophylactic antibiotic use (P = 0.001) and patient influence on pre-scription (P = 0.001). Amoxicillin, in combination with metronidazole, was the most common combination of antibiotics used followed by co-trimoxazole with metronidazole. The knowledge of dental health care practitioners in antibiotic use in this study was generally low. A combi-nation of amoxicillin with metronidazole was the most commonly prescribed antibiotics subsequent to different dental pro-cedures.

Background: We assessed the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices of recent graduates of clinical health sciences who started their one-year internship in Uganda. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional survey responded to by 209 (response rate of 70%) new interns who started their internships in August 2011 in different Ugandan hospitals. Validated self-administered questionnaires with knowledge, attitude, and practices questions were distributed to the participants during a two-day internship orientation organized by the national internship committee. Results: Out of 299 subjects approached, the survey was completed and returned by 209 (70%). More nurses (51.4%) failed the questions on odds of HIV transmission after a needle stick injury compared to 23.0% and 36.4% of medical and dental graduates, respectively(χ2 = 24.06 p = 0.001). There was no difference in proportions of those who re-sheath needles. Respondents who had an encounter with positive tuberculosis history when taking clinical notes while unprotected were not more motivated to use masks (χ2 = 7.06; p = 0.07). Nurses and dentists reported more regular hand washing before and after patient contact compared to medical doctors. Conclusion: Overall, the knowledge of infection control was not impressive and the attitudes and practices appeared to be heavily influenced by the lack of an enabling environment in training hospitals and internship hospitals. There is little likelihood of change due to internship experience except for those who go to missionary hospitals that have stricter infection control protocols. More effort must be made in teaching hospitals to encourage better infection control.

The study evaluated knowledge, attitude and behaviour of antibiotic usage in two student groups at Makerere University in Uganda. Out of 30,000 students enrolled at the university, 1000 were asked to participate by filling a self administered questionnaire. The sampling group was divided into Group A which included students from the College of health sciences and Group B made of students of other faculties. The response rate was 72.1% and 58.8% were male. The sample size distribution didn’t differ from the university gender distribution Z=1.57, p< 0.05. The use of antibiotics to avoid illness was reported by 24.0% in Group A and 31.8% in Group B (P< 0.05). When asked the course of action if they felt the antibiotic being used was not helpful, 35.1% in group A and 50.6% in B said they would go back to the same health care worker for advice while 1.4% and 9.9% respectively would switch health care provider. Up to 69.3% of the respondents reported antibiotics use in the last twelve month. The most common symptoms reported as the primary reason for antibiotic use was cough at 16%, followed by sore throat at 7.1% and common cold at 6.1%. The high reliance on health care personnel for prescription was rather encouraging and it gives health workers a window of opportunity to promote rational antibiotic use when prescribing to patients. However, for this to materialize the health workers must be aware of antibiotic resistance and ways to combat it. Therefore constant training and encouragement must be given to the health care workers and the public.

Introduction. Certain oral manifestations signal progression of HIV disease among HAART naïve patients or an increase in the plasma HIV-1 RNA levels for those on treatment. Ranulas may be one of those manifestations. Therefore, this study describes the clinical features of patients who presented with ranulas including their demographics, HIV sero-status and the CD4 CD8 cell counts for those who were HIV positive. Methods. A prospective study on ranulas was undertaken at Mulago national referral hospital and St Mary's hospital Lacor covering the period December 2008 to November 2009. Results. Fifty-seven cases participated in the study: 38.6% male and 61.4% female. Out of the study group, 73.7% were HIV positive. This was statistically significant (Chi = 12.789, df = 1, p = 0.001). In relation, to CD4 cell count, 23.8% had <200 cells/mm³, 35.7% between 200–500 cells/mm³ and 40.5% more than 500 cells/mm³. The CD4-to-CD8 ratio ranged from 0.02–0.98 with an average of 0.31 ± 0.23, median and mode of 0.27 and 0.32, respectively. Conclusions. It is felt that ranulas may be one of the oral manifestations of worsening immunity in HIV/AIDS disease. Therefore, more research is needed to establish if it should be included among known oral manifestations of the disease.