Introduction: Recently, several endophytes have been shown to possess the potentials to synthesize novel bioactive compounds that have found use for drug discovery. We isolated endophytic fungi associated with Catharanthus roseus collected from the river banks of Amassoma in Southern Nigeria, and identified some of their bioactive secondary metabolites. Methods: The fungi were subjected to solid-state fermentation on rice medium and the metabolites were extracted using ethyl acetate. The fungal crude extracts were screened for antimicrobial activity and were also subjected to high-performance liquid chromatography-diode-array detection (HPLC-DAD) analysis for the identification of the bioactive compounds. Results: The fungal extracts showed both antibacterial and antifungal activities with minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 0.0625 to 1 mg/mL. The HPLC-DAD analysis of the extracts suggested the presence of citreoisocoumarin, citreoisocoumarinol, questinol, hydroxyemodin, acropyrone, methyl 2-(4-hydroxyphenyl) acetate, nigricinol, and cladosporin. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that endophytic fungi associated with C. roseus could be a promising source of novel bioactive compounds with pharmaceutical and industrial importance.

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The rate of psychoactive substance (PAS) use in the adolescent group is increasing around the world. Drug abuse has a negative impact on students’ education especially that of secondary school students. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of psychoactive substance use and knowledge of the health consequences among secondary school students in Ogun State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 528 consenting students selected using random sampling method. Data obtained using a validated modified World Health Organization’s guidelines questionnaire were analyzed with SPSS 20, p-Value ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. Majority (78.8%) were within the age group 15-18 years, males were 61.4%. Alcohol (95.0%) ranked first of all the substances been consumed among the current PAS users. Age was highly significantly associated with PAS use. Average knowledge of health consequences of PAS use was 11.5%. There is need for continuous health educational intervention to boost the respondents’ knowledge about health consequences of uses of psychoactive substances. Dhaka Univ. J. Pharm. Sci. 19(2): 199-205, 2020 (December)

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is a common occurrence among healthy students, with a tendency to develop intosymptomatic urinary tract infections (UTIs). This study was carried out to investigate the occurrence andantimicrobial susceptibility profile of Escherichia coli from the urine of asymptomatic students. A total of 180 midstreamurine samples were collected from apparently healthy students, whose consents were sought. E. coli wasisolated and tested for their susceptibility to commonly used antimicrobial agents using the disk diffusion protocol.Result analysis was done using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the help of SPSS and level ofsignificance taken at p<0.05. The isolates showed resistance against 90% of the antibiotics used in this study with93.3% of the isolates resistant to cefuroxime and 35 % resistant to nitrofurantoin. Multidrug resistance (MDR) wasalso observed where the isolates showed resistance to at least three classes of the antimicrobial agents used in thisstudy. A multiple antibiotic resistance index greater than 0.2 was observed in over 80 % of the isolates. This studyshowed a rare occurrence in which almost all the Escherichia coli isolates showed resistance to over 90% of theantibiotics used in this study with the exception of nitrofurantoin which seems to be the most effective antibioticsagainst all the isolates. This situation portends grave danger to public health; hence, the need for high levelsurveillance and monitoring of the use of antibiotics in therapy as well as the molecular identification of theprevalent resistant strains.