Dakshina Kannada district in the Southwestern region of Karnataka state, India, including Mangaluru city is endemic to malaria. About 80% of malaria infections in Mangaluru and its surrounding areas are caused by Plasmodium vivax and the remainder is due to Plasmodium falciparum. Malaria-associated clinical complications significantly occur in this region. Here, we report the pathological conditions of 41 cases of fatal severe malaria, admitted to the district government hospital in Mangaluru city during January 2013 through December 2016. The results of clinical, hematological, and biochemical analyses showed that most of these severe malaria cases were associated with thrombocytopenia, anemia, metabolic acidosis, acute respiratory distress, and single or multi-organ dysfunction involving liver, kidney, and brain. Of the 41 fatal malaria cases, 24, 10, and seven patients had P. vivax, P. falciparum, and P. vivax and P. falciparum mixed infections, respectively. These data suggest that besides P. falciparum that is known to extensively cause severe and fatal malaria illnesses, P. vivax causes fatal illnesses substantially in this region, an observation that is consistent with recent findings in other regions.

An in vitro incubation study was carried out to determine the efficacy of Microlepia speluncae (MS) fronds' extract on the worm motility and viability, morphology and histopathological changes in/of Gastrothylax crumenifer. The methanolic extract of MS fronds was used for in vitro study at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 mg/ml concentration as test extracts. Oxyclozanide (OXY) at 1% (250 mg/25 ml) as standard control and HedonFleig (H-F) salt solution as negative control. The solutions (25 ml), with 25 amphistomes each, distributed to 7 petriplates (90 mm diameter) and placed in an incubator with 5% CO 2 at 37°C. The motility of control and treated flukes was observed at regular time intervals, 0, 10, 15, 30 and 60 min respectively with specific score 3, 2, 1, 0 for motility. Relative Motility assay and LC 50 were determined by probit regression analysis. In vitro incubation study revealed death of all trematodes, lethal at 10 min incubation time at 5 mg/ml concentration, indicated RM value is 0, very much effective than Oxyclozanide, RM value was 0. 05. The LC 50 was determined as 3.666. The worms subjected to in vitro trials were studied under Scanning Electron Microscope and Light Microscope for significant morphological changes. ARTICLE HISTORY

Antibacterial activity of Drynaria quercifolia (L.) J. Smith and Dryopteris cochleata (Buch. Ham. ex. D. Don) was assessed in this study. The bacteria were isolated from scale rot conditions in captive Indian Rock Python (Python molurus) n=15 and Reticulated Python (Python reticulates) n=10 and cultured in suitable media and the bacterial isolates were identified as Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Isolated bacterial strains were subjected to antibiotic sensitivity test by Kirby-Bauer's/disc-diffusion method and were found resistant to 6 antibiotics and sensitive to enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and gentamicin. Antibacterial activity of aqueous, ethanolic and petroleum ether of two fern extracts was monitored by agar-well diffusion method. Linezolid 30 µg/ml and imipenem 10 µg/ml as controls for gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria and 10% DMSO solution as negative control showed petroleum ether extract least zone of inhibition for both E.coli and S.aureus. Values of zone of inhibition were highest of ethanolic extracts. E.coli showed least zone of inhibition than S.aureus. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of the active solvent extracts were determined and showed MIC and MBC were least for ethanolic extract than aqueous and petroleum ether extract. Phytochemical studies of the collected ferns performed well with strong positivity for major phytoconstituents like tannin and phenol. The 11 phytoconstituents were well expressed during the qualitative analysis based on the order of solvent ethanol>aqueous>petroleum ether.