My FYP

My FYP title is "Prevalence and Risk Factors of Intestinal Protozoa Infections in a Rural Community in Kuantan Pahang"

Do you know what is the protozoan in this picture? Yeah! It's correct, Cryptosporidium parvum.It is one of the intestinal protozoa that infect human. Basically for my methodolody, I start with select the area of my study which is Sekolah Kebangsaan Panching. The selection is based on the rural area and the school has the aborigine students. The population size of that school is 315 and I managed to get 76 faeces samples as my sample size. It was such a great experience dealing with primary students as I learned to give explanation as simple as possible yet they can understand. Dealing with these primary students make me realized that a teacher's job is not easy. But at that sampling time I felt like a teacher as some of them called me "cikgu".hehe..Seriously it's a GREAT time!!

During that sampling time also I distributed the questionnaire asking about their life styles that can be the risk factors of any infection. Next, I collected the samples together with the questionnaire forms. In return, I gave them sweets and they were happy.hehe

Then, the procedure was the preservation process with using 10% formalin. It was not an easy job for me since I got 76 samples. In addition, I did not have enough rest the day before and the next day I still have my final paper (Environmental Microbiology). But alhamdulillah I managed to handle all samples around 7.00 p.m.

Next, I learned about the staining which consists of wet mount and permanent staining. I spent my holiday settling this job. At this time I really know what my seniors felt when everybody is at home, enjoy themselves with their beloved family but they need to stay and do their FYP. But this is really a good time at lab for me since I can turn on my favourite musics loudly while perform my staining.hehe=) Then, when majority of us are still at home, some of my friends and me already come to Kuantan to continue our FYP. But as I said before, I prefer doing my things at lab when there are small number of people.

Now, the identification process. For me, this is the toughest step as I do not recognize all the protozoa under the microscope. But thanks to my supervisor to teach me. Yet there are a lot of things I need to cover and learn for this step as this is the most crucial step. Here I upload some of the photos

The first picture is the result of saline wet mount while the second one is for modified safranin technique (Hot Method). During observing this, I can see rod shape things that are moving under the saline wet mount.

~to be continued~