Kamruddin Ahmed

Kamruddin Ahmed
Universiti of Malaysia Sabah | ums · Borneo Medical and Health Research Centre

MBBS, DTM, PhD

About

265
Publications
50,378
Reads
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3,274
Citations
Additional affiliations
December 2017 - present
Universiti of Malaysia Sabah
Position
  • Managing Director
February 2001 - July 2004
Bilkent University
Position
  • Visiting Associate Professor
May 2016 - present
Universiti of Malaysia Sabah
Position
  • Professor

Publications

Publications (265)
Article
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Z Rotavirüsler dünyada 0-5 yaş arasındaki çocuklarda en sık karşılaşılan, mortalite ve morbidite ora-nı yüksek olan viral gastroenterit etkenidir. Bu çalışmada laboratuvarımıza ishal etiyolojisi araştırılması için dışkı örnekleri gönderilen hastalarda, rotavirüs enfeksiyonu sıklığını belirlemek, bölgemizde yaygın görülen rotavirüs genotiplerini ve...
Article
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Cases of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenzas (HPAI) are on the rise. Although mammalian spillover events are rare, H5N1 viruses have an estimated mortality rate in humans of 60%. No human cases of H5 infection have been reported in Malaysian Borneo, but HPAI has circulated in poultry and migratory avian species transiting through the region. Rece...
Article
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Introduction Vector borne diseases (VBDs) present significant public health challenges in Southeast Asia (SEA), and the increasing number of cases threatens vulnerable communities. Inadequate vector control and management have been linked to the spread of VBDs. To address these issues, community participation has been proposed as a promising approa...
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Abstract Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence and seasonal distribution of rotavirus and enteric adenovirus in patients with acute gastroenteritis. Methods: The results of 2960 patients admitted to Ankara Training and Research Hospital with gastroenteritis between March 2018 and August 2019 were investigated retr...
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Spinal tuberculosis, also referred to as Pott's disease, presents a significant risk of severe paralysis if not promptly detected and treated, owing to complications such as spinal cord compression and deformity. This article presents the genetic analysis of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis STB-T1A strain, isolated from the spine of a 29-year-old femal...
Preprint
Full-text available
Cases of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenzas (HPAI) are on the rise. Although mammalian spillover events are rare, H5N1 viruses have an estimated mortality rate in humans of 60%. No human cases of H5 infection have been reported in Malaysian Borneo, but HPAI has circulated in poultry and migratory avian species transiting through the region. Rece...
Article
In November 2023, one of us had the opportunity to visit the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo, Japan. The museum started its journey in 1953 with private funding from Dr Satoru Kamgeai. Now, the museum is a 70-year-old private research facility with its researchers who not only collect parasites of various animals for studies on morphology, t...
Article
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Vibrio cholerae remains a notable public health challenge across Malaysia. Although the Malaysian state of Sabah is considered a cholera-affected area, gaps remain in understanding the epidemiological trends and spatial distribution of outbreaks. Therefore, to determine longitudinal and spatial trends in cholera cases data were obtained from the Sa...
Article
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Background Zoonotic malaria is a growing public health threat in the WHO Southeast Asia (SEA) and Western Pacific (WP) regions. Despite vector-control measures, the distribution of Macaque fascicularis and M. nemestrina, and Anopheles mosquitoes carrying non-human simian malaria parasites poses challenges to malaria elimination. The systematic revi...
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Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is an aggressive T-cell neoplasia associated with human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection and has an extremely poor prognosis. Lenalidomide (LEN; a second-generation immunomodulatory drug [IMiD]) has been employed as an additional therapeutic option for ATL since 2017, but its mechanism of action h...
Article
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Among zoonotic infections, leptospirosis has a worldwide distribution and high prevalence in tropical regions. It has a broad clinical presentation from mild to severe, life-threatening infection. Leptospires, the etiological agent of leptospirosis, are found in varied ecological niches and animal species, providing a significant source of human in...
Article
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Background The increasing incidence of Plasmodium knowlesi malaria poses a significant challenge to efforts to eliminate malaria from Malaysia. Macaque reservoirs, outdoors-biting mosquitoes, human activities, and agricultural work are key factors associated with the transmission of this zoonotic pathogen. However, gaps in knowledge regarding reaso...
Article
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Background Since 2018, no indigenous human malaria cases has been reported in Malaysia. However, during the recent COVID-19 pandemic the World Health Organization is concerned that the pandemic might erode the success of malaria control as there are reports of increase malaria cases in resource limited countries. Little is known how the COVID-19 pa...
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Increasing numbers of human zoonotic malaria cases are reported globally. Current malaria control measures cannot eliminate transmission from wildlife reservoirs, leaving many countries with no pathway to malaria elimination certification. New policies are needed to redefine elimination goals and certification.
Article
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Rotavirus is the leading causative viral agent of pediatric acute gastroenteritis globally, infecting mostly children 5 years old and below. Data on rotavirus prevalence in Malaysia is scarce, despite the WHO's recommendation for continuous rotavirus surveillance, and has underestimated the need for national rotavirus vaccination. Characteristics o...
Article
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Background The control of Plasmodium knowlesi malaria remains challenging due to the presence of macaque monkeys and predominantly outdoor-biting Anopheles mosquitoes around human settlements. This study aims to explore the barriers and facilitators related to prevention of mosquito bites among rural communities living in Sabah, Malaysia using the...
Article
Simian malaria from wild non-human primate populations is increasingly recognised as a public health threat and is now the main cause of human malaria in Malaysia and some regions of Brazil. In 2022, Malaysia became the first country not to achieve malaria elimination due to zoonotic simian malaria. We review the global distribution and drivers of...
Article
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Plasmodium knowlesi malaria is a vector-borne disease transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. The incidence of this zoonotic malaria in South-east Asian rural communities continues to increase annually, despite efforts and guidelines for malaria control. To address this gap, a One Health project, supported by various stakeholders, was conducted from...
Article
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Rotaviruses are major causative agents of acute diarrhea in children under 5 years of age in Malaysia. However, a rotavirus vaccine has not been included in the national vaccination program. To date, only two studies have been carried out in the state of Sabah, Malaysia, although children in this state are at risk of diarrheal diseases. Previous st...
Article
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Reported incidence of the zoonotic malaria Plasmodium knowlesi has markedly increased across Southeast Asia and threatens malaria elimination. Nonzoonotic transmission of P. knowlesi has been experimentally demonstrated, but it remains unknown whether nonzoonotic transmission is contributing to increases in P. knowlesi cases. Here, we adapt model-b...
Article
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Background Many rural communities in Malaysian Borneo and Southeast Asia are at risk of Plasmodium knowlesi malaria. Multiple factors contribute to infection, however, a deep understanding of illness causation and prevention practices among at-risk communities remains limited. This study aims to document local knowledge on malaria causation and pre...
Article
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Introduction Plasmodium knowlesi malaria is a non-human simian malaria that threatens Southeast Asian rural communities. Studies indicate that non-compliant bednet usage, travelling into the forest and working as farmers and rubber tappers put communities at risk for infection. Despite guidelines, malaria incidence increases yearly and has become a...
Article
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Background In the last decade Plasmodium knowlesi has been detected in humans throughout South East Asia. The highest risk groups for this infection are males, adults and those performing forest-related work. Furthermore, asymptomatic cases of P. knowlesi malaria have been reported including among women and children. Methods Pubmed, Scopus and the...
Article
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Background Children are at higher risk of influenza virus infection, and it is difficult to diagnose. They are also responsible for the transmission of influenza because of their longer viral shedding compared to adults. In Malaysia, studies on influenza in children are scarce, and as a result, policy decisions cannot be formulated to control the i...
Article
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Plasmodium knowlesi malaria infection in humans has been reported throughout southeast Asia. The communities at risk are those living in areas where Macaque monkeys and Anopheles mosquito are present. Zoonotic malaria control is challenging due to the presence of the reservoir host and the possibility of human-vector-human transmission. Current con...
Article
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Background: Plasmodium knowlesi malaria is a zoonotic infection that affects rural communities in South East Asia. Although the epidemiology of the disease has been extensively researched, the voices of individuals within affected communities often go unheard. Here, we describe a study that explores the importance of gatekeepers in conducting rese...
Preprint
Full-text available
Reported incidence of the zoonotic malaria Plasmodium knowlesi has markedly increased across Southeast Asia and threatens malaria elimination. Nonzoonotic transmission of P. knowlesi has been experimentally demonstrated, but it remains unknown whether nonzoonotic transmission is contributing to increases in P. knowlesi cases. Here, we adapt model-b...
Article
Full-text available
Background The Indonesian Republic plans to relocate its capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan, Borneo Island, in the next few years. This relocation may be associated with deforestation, decreased biodiversity, and an increased risk of emerging zoonotic infections, including Plasmodium knowlesi malaria. The Malaysian part of Borneo Island is one...
Article
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Commercial seaweed cultivation has undergone drastic changes to keep up with the increasing demand in terms of the quantity and quality of the algal biomass needed to meet the requirements of constant innovation in industrial applications. Diseases caused by both biotic and abiotic factors have been identified as contributing to the economic loss o...
Article
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Introduction Plasmodium knowlesi malaria is a zoonotic mosquito-borne disease with complex epidemiology. According to the WHO, the prevention and control of vector-borne diseases require community participation to increase coherence between malaria interventions and sustainable public health programmes. We describe a participatory research (PR) des...
Preprint
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Background The Indonesian Republic plans to relocate its capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan, Borneo Island in the next few years. This relocation may be associated with deforestation, decreased biodiversity and an increased risk of emerging zoonotic infections including Plasmodium knowlesi malaria. The Malaysian part of Borneo Island is one of...
Article
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In South-East Asia (SEA), there has been an increase in the trend of detected and reported cases of Plasmodium knowlesi malaria in the last few decades. This higher transmission rate within SEA countries is attributed to the distribution of the Macaque, banded leaf monkeys, and Anopheles mosquito in this region. This study aims to propose a concept...
Article
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The increasing incidence of P. knowlesi malaria infection among humans is a public health threat. This zoonotic disease is challenging to eliminate owing to the presence of animal reservoirs. Understanding the factors such as the community's belief, social context, drivers, and barriers can provide insights into malaria preventive behavior. It is c...
Article
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Objectives: Plasmodium knowlesi is a non-human parasite that causes zoonotic disease in humans. This systematic review aims to highlight and summarize studies describing human behaviors and activities that expose humans to mosquito bites. Design: English entries in PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct from 2010 to 2020 were systematically pe...
Article
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Background In October 2016, a mumps outbreak occurred among the students living in the on-campus dormitory of a public university located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. This study aimed to investigate the outbreak and identify the genotype of the mumps virus (MuV) strain that was involved in the outbreak. Main body During the outbreak, one 21-...
Article
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Introduction. Landscape changes disrupt environmental, social and biological systems, altering pathogen spillover and transmission risks. This study aims to quantify the impact of specific land management practices on spillover and transmission rates of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases within Malaysian Borneo. This protocol describes a cohort stu...
Article
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This paper reports on the whole-genome sequencing of a streptomycin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain that was isolated from a patient with pulmonary tuberculosis in Sabah state of Malaysian Borneo. The strain belongs to the EAI2-Manila family of lineage 1 and is clustered with M. tuberculosis strains from the Philippines, India, and Taiw...
Article
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Objective Gastric cancer is an important cause of mortality in Sabah, Malaysia, but the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is unknown in this state. Serology is an important tool for the surveillance of H. pylori infection. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of H. pylori infection by serology and to pro...
Article
Several Zika virus (ZIKV) seroprevalence studies have been conducted in Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas, and the Caribbean. However, studies on ZIKV seroprevalence are limited in Malaysia though several studies have shown that the disease is endemic in the Malaysian state of Sabah. To evaluate the seroprevalence of ZIKV infection, 818 serum sam...
Article
Rotaviruses are the most common cause of viral gastroenteritis with the highest mortality and morbidity rates in children aged 0-5 years. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of rotavirus infection in patients whose stool samples were sent to microbiology laboratory to investigate the etiology of diarrhea, to investigate the rotavir...
Article
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Introduction: Rotavirus (RV) is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in children and is one of the most common cause of mortality and morbidity in developing countries. The aim of this study was to determine the genotypes of RV rapid test antigen positive patients between 0-65 years old with acute gastroenteritis attended to a tertiary care hos...
Article
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Background In the Malaysian state of Sabah, P. knowlesi notifications increased from 2% (59/2,741) of total malaria notifications in 2004 to 98% (2030/2,078) in 2017. There was a gap regarding P. knowlesi acquisition risk factors related to practice specifically in working age group. The main objective of this study was to identify the risk factors...
Article
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Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is endemic in Malaysia, with the number of cases increasing. Sabah has experienced several HFMD outbreaks, but information on the epidemiology and molecular characteristics of responsible viruses is scarce. In this study, data of 17,574 reports of HFMD cases in Sabah from 2015 to 2019 were extracted from a publi...
Article
Globally, norovirus (NoV) has become one of the important causes of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in children. It is responsible for death of children younger than 5 years in developing countries. Although there is limited information and the rate of child mortality caused by diarrhea is low in Malaysia, the burden of diarrhea is high, especially in...
Article
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The severity of childhood diarrhoea is linked with poor socioeconomic status, unhygienic living environment, and caregiver's behaviour. This study is to determine the risk factors and economic burden associated with diarrhoea in children under 5 years of age. A case-control study using convenience sampling method with 105 cases and 105 controls was...
Article
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Rotavirus infection is a dilemma for developing countries, including Malaysia. Although commercial rotavirus vaccines are available, these are not included in Malaysia’s national immunization program. A scarcity of data about rotavirus genotype distribution could be partially to blame for this policy decision, because there are no data for rotaviru...
Article
Foodborne outbreaks of hepatitis A virus (HAV) are most commonly associated with fresh and frozen produce and with various types of shellfish. Alcoholic beverage-borne outbreaks of hepatitis A are extremely rare. Here, we report an outbreak of hepatitis A associated with the consumption of a traditional wine at a funeral ceremony in the Sabah state...
Article
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An outbreak of Plasmodium malariae occurred in Sonsogon Paliu village in the remote area of Ulu Bengkoka sub-district of Kota Marudu, Northern Sabah, Malaysian Borneo from July through August 2019. This was the first outbreak of malaria in this village since 2014. On 11th July 2019 the Kota Kinabalu Public Health Laboratory notified the Kota Marudu...
Article
The emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) did not only cause a devastating effect on every corner of society but also taught us many important lessons. One of the lessons is on the importance of the principles of public health. We have seen this repeatedly in recent years during the emergence of SARS, Ebola, MARS and Nipah (Ahmed et al.,...
Article
Although mumps virus (MuVi) is an important agent of encephalitis, however, mumps vaccine has not yet been included in the national immunization programme of Bangladesh. Furthermore, the genotype distribution of this virus in Bangladesh is unknown. Cerebrospinal fluid samples collected from 97 children with encephalitis from April 2009 to March 201...
Article
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Background: Malaysia recorded the highest number of dengue cases between 2014 and 2017. There are 13 states and three federal territories in Malaysia, and each area varies in their prevalence of dengue. Sabah is one of the states situated in Borneo, Malaysia. Although dengue has been increasing for the last several years, no study was being done t...
Article
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Background Malaria is a major public-health problem, with over 40% of the world’s population (more than 3.3 billion people) at risk from the disease. Malaysia has committed to eliminate indigenous human malaria transmission by 2020. The objective of this descriptive study is to understand the epidemiology of malaria in Malaysia from 2000 through 20...
Article
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Leptospirosis is a public health challenge in Sabah State of Malaysian Borneo. Rapid urbanization, rural-to-urban migration, and undocumented immigration in Sabah have increased the pressure on the urban garbage disposal system. Rodents and other small animals thrive under these conditions. We hypothesized that urban sanitation workers would be at...
Article
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In 2019, 10 million new cases of tuberculosis have been reported worldwide. Our data reports genetic analyses of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain SBH321 isolated from a 31-year-old female with pulmonary tuberculosis. The genomic DNA of the strain was extracted from pure culture and subjected to sequencing using Illumina platform. M. tuberculosis...
Article
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Empowering marginalised urban islanders with limited heatlh accessibility for controlling pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) requires a specific training module. Developing a training module for knowledge transfer to empower these marginalised islanders in high PTB occurrence region can be adapted based on IMCI framework. Structuring knowledge and skills...
Preprint
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Objectives: Rotavirus is one of the major causes of gastroenteritis in children under 5 years of age and is responsible for over 200,000 deaths annually. Rotavirus can evolve by reassortment, in which gene segments are exchanged between strains of different origins. Rotavirus strains with the P[9] genotype is an example of reassortment, in which th...
Preprint
Full-text available
Objectives: Rotavirus is one of the major causes of gastroenteritis in children under 5 years of age and is responsible for over 200,000 deaths annually. Rotavirus can evolve by reassortment, in which gene segments are exchanged between strains of different origins. Rotavirus strains with the P[9] genotype is an example of reassortment, in which th...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction: In an attempt to identify a wide spectrum of viral infections, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens were collected from pediatric cases with the preliminary diagnosis of viral encephalitis/meningoencephalitis in two reference hospitals, from October 2011 to December 2015. Methodology: A combination of nucleic acid-based assays, incl...
Article
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is endemic in Malaysia. Although JE vaccination is practiced in the neighboring state of Sarawak for a long time, little is known about JE in Sabah state in Borneo. As a result, informed policy formulation for JE in Sabah has not been accomplished. In the present study, we have analyzed JE cases that have been reported to...
Article
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Outbreaks of diarrhea in kindergartens are underreported and frequently go unnoticed in developing countries. To better understand the etiology this study was performed during an outbreak of diarrhea in a kindergarten in Sabah, Malaysia. Outbreak investigation was performed according to the standard procedures. In this outbreak a total of 34 (36.5%...
Article
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This is a report on the whole-genome sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain SBH163, which was isolated from a patient in the Malaysian Borneo state of Sabah. This report provides insight into the molecular characteristics of an M. tuberculosis Beijing genotype strain related to strains from Russia and South Africa.
Article
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This study was carried out to determine the risk factors of leptospirosis infection among local urban service workers in Sabah. This is a cross-sectional study involving 394 workers in Kota Kinabalu City, Sabah, conducted from February to March 2017. Information on demography, occupational exposures and environmental factors was obtained by a modif...
Article
Background Diarrhoeal disease is one of the leading causes of morbidity in children under five years of age but the disease burden particularly of rotavirus and its epidemiology is currently unknown due to under reporting. Around 700-1, 000 children were admitted every year due to acute diarrhoea. These admissions can be prevented if proper vaccin...
Article
Dengue is a global health problem. Some countries describe it as ‘endemic’ where other countries as 'epidemic' according to the prevalence of the disease1. Dengue virus transmitted by the infected female Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, belongs to the genus Flavivirus which is an envelope positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus....