Mapping the risk of anaemia in preschool-age children: the contribution of malnutrition, malaria, and helminth infections in West Africa

BACKGROUND Childhood anaemia is considered a severe public health problem in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa. We investigated the geographical distribution of prevalence of anaemia and mean haemoglobin concentration (Hb) in children aged 1-4 y (preschool children) in West Africa. The aim was to estimate the geographical risk profile of anaemia accounting for malnutrition, malaria, and helminth infections, the risk of anaemia attributable to these factors, and the number of anaemia cases in preschool children for 2011. METHODS AND FINDINGS National cross-sectional household-based demographic health surveys were conducted in 7,147 children aged 1-4 y in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Mali in 2003-2006. Bayesian geostatistical models were developed to predict the geographical distribution of mean Hb and anaemia risk, adjusting for the nutritional status of preschool children, the location of their residence, predicted Plasmodium falciparum parasite rate in the 2- to 10-y age group (Pf PR(2-10)), and predicted prevalence of Schistosoma haematobium and hookworm infections. In the four countries, prevalence of mild, moderate, and severe anaemia was 21%, 66%, and 13% in Burkina Faso; 28%, 65%, and 7% in Ghana, and 26%, 62%, and 12% in Mali. The mean Hb was lowest in Burkina Faso (89 g/l), in males (93 g/l), and for children 1-2 y (88 g/l). In West Africa, severe malnutrition, Pf PR(2-10), and biological synergisms between S. haematobium and hookworm infections were significantly associated with anaemia risk; an estimated 36.8%, 14.9%, 3.7%, 4.2%, and 0.9% of anaemia cases could be averted by treating malnutrition, malaria, S. haematobium infections, hookworm infections, and S. haematobium/hookworm coinfections, respectively. A large spatial cluster of low mean Hb (95%) was predicted for an area shared by Burkina Faso and Mali. We estimate that in 2011, approximately 6.7 million children aged 1-4 y are anaemic in the three study countries. CONCLUSIONS By mapping the distribution of anaemia risk in preschool children adjusted for malnutrition and parasitic infections, we provide a means to identify the geographical limits of anaemia burden and the contribution that malnutrition and parasites make to anaemia. Spatial targeting of ancillary micronutrient supplementation and control of other anaemia causes, such as malaria and helminth infection, can contribute to efficiently reducing the burden of anaemia in preschool children in Africa.Funded by the University of Queensland and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia

Spin glass freezing in Kondo lattice compounds

It is presented a theory that describes a spin glass phase at finite temperatures in Kondo lattice systems with an additional RKKY interaction represented by long range, random couplings among localized spins like in the Sherrington- Kirkpatrick (SK) spin glass model. The problem is studied within the functional integral formalism where the spin operators are represented by bilinear combinations of fermionic (anticommuting) Grassmann variables. The Kondo and spin glass transitions are both described with the mean field like static ansatz that reproduces good results in the two well known limits. At high temperatures and low values of the Kondo coupling there is a paramagnetic (disordered) phase with vanishing Kondo and spin glass order parameters. By lowering the temperature a second order transition line is found at Tsg to a spin glass phase. For larger values of the Kondo coupling there is a second order transition line at roughly Tk to a Kondo ordered state. For T<Tsg the transition between the Kondo and spin glass phases becomes first order.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, to appear on Phys. Rev.

Altering an extended phenotype reduces intraspecific male aggression and can maintain diversity in cichlid fish

Reduced male aggression towards different phenotypes generating negative frequency-dependent intrasexual selection has been suggested as a mechanism to facilitate the invasion and maintenance of novel phenotypes in a population. To date, the best empirical evidence for the phenomenon has been provided by laboratory studies on cichlid fish with different colour polymorphisms. Here we experimentally tested the hypothesis in a natural population of Lake Malawi cichlid fish, in which males build sand-castles (bowers) to attract females during seasonal leks. We predicted that if bower shape plays an important role in male aggressive interactions, aggression among conspecific males should decrease when their bower shape is altered. Accordingly, we allocated randomly chosen bowers in a Nyassachromis cf. microcephalus lek into three treatments: control, manipulated to a different shape, and simulated manipulation. We then measured male behaviours and bower shape before and after these treatments. We found that once bower shape was altered, males were involved in significantly fewer aggressive interactions with conspecific males than before manipulation. Mating success was not affected. Our results support the idea that an extended phenotype, such as bower shape, can be important in maintaining polymorphic populations. Specifically, reduced male conspecific aggression towards males with different extended phenotypes (here, bower shapes) may cause negative frequency-dependent selection, allowing the invasion and establishment of a new phenotype (bower builder). This could help our understanding of mechanisms of diversification within populations, and in particular, the overall diversification of bower shapes within Lake Malawi cichlids

Spin Glass and antiferromagnetism in Kondo lattice disordered systems

The competition between spin glass (SG), antiferromagnetism (AF) and Kondo effect is studied here in a model which consists of two Kondo sublattices with a gaussian random interaction between spins in differents sublattices with an antiferromagnetic mean Jo and standard deviation J. In the present approach there is no hopping of the conduction electrons between the sublattices and only spins in different sublattices can interact. The problem is formulated in the path integral formalism where the spin operators are expressed as bilinear combinations of Grassmann fields which can be solved at mean field level within the static approximation and the replica symmetry ansatz. The obtained phase diagram shows the sequence of phases SG, AF and Kondo state for increasing Kondo coupling. This sequence agrees qualitatively with experimental data of the Ce_{2} Au_{1-x} Co_{x} Si_{3} compound.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to EPJ