Improving microbiological food Safety in peri-urban Mali; an experimental study

Introduction: Twenty years ago, a WHO review of the literature assumed that most food-borne disease transmission in developing countries takes place within the home, and advocated a major programme of interdisciplinary research to develop and test cost-effective interventions to promote food hygiene. Methods: The HACCP approach was applied step by step, to two selected weaning foods prepared by 15 volunteer mothers in peri-urban Mali. After setting Critical Control Points (CCP), actions were taken to control, reduce or eliminate microbial growth at these points. 432 food samples were collected and examined for thermotolerant coliforms in a local laboratory to assess the effectiveness of the approach. Lessons learnt were translated into messages delivered in a pilot study. Results: Traditional cooking was very effective in eliminating faecal contamination; reheating was as effective as cooking when adopted, because there was no significant difference in the temperatures reached in both cases. Behavioural corrective actions were effective in controlling faecal contamination at the other CCPs (serving the child after cooking and after reheating). Conclusion: In conclusion, the HACCP experiment improved significantly the bacterial safety of both types of weaning food studied. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd

Methicillin-Resistant Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci in the Community: High Homology of SCCmec IVa between Staphylococcus epidermidis and Major Clones of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Background. Data on community spread of methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci (MR-CoNS) are scarce. We assessed their potential role as a reservoir of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) IVa, the leading SCCmec subtype in community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA). Methods. Nasal carriage of MR-CoNS was prospectively investigated in 291 adults at hospital admission. MR-CoNS were characterized by SCCmec typing, long-range polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for SCCmec IV, and multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) for Staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE) strains. Three SCCmec IVa elements were fully sequenced. Results. The carriage rate of MR-CoNS was 19.2% (25.9% and 16.5% in patients with and patients without previous exposure to the health care system, respectively; P = .09). MR-CoNS strains (n=83, including 58 MRSE strains with highly heterogeneous MLVA patterns) carried SCCmec type IVa (n=9, all MRSE), other SCCmec IV subtypes (n=9, including 7 MRSE), other SCCmec types (n=15), and nontypeable SCCmec (n=50). Long-range PCR indicated structural homology between SCCmec IV in MRSE and that in MRSA. Complete sequences of SCCmec IVa from 3 MRSE strains were highly homologous to those available for CA-MRSA, including major clones USA300 and USA400. Conclusions. MR-CoNS are probably disseminated in the community, notably in subjects without previous exposure to the health care system. MRSE, the most prevalent species, may act as a reservoir of SCCmec IVa for CA-MRS

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Factors that affect girls' access to and retention in school in Mali: 1965-1992

This research examines the factors that prevent girls from accessing and persisting in school on an equal basis with boys in Mali. It seeks to identify the most significant factors and those that can be affected by policy.The working hypothesis of this study is that besides the commonly researched and known hindrances, inequities also result from poor political commitment, and inadequately designed and/or implemented policies. The key issues addressed are demands coming from the family, supply of places and resources from the government including educational policy factors, and school related factors affecting parents' demand decisions. The questions are how each of these factors impacts girls' schooling and which ones are more significant.The study's significance lies in the fact that it is the only scientifically conducted effort to date, geared toward the analysis of girls' schooling in Mali. It is also unique in that, it is conducted at a time of reform when it can provide data that can help identify problem areas and guide decision makers in their new strategies towards enhancing girls' schooling. Furthermore, while the literature shows studies addressing one category of factors at a time, this study seeks to control for all of the major determinants so that each can be put in perspective.The survey data collection included both direct interviews and questionnaire administration to stratified random samples. The Likert-type questionnaires also included open-ended questions. The total sample size is 724 participants. The data analysis included some descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses.The key findings contradict the belief that most parents in developing countries just refuse to depart from their religious, cultural and traditional values by educating girls. It rather appears that given a chance, most parents will send their daughters to school. Parents, however, live in areas without schools, or so far from school that they fear for the safety of their daughters. Furthermore, no form of government investment/assistance exists in some areas that could free girls up from home labor. In conclusion, parents need more information, opportunities, and incentives if girls are to attend and continue school.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio

The higher education dilemma in Mali: How authorities conciliate insufficiency of qualified manpower, higher education graduate surpluses, and increasing unemployment trends

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Piloting an intervention to improve microbiological food safety in Peri-Urban Mali.

INTRODUCTION: Diarrhoeal diseases remain a major cause of preventable death among children under five years old in developing countries. Studies related to infant diarrhoea causation have demonstrated a higher level of faecal contamination in weaning foods than in drinking water. Many studies have examined the microbiological quality of such foods, but few of them have resulted in an intervention. The present study builds upon an experiment in which the HACCP approach was applied to preparation of two common weaning foods (moni and fish soup) and used to develop simple hygiene measures which mothers could take in preparing and serving foods to their children, to prevent contamination. METHODS: A randomly selected sample of 60 volunteer mothers was split into two groups of 30, the first receiving messages promoting implementation of the hygiene measures, and the second as a control. Samples of the food were taken in all 60 households at the point where they would have been served to a child. These were examined microbiologically, and physical parameters were measured. The process was repeated after the mothers had received three weeks' training in the preventive measures, and again three months later on an unannounced visit. RESULTS: Before the intervention, thermotolerant coliform (TTC) contamination levels exceeded 100 per gram in 55% of food samples cooled after cooking (prior to child service) and in 86% of samples of food stored prior to child service. After the intervention, the contamination was detected (i.e. >10TTC/g) in less than 17% of food samples cooled (prior to child service) after cooking and in only 4% of food samples reheated after storage and cooled prior to child service. The reduction in faecal contamination was highly significant (P<0.0001). The follow-up visit three months later produced still better results; only 0% to 17% of food samples failed to meet our standard of <10TTC/g. CONCLUSION: The HACCP approach can lead to effective measures for improving home food safety, and is applicable with modest resources for promotion of food hygiene and safety in a low-income community

SMURF: a SVMbased incremental anti-pattern detection approach

Abstract—In current, typical software development projects, hundreds of developers work asynchronously in space and time and may introduce anti-patterns in their software systems because of time pressure, lack of understanding, communication, and–or skills. Anti-patterns impede development and maintenance activities by making the source code more difficult to understand. Detecting anti-patterns incrementally and on subsets of a system could reduce costs, effort, and resources by allowing practitioners to identify and take into account occurrences of anti-patterns as they find them during their development and maintenance activities. Researchers have proposed approaches to detect occurrences of anti-patterns but these approaches have currently four limitations: (1) they require extensive knowledge of anti-patterns, (2) they have limited precision and recall, (3) they are not incremental, and (4) they cannot be applied on subsets of systems. To overcome these limitations, we introduce SMURF, a novel approach to detect anti-patterns, based on a machine learning technique—support vector machines—and taking into account practitioners ’ feedback. Indeed, through an empirical study involving three systems and four anti-patterns, we showed that the accuracy of SMURF is greater than that of DETEX and BDTEX when detecting anti-patterns occurrences. We also showed that SMURF can be applied in both intra-system and inter-system configurations. Finally, we reported that SMURF accuracy improves when using practitioners ’ feedback. Keywords-Anti-pattern, program comprehension, program maintenance, empirical software engineering. I

OqxAB and variants of QepA in extended-spectrum β-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae in hospital wastewater in Mali

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