Biodebridment as a safe way of cleaning untidy and infected wound. A case report

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Multiple correspondence analysis as a tool for analysis of large health surveys in African settings

Background: More than two thirds of the total population of Ethiopia is estimated to be at risk of malaria. Therefore, malaria is the leading public health problem in Ethiopia.Objective: To investigate the determinants of malaria Rapid Diagnosis Test (RDT) result and the association between socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors.Method: The study used data from household cluster malaria survey which was conducted from December 2006 to January 2007. A total of 224 clusters of about 25 households each were selected from the Amhara, Oromiya and Southern Nation Nationalities and People (SNNP) regions of Ethiopia. A multiple correspondence analysis was used to jointly analyse malaria RDT result, socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors.Results: The result from multiple correspondence analysis shows that there is association between malaria RDT result and different socio-economic, demographic and geographic variables.Conclusion: There is an indication that some socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors have joint effects. It is important to confirm the association between socio-economic, demographic and geographic factors using advanced statistical techniques.Keywords: MCA, CA, malaria, RDT

Producer price and price transmission in a deregulated Ethiopian coffee market

Coffee producers in Ethiopia have historically received a very small share of the export price of green coffee. Reasons that are often mentioned are heavy government intervention and high marketing and processing costs. Prior to 1992, government regulation of the domestic coffee market in the form of fixed producer prices and the monopoly power of the Ethiopian Coffee Marketing Corporation put a substantial wedge between the producer price and the world price of coffee by imposing an implicit tax on producers. The domestic coffee marketing system in Ethiopia was liberalised after 1992, which was envisaged to have a positive effect on producer prices and price transmission signals from world markets to producers. This paper, with the help of Cointegration and Error-Correction Model (ECM), attempts to analyse its impact. As findings indicate, the reforms induced stronger long-run relationships among grower, wholesaler and exporter prices. The estimation of the ECM shows that the short-run transmission of price signals from world to domestic markets has improved, but has remained weak in both auction-to-world and producer-to-auction markets. This might be explained by the weak institutional arrangement coordinating the domestic coffee system and contract enforcement. In general, the domestic price adjusts more rapidly to world price changes today than it did prior to the reforms. However, there is an indication that negative price changes transmit much faster than positive ones.market deregulation, producer price, price transmission, price asymmetry,

Thoracic empyema: Cause and Treatment Outcome at Gondar University Teaching Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Background: Despite improved antimicrobial therapy and multiple options for drainage of infected pleural space, thoracic empyema (TE) continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality. The objectives of this study were to assess the causes and treatment outcome of patients with thoracic empyema.Methods: Patients aged ≥ 13year with TE who were admitted to Gondar University Teaching Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, from Nov 1999 to Dec 2007 were included. Retrospectively, medical records were reviewed and demographic and clinical data were collected.Results: Records of 81 patients were analyzed; majority (82%) were below the age 50 year. The mean duration of symptoms prior to presentation and hospital stay was 97.4 and 38days, respectively. HIV/AIDS was detected in 60%. Causes of empyema were pulmonary tuberculosis (56%), pneumonia (36%) and lung abscess (7%). Closed chest tube was inserted in 86% of cases and was successful in 93% of them. Case-fatality was 12% and poor outcome occurred in 26%.Conclusions: Early identification of TE and aggressive management with antibiotics or antituberculosis, drainage with chest tube, and surgical treatment when closed tube drainage fails is recommended to improve the high mortality and morbidity

A Farmer-based fruit seedling supply system in Dale Pilot Learning Woreda (PLW): experiences from IPMS

Dale Woreda is well known for its avocado (Persia americana) and to a lesser extent mango (Mangifera indica) production. These fruit trees are planted along with coffee (Coffee arabica), enset (Enset ventricosum) and other crops. They are important sources of income and food, playing a considerable role in the livelihood of thousands of smallholder farmers of Dale. However, the varieties found in the area have large canopies that reduce land availability for other crops. They are also tall (10-15 m) thus harvesting becomes a challenge, particularly for women. Market prices for these varieties are low and during collection, there is considerable fruit loss when they fall, causing cracks and bruises and hence their rejection. The trees also take 7- 10 years to bear fruit and farmers mention that the land can be used more productively and therefore want to replace fruit trees with other more profitable crops. The diagnostic survey carried out by Improving Productivity and Marketing Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian farmers’ project identified some of the above production constraints as the major area of intervention. Further study was conducted by the International Centre for Research on Agro Forestry (ICRAF) which confirmed the above problems and suggested introduction of improved variety through grafting as one of the best solution to improve the quality of seed, reduce size and height as well as improve productivity and marketability of these varieties. Taking the experience of Dale for coffee seedling production where farmer’s nurseries have taken over 95% of seedling production, the Dale partners decided to use farmers’ nurseries as the base to start production of grafted seedlings. Using participatory extension methods with the help of various partners, the number of private nursery operators increased from the initial six (3 females) to 20 (7 female) in 2009. The number of seedlings produced has now reached 12,000 annually and this can be easily expanded since scions can now be obtained from mother trees established earlier in each of the nursery sites. Currently, seedlings are sold at around Birr 15/seedling to neighboring farmers, some on credit provided by the nursery operators. Linkages with the Productive Safety Net program are made to facilitate the scaling out of the sale of seedlings to emerging commercial farmers. Nursery operators earned between Birr 4,000–7,000 per year from these operations. Further skills development can still be made to improve survival rates of grafted seedlings. Attention will also need to be paid to the marketing of these improved varieties as well as the development of a responsive support system providing fresh knowledge, building capacity and new technologies

MobiBone:An energy-efficient and adaptive network protocol to support short rendezvous between static and mobile wireless sensor nodes

To ensure long network life-time, the duty-cycle of wireless sensor networks is often set to be low. This brings with itself the risk of either missing a sent packet or delaying the message delivery and dissemination depending on the duration of the duty-cycle and number of hops. This risk is increased in wireless sensor applications with hybrid architecture, in which a static ground wireless sensor network interacts with a network of mobile sensor nodes. Dynamicity and mobility of mobile nodes may lead to only a short rendezvous between them and the backbone network to exchange data. Additionally, such dynamicity generates complex and often random data traffic patterns. To support successful data delivery in case of short rendezvous between static and mobile wireless sensor nodes, we propose MobiBone, an energy-efficient and adaptive network protocol that utilizes data packet traffic to characterize the sleep schedule. Our simulation results show that compared with network protocols with fixed duty-cycles, MobiBone offers a good trade-off between energy consumption, latency, and detection rate of mobile nodes (which indicates awakens of the backbone network at crucial times of mobile node presence)

The effect of women's empowerment in the utilisation of family planning in Western Ethiopia : a structural equation modelling approach

This study examines the associations between women’s empowerment and family planning use in Jimma Zone, Western Ethiopia. A total of 746 randomly selected married women of reproductive age were interviewed. The data were employed by structural equation modelling (SEM) to investigate the complex and multidimensional pathways to show women’s empowerment domains in family planning utilisation. Results of the study revealed that 72% of married women had used family planning. Younger women, having access to information, having access to health facilities and being aware about family planning methods, living in a rural area, having an older partner and increased household decision-making power were associated with using family planning methods. Women’s empowerment is an important determinant of contraceptive use. Women’s empowerment dimensions included increased household decision-making power, socio-demographic variables and having access to information about family planning and accessible health facilities. These were found to be important determinants of contraceptive use. Future interventions should focus on integrating women’s empowerment into family planning programming, particularly in enhancing women’s autonomy in decision making. Further research is warranted on the socio-cultural context of women that influences women’s empowerment and family planning use to establish an in-depth understanding and equity of women in society