Prevalence of helminth parasites of dogs and owners awareness about zoonotic parasites in Ambo town, central Ethiopia

To determine the prevalence of gastrointestinal helminth infections of dogs in Ambo, Ethiopia, examination of 70 fecal samples and 52 necropsies were conducted from November 2007 to April 2008. The prevalence of gastrointestinal helminths was 86.54% and 52.86% as detected by post mortem and coproscopical examination, respectively. The coproscopical examination revealed 35.7% infection with Ancylostoma caninum followed by Dipylidium caninum (25.57%), Toxocara canis (17.14%), Strogyloides stercoralis (14.29%) and Echinococcus granulosus (8.57%). Mixed infections with two or more parasites were also observed (62.16%). The study also indicates a significant difference (

A Roadmap for Building Data Science Capacity for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa

Technological advances now make it possible to generate diverse, complex and varying sizes of data in a wide range of applications from business to engineering to medicine. In the health sciences, in particular, data are being produced at an unprecedented rate across the full spectrum of scientific inquiry spanning basic biology, clinical medicine, public health and health care systems. Leveraging these data can accelerate scientific advances, health discovery and innovations. However, data are just the raw material required to generate new knowledge, not knowledge on its own, as a pile of bricks would not be mistaken for a building. In order to solve complex scientific problems, appropriate methods, tools and technologies must be integrated with domain knowledge expertise to generate and analyze big data. This integrated interdisciplinary approach is what has become to be widely known as data science. Although the discipline of data science has been rapidly evolving over the past couple of decades in resource-rich countries, the situation is bleak in resource-limited settings such as most countries in Africa primarily due to lack of well-trained data scientists. In this paper, we highlight a roadmap for building capacity in health data science in Africa to help spur health discovery and innovation, and propose a sustainable potential solution consisting of three key activities: a graduate-level training, faculty development, and stakeholder engagement. We also outline potential challenges and mitigating strategies

Depression improvement and parenting in low-income mothers in home visiting

Research on older children and high resource families demonstrates that maternal improvement in depression often leads to parallel changes in parenting and child adjustment. It is unclear if this association extends to younger children and low income mothers. This study examined if In-Home Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IH-CBT), a treatment for depressed mothers participating in home visiting programs, contributes to improvements in parenting and child adjustment

A Clinical Trial of In-Home CBT for Depressed Mothers in Home Visitation

Despite negative outcomes for depressed mothers and their children, no treatment specifically designed to address maternal depression in the context of home visitation has emerged. In-Home Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IH-CBT) is an adapted treatment that is delivered in the home, focuses on the needs of new mothers, and leverages ongoing home visiting to optimize engagement and outcomes. This study examined the efficacy of IH-CBT using a randomized clinical trial. Subjects were 93 new mothers in a home visiting program. Mothers with major depressive disorder identified at 3 months postpartum were randomized into IH-CBT and ongoing home visitation (n=47) or standard home visitation (SHV; n=46) in which they received home visitation alone and could obtain treatment in the community. Depression was measured at pre- and posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up using interviews, clinician ratings, and self-report. Mothers receiving IH-CBT showed improvements in all indicators of depression relative to the SHV condition and these gains were maintained at follow-up. For example, 70.7% of mothers receiving IH-CBT were no longer depressed at posttreatment in terms of meeting criteria for major depressive disorder compared to 30.2% in the SHV group. These findings suggest that IH-CBT is an efficacious treatment for depressed mothers in home visitation programs

Optimization of explants surface sterilization condition for field grown peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch. Cv. Garnem) intended for in vitro culture

The aim of this work was to sterilize nodal explants, so as to mitigate microbial contamination in peach micropropagation. The nodal explants were treated with three concentrations levels (0.15, 0.25 and 0.5% (w/v) active ingredient of chlorine) of locally produced bleach, sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) for varying exposure times (10, 15 and 20 min). These treatments were carried out in randomized complete design with three replications. Data were recorded on the number of contaminated, dead and survived (clean) cultures after 10 days of culturing. The highest explant contamination (100%) and least explant survival (0%) were recorded when explants were treated with 0.15% active chlorinated local bleach for 10 min. The least culture contamination and minimum tissue death of 9.51 and 4.75%, respectively, and the highest culture survival (85.71%) were recorded when explants were disinfected with 0.25% active chlorinated local bleach for 15 min. Key words: Explants, local bleach, micropropagation, <i>Prunus persica</i>, surface sterilizatio

Management assessment of cattle exposed to trypanosomosis challenge in the new settlement and native areas of the Ghibe Valley, Southwestern Ethiopia

A study was conducted from October 2007 to April 2008 using a semi-structured questionnaire and blood samples in the Ghibe Valley, southwest of Ethiopia, to assess the management of cattle exposed to trypanosomosis in two communities, the natives and the new settlers. Blood samples collected from the ear of 429 cattle (210 from the natives and 219 from the new settlers) revealed an overall prevalence of 5.4%, with 6.2 and 4.6% in the natives and the new settlers, respectively. This difference between communities was not significant (p > 0.45). Qualitative and quantitative information was obtained from 50 natives and 51 new settlers randomly selected using the questionnaire. Most management practices of cattle in the natives’ and new settlers’ communities were found to be significantly different. Although the prevalence of trypanosomosis infection was not significantly different between the two communities, more animals were found anemic in the natives’ herds than in the new-settlers’. Further research should be carried out to determine the major reason that contributed to the difference observed between the PCVs of both communities. Moreover, attention toward effective management of trypanosomosis in both communities of the Ghibe Valley is needed to improve prevention and control strategies

A cross-sectional study on bovine tuberculosis in Hawassa town and its surroundings, Southern Ethiopia

A cross-sectional study was conducted in Hawassa town and its surroundings from October 2007 to May 2008 to estimate the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis (BTB) based on comparative interadermal tuberculin test (CIDT) and abattoir survey. Accordingly, 39 herds comprising 413 cattle were subjected to CIDT, and the herd and individual animal prevalence were 48.7% (19/39) and 11.6% (48/413), respectively. One of the 16 milk samples collected from tuberculin-positive cows was culture positive. The prevalence significantly differed among the age group (P = 0.001) and management system (P = 0.001). Thus, age group over four (OR = 7.9) and animal with poor management system (OR = 4.1) had a higher odds for tuberculin reactivity compared to those with age group under four and cattle with good management system, respectively. Of the total 1,023 cattle subjected to postmortem examination, 11 (1.1%) were found to be positive for gross tuberculous lesions. Larger proportion (50%) of TB lesion was recorded in the respiratory pathway followed by digestive system (28.6%) and prescapular lymph nodes (21.4%). Of 14 tissue specimens collected from the gross lesions, four (28.6%) were positive for histopathological TB lesions. In conclusion, this study revealed the importance of BTB in the study area in particular and the region in general

Age related-changes in the neural basis of self-generation in verbal paired associate learning

Verbal information is better retained when it is self-generated rather than when it is received passively. The application of self-generation procedures has been found to improve memory in healthy elderly and in individuals with impaired cognition. Overall, the available studies support the notion that active participation in verbal encoding engages memory mechanisms that supplement those used during passive observation. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate the age-related changes in the neural mechanisms involved in the encoding of paired-associates using a self-generation method that has been shown to improve memory performance across the lifespan. Subjects were 113 healthy right-handed adults (Edinburgh Handedness Inventory >50; 67 females) ages 18–76, native speakers of English with no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. Subjects underwent fMRI at 3 T while performing didactic learning (“read”) or self-generation learning (“generate”) of 30 word pairs per condition. After fMRI, recognition memory for the second word in each pair was evaluated outside of the scanner. On the post-fMRI testing more “generate” words were correctly recognized than “read” words (p < 0.001) with older adults recognizing the “generated” words less accurately (p < 0.05). Independent component analysis of fMRI data identified task-related brain networks. Several components were positively correlated with the task reflecting multiple cognitive processes involved in self-generated encoding; other components correlated negatively with the task, including components of the default-mode network. Overall, memory performance on generated words decreased with age, but the benefit from self-generation remained consistently significant across ages. Independent component analysis of the neuroimaging data revealed an extensive set of components engaged in self-generation learning compared with didactic learning, and identified areas that were associated with age-related changes independent of performance