Effect of daily versus weekly home fortification with multiple micronutrient powder on haemoglobin concentration of young children in a rural area, Lao People's Democratic Republic: A randomised trial

Abstract Background Multiple micronutrient deficiencies, in particular iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) is a severe public health problem in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Because of the practical difficulties encountered in improving the nutritional adequacy of traditional complementary foods and the limitations associated with the use of liquid iron supplementation for the treatment and prevention of IDA in infants and young children, recently, home-fortification with multivitamins and minerals sprinkles was recommended. This study aims to compare the effect of twice weekly versus daily supplementation with multivitamins and minerals powder (MMP) on anaemia prevalence, haemoglobin concentration, and growth in infants and young children in a rural community in Lao PDR. Methods A randomized trial was conducted in six rural communities. Children aged 6 to 52 months (n = 336) were randomly assigned to a control group (n = 110) or to one of two intervention groups receiving either two sachets per week (n = 115) or a daily sachet (n = 111) of MMP for 24 weeks; 331 children completed the study. A finger prick of blood was taken at baseline, at week 12, and again at week 24 to determine haemoglobin concentration. Anthropometric measurements were taken every 4 weeks. The McNemar test was used to assess within group differences at three time points in the study subjects with anaemia and one-way ANOVA was used to assess changes in mean haemoglobin concentration in the treatment groups. Results MMP supplementation resulted in significant improvements in haemoglobin concentration and in the reduction of anaemia prevalence in the two treatment groups compared with the control group (p <0.001). The severely to moderately anaemic children (Hb <100 g/L) on daily supplementation recovered faster than those on twice weekly supplementation. MMP was well accepted and compliance was high in both treatment groups. Overall, the improvement in the weight for age Z-score was very small and not statistically significant across the three study groups. Conclusions MMP supplementation had positive effects in reduction of anaemia prevalence and in improving haemoglobin concentration. For severely to moderately anaemic children, daily MMP supplementation was more effective in improving haemoglobin concentration and reducing anaemia prevalence. A longer intervention period is probably needed to have a positive effect on growth.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

From food to pest: Conversion factors determine switches between ecosystem services and disservices

Ecosystem research focuses on goods and services, thereby ascribing beneficial values to the ecosystems. Depending on the context, however, outputs from ecosystems can be both positive and negative. We examined how provisioning services of wild animals and plants can switch between being services and disservices. We studied agricultural communities in Laos to illustrate when and why these switches take place. Government restrictions on land use combined with economic and cultural changes have created perceptions of rodents and plants as problem species in some communities. In other communities that are maintaining shifting cultivation practices, the very same taxa were perceived as beneficial. We propose conversion factors that in a given context can determine where an individual taxon is located along a spectrum from ecosystem service to disservice, when, and for whom. We argue that the omission of disservices in ecosystem service accounts may lead governments to direct investments at inappropriate targets

Final report / Workshop on the Development of the National Five Year Plan for Health Research

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Potential of Veneer Peeled from Young Eucalypts in Laos

In Laos and neighboring countries, opportunities exist for the production of engineered wood products such as plywood and laminated veneer lumber to supply the rapid growth of construction, furnishing, and joinery activities. The objective of the present study was to assess the potential of peeling fast-growing high-yielding pulpwood from managed eucalypt stands in Laos for veneered products. Eucalyptus pellita, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, and eucalypt clone K7 (E. camaldulensis × E. deglupta) stands were characterized based on veneer quality and recovery. The influence of log position, log geometry, and other log traits during recovery were also investigated. The selected taxa achieved green veneer recoveries that ranged between 57% and 67%. End splitting and branch-related defects were the most important grade-limiting defects that restricted veneer sheet quality to a lower grade of most sheets. However, simple timely silvicultural decisions, such as pruning, could significantly help improve the quality of veneer obtained. The obtained results could be used in the formulation of recommendations to adopt better management practices in Laos to improve the value of plantation-grown wood

Dietary and socio-economic factors associated with beriberi in breastfed Lao infants.

A case-control study was conducted to investigate the dietary and socio-economic factors associated with beriberi in infants attending three public hospitals in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Forty-three breast-feeding infants with a median (range) age of 3 (1-9) months were admitted with beriberi. This was defined as the presence of signs of congestive heart failure or shock in the absence of fever or other signs of sepsis, hypovolaemia or cardiac abnormalities, with rapid clinical improvement following parenteral thiamine. Subjects were matched by age and diet to 43 breast-feeding healthy control infants. Compared with control mothers, mothers of infants with beriberi had significantly less diet diversity (p &lt;0.001), soaked glutinous rice for significantly longer or were more likely to pour off excess water from non-glutinous rice (p =0.006), had fewer years of schooling (p &lt;0.05), were more likely to report that income was inadequate for basic needs (p &lt;0.001), to perform hard physical labour (p &lt;0.01) and to be married to farmers (p &lt;0.01). Clinically significant thiamine deficiency in breastfed infants in Lao relates to methods of preparing rice, the food selected by lactating mothers and the family's socio-economic status

Constraints to Rice Production Systems in Laos

In 1999, total rice production in Laos was more than 2.1 million tonnes, enough to make the nation self-sufficient in rice. Over the past 2 decades, total production has increased by about 100%, with most of the increase occurring in the rainfed lowlands where production jumped from 705 000 t in 1980 to 1 502 000 t in 1999. Even though the dry-season irrigated environment has increased production by almost nine times in the past decade (from 41 000 t in 1990 to 354 000 tin 1999) and further small-scale irrigation schemes are planned to achieve a total dry-season irrigated area of about 180 000 ha by 2005, the wet-season lowland environment will remain the most important rice-producing environment for the foreseeable future. Higher yields and reduced year-to-year variability in production can be expected with further intensification of production systems in the lowlands. However, further improvements in production will depend on higher levels of inputs and continued alleviation of some production constraints. The uplands will become less important for rice production as alternative, more sustainable technologies are developed to replace the current ‘slash-and-burn’ and shifting cultivation practices. This paper summarizes the known main abiotic and biotic production constraints in each of Laos’s rice-producing environments: wet-season lowlands, dry-season irrigated, and rainfed uplands, but not those socioeconomic constraints that can also have significant impact on farmer attitudes and production. The major production constraints in the main rice-producing environment—the wet-season lowland ecosystem of the Mekong River Valley—are drought and poor soil fertility. However, more than 10% of the wetseason lowlands in the central and southern agricultural regions are also regularly affected by flooding of the Mekong River. In these areas, flood damage is often regarded as a greater production constraint than drought. In the dry-season irrigated environment, poor soil fertility is the main abiotic constraint. Insect pests are becoming increasingly important in both these production systems. In existing production systems in the rainfed uplands, the main constraints are, in decreasing order of significance, weeds, rodents and drought. Farmers’ perceptions of the relative importance of production constraints in the uplands are generally more accurate than those in the lowlands. Poor soil fertility is often not rated among the most important constraints in the wet-season lowlands and dry-season irrigated environments, despite experimental evidence that often the greatest yield increases can come from improved plant nutrition. Until recently, farmers’ perceptions of the importance of insect pests in the lowlands often exaggerated their economic significance

Advancing enhanced wood manufacturing industries in Laos and Australia - Final Report

ACIAR invested in Lao PDR's plantation and wood products sector in 2005, with the third project, FST/2016/151 – Advancing enhanced wood manufacturing industries in Laos and Australia (VALTIP3), building on the results. The VALTIP3 project conducted research on plantation-wood value chains, mapping plantations, exploring actors like traders and women, developing innovative wood products, and implementing processing technologies. It also assessed policy, regulatory, and strategic settings in these areas. The projects built local capacity to meet the demand of plantation-wood processing companies in Laos for NUoL FFS graduates and government stakeholders seeking VALTIP3 team members' knowledge for policy changes