Childhood vaccination coverage and equity impact in Ethiopia by socioeconomic, geographic, maternal, and child characteristics.

BACKGROUND: Ethiopia is a priority country of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to improve vaccination coverage and equitable uptake. The Ethiopian National Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) and the Global Vaccine Action Plan set coverage goals of 90% at national level and 80% at district level by 2020. This study analyses full vaccination coverage among children in Ethiopia and estimates the equity impact by socioeconomic, geographic, maternal and child characteristics based on the 2016 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey dataset. METHODS: Full vaccination coverage (1-dose BCG, 3-dose DTP3-HepB-Hib, 3-dose polio, 1-dose measles (MCV1), 3-dose pneumococcal (PCV3), and 2-dose rotavirus vaccines) of 2,004 children aged 12-23 months was analysed. Mean coverage was disaggregated by socioeconomic (household wealth, religion, ethnicity), geographic (area of residence, region), maternal (maternal age at birth, maternal education, maternal marital status, sex of household head), and child (sex of child, birth order) characteristics. Concentration indices estimated wealth and education-related inequities, and multiple logistic regression assessed associations between full vaccination coverage and socioeconomic, geographic, maternal, and child characteristics. RESULTS: Full vaccination coverage was 33.3% [29.4-37.2] in 2016. Single vaccination coverage ranged from 49.1% [45.1-53.1] for PCV3 to 69.2% [65.5-72.8] for BCG. Wealth and maternal education related inequities were pronounced with concentration indices of 0.30 and 0.23 respectively. Children in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa were seven times more likely to have full vaccination compared to children living in the Afar region. Children in female-headed households were 49% less likely to have full vaccination. CONCLUSION: Vaccination coverage in Ethiopia has a pro-advantaged regressive distribution with respect to both household wealth and maternal education. Children from poorer households, rural regions of Afar and Somali, no maternal education, and female-headed households had lower full vaccination coverage. Targeted programmes to reach under-immunised children in these subpopulations will improve vaccination coverage and equity outcomes in Ethiopia

Violation of CPT and Quantum Mechanics in the K0--K0bar System

We reconsider the model of quantum mechanics violation in the \ko--\kob system, due to Ellis, Hagelin, Nanopoulos, and Srednicki, in which \cp- and \cpt-violating signatures arise from the evolution of pure states into mixed states. We present a formalism for computing time-dependent asymmetries in this model and show that present data constrains its parameters significantly. In the future, this model will be put to very stringent tests at a $\phi$ factory. We present the theory of these tests and show the relation between particular $\phi$ decay correlations and the parameters of quantum mechanics violation.Comment: 50 pages, uses PHYZZX, one figure available on request. This revised version contains minor corrections, improved bounds on the parameters which measure violation of quantum mechanics, and a more complete set of formula

Warped Higgsless Models with IR--Brane Kinetic Terms

We examine a warped Higgsless $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)_{B-L}$ model in 5--$d$ with IR(TeV)--brane kinetic terms. It is shown that adding a brane term for the $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge field does not affect the scale ($\sim 2-3$ TeV) where perturbative unitarity in $W_L^+ W_L^- \to W_L^+ W_L^-$ is violated. This term could, however, enhance the agreement of the model with the precision electroweak data. In contrast, the inclusion of a kinetic term corresponding to the $SU(2)_D$ custodial symmetry of the theory delays the unitarity violation in $W_L^\pm$ scattering to energy scales of $\sim 6-7$ TeV for a significant fraction of the parameter space. This is about a factor of 4 improvement compared to the corresponding scale of unitarity violation in the Standard Model without a Higgs. We also show that null searches for extra gauge bosons at the Tevatron and for contact interactions at LEP II place non-trivial bounds on the size of the IR-brane terms.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

Test of Special Relativity and Equivalence principle from K Physics

A violation of Local Lorentz Invariance (VLI) and hence the special theory of relativity or a violation of equivalence principle (VEP) in the Kaon system can, in principle, induce oscillations between $K^0$ and $\bar{K}^0$. We construct a general formulation in which simultaneous pairwise diagonalization of mass, momemtum, weak or gravitational eigenstates is not assumed. %and the maximum attainable %velocities of the velocity eigenstates are different. We discuss this problem in a general way and point out that, as expected, the VEP and VLI contributions are indistinguishable. We then insist on the fact that VEP or VLI can occur even when CPT is conserved. A possible CP violation of the superweak type induced by VEP or VLI is introduced and discussed. We show that the general VEP mechanism (or the VLI mechanism, but not both simultaneously), with or without conserved CPT, could be clearly tested experimentally through the energy dependence of the $K_L-K_S$ mass difference and of $\eta_{+-}$, $\eta_{00}$, $\delta$. Constraints imposed by present experiments are calculated.Comment: Latex, 15 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Irreversible Quantum Mechanics in the Neutral K-System

The neutral Kaon system is used to test the quantum theory of resonance scattering and decay phenomena. The two dimensional Lee-Oehme-Yang theory with complex Hamiltonian is obtained by truncating the complex basis vector expansion of the exact theory in Rigged Hilbert space. This can be done for K_1 and K_2 as well as for K_S and K_L, depending upon whether one chooses the (self-adjoint, semi-bounded) Hamiltonian as commuting or non-commuting with CP. As an unexpected curiosity one can show that the exact theory (without truncation) predicts long-time 2 pion decays of the neutral Kaon system even if the Hamiltonian conserves CP.Comment: 36 pages, 1 PostScript figure include

Experimental limits on complete positivity from the K-K system

Available data on measured observables allow deriving estimates for some of the phenomenological parameters that characterize the time-evolution and decay of the neutral kaon system based on the hypothesis of complete positivity. The present experimental uncertainties are still too large to permit a full test of complete positivity.Comment: 13 pages, plain-TeX, to appear in Phys. Lett.

Test of CPT Symmetry and Quantum Mechanics with Experimental data from CPLEAR

We use fits to recent published CPLEAR data on neutral kaon decays to $\pi^+\pi^-$ and $\pi e\nu$ to constrain the CPT--violation parameters appearing in a formulation of the neutral kaon system as an open quantum-mechanical system. The obtained upper limits of the CPT--violation parameters are approaching the range suggested by certain ideas concerning quantum gravity.Comment: 9 pages of uuencoded postscript (includes 3 figures