Epidemiology of snakebites in Kedougou region (eastern Senegal) : comparison of various methods for assessment of incidence and mortality

Background: Although considered a public health issue in Senegal, the actual incidence and mortality from snakebite are not known. In the present study, an epidemiological survey was carried out in Kedougou region, southeastern Senegal, where envenomations, particularly by Echisocellatus, are frequent and severe. Methods: Three sources of data were used: records from health centers and reports by health professionals; traditional healers; and household surveys. Results: The annual incidence and mortality provided by health centers were 24.4 envenomations and 0.24 deaths per 100,000 population, respectively. The annual incidence recorded by traditional healers was 250 bites per 100,000 inhabitants, but the number of deaths was unknown. Finally, the household surveys reported an annual incidence of 92.8 bites per 100,000 inhabitants and an annual mortality rate of 2.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The differences in incidence and mortality between the different methods were explained by significant bias, resulting in particular from the complex patient's healthcare-seeking behavior. The incidence provided by health records should be used to specify the immediate quantitative requirements of antivenoms and places where they should be available first. Conclusion: Mandatory reporting of cases would improve the management of envenomation by simplifying epidemiological surveys. Patients' preference for traditional medicine should prompt health authorities to urge traditional healers to refer patients to health centers according to defined clinical criteria (mainly edema and bleeding or neurotoxic symptoms). Finally, household surveys were likely to reflect the actual epidemiological situation. Poison Control Center of Senegal should continue its work to sensitize stakeholders and train health staff

Production and processing of canna vermicelli in Hung Yen province toward sustainable development

Located in the Red River Delta region, Hung Yen province has 923000 ha of total land area, of which agricultural land area occupied 60.67%. The agricultural land area per labor is 0.1 ha. However, it has been annually decreasing due to the development of industrial zone, construction of urban zone, expansion of road… For these reasons, the stainable development for production and processing of agricultural products plays a very important role in job creation for farmers who loosed their own agricultural land, avoidance of quantity and quality loosing of raw agricultural products and increase in economic efficiency of agricultural production and processing. The production and processing of canna are traditional jobs of rural households in Hung Yen. They not only have been creating jobs for rural households but also increasing in their income. Beside the social and economic benefit created by these activities, the processing activity has caused many negative consequences. It led to environmental pollution due to its waste, overuse of chemical substances. Desiccated of vermicelli in bad condition resulted in the unsafe food. Therefore, this study is conducted to deeply investigate both positive effects and negative consequences created by production and processing of canna vermicelli in term of economic, social and environmental aspects. This study concentrates on the farm households; discuss advantages and disadvantages of production inputs, processing techniques and output market of their products from arrowroot to vermicelli; and find out solutions for the sustainable development for production and processing of vermicelli

The problem of mutually unbiased bases in dimension 6

We outline a discretization approach to determine the maximal number of mutually unbiased bases in dimension 6. We describe the basic ideas and introduce the most important definitions to tackle this famous open problem which has been open for the last 10 years. Some preliminary results are also listed