Prevalence of group B Streptococcus colonization among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic of Hawassa Health Center, Hawassa, Ethiopia

Background: Group B streptococcus (GBS) or Streptococcus agalactiae are members of the normal flora of the female genital tract. GBS has become the major cause of bacterial infections in the peri-natal period, includingbacteraemia, amnionitis, endometritis, and urinary tract infection in pregnant women as well as sepsis and meningitis in neonates and young infants. Infection of the new born may be acquired by the intra-amniotic route or directly during passage through the birth canal.Objectives: This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of group B Streptococcus (GBS) colonization and to analyze related risk factors among pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic of Hawassa Health centre, Adare Hospital Hawassa, Ethiopia.Methods: A total of 139 pregnant women were screened for GBS  colonization between May and June 2010. Standard microbiological methods were used to isolate and identify GBS from vaginal and ano-rectal swabs obtained from study subjects. An antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed for all GBS isolates according to the criteria of the Clinical and laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) by disk diffusion method.Results: A total of 29 out of 139 (20.9%) pregnant women were colonized by GBS. No statistically significant association was observed for GBS colonization with any of socio-demographic characteristics of the study subjects including age, occupation, type of contraceptive used, parity, number of antenatal clinic visits. All GBS strains were susceptible to penicillin, ampicillin, vancomycin and gentamicin. Resistance was observed against erythromycin (6.9%), tetracycline (48.2%), ceftriaxone (10.3%), chloramphenicol (51.7%), ciprofloxacin (13.8%) and norfloxacin(10.3%).Conclusion: This study showed that prevalence of GBS colonization was 20.9% among the study subjects. The finding of this study was comparable with findings reported from developed and developing countries. However,further epidemiological investigations should be done in different parts of the country in order to know the actual GBS colonization rate in pregnant women and to consider the use of intra-partum antibiotics prophylaxis for prevention of early onset GBS-neonatal diseases.[Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2012;26(1):36-42

Immunity to Visceral Leishmaniasis

Leishmaniasis is a major vector-borne parasitic disease affecting 12 million people worldwide. With a broad range of clinical manifestations, ranging from self-healing skin ulcers to disfiguring mucosal lesions to life-threatening infections of visceral organs (liver and spleen), the disease has become a serious human health issue, particularly in developing countries. Among all of its forms, visceral leishmaniasis (VL, also known as kala-azar), caused by the Leishmania donovani complex (i.e., L. donovani and L. infantum in Old World and L. chagasi in New World), is often fatal in the absence of treatment. Although humans are the principal hosts for L. donovani, canine species are the main reservoirs of L. infantum. Canine VL affects millions of dogs and is associated with outbreaks of human VL and hence has become a major public health issue. The lack of vaccines to prevent and/or treat these infections, as well as the emergence of drug resistant parasites, is serious impediments to control leishmaniasis. Therefore, developing new prophylactic and therapeutic strategies against this disease is urgently required. However, for this to occur, a better understanding of the complex immune mechanisms generated in response to infection and defining those involved in resistance to infection is required. In this special issue on “Immunity to visceral leishmaniasis”, several selected papers will discuss these issues.Peer reviewe

Spectral soil analysis for fertilizer recommendations by coupling with QUEFTS for maize in East Africa: A sensitivity analysis

Laboratory analysis of soil properties is prohibitively expensive and difficult to scale across the soils in sub Saharan Africa. This results in a lack of soil-specific fertilizer recommendations, where recommendation can only be provided at a regional scale. This study aims to assess the feasibility of using spectral soil analysis to provide soil-specific fertilizer recommendations. Using a range of spectrometers [NeoSpectra Saucer (NIR), FieldSpec 4 (vis-NIR) with contact probe or mug light interface, FTIR Bruker Tensor 27 (MIR)], 346 archived soil samples (0–20 cm) with known soil chemical properties collected from Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania were scanned. Partial least square regression (PLSR) was used to develop prediction models for selected soil properties including pH, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen, Olsen P, and exchangeable K. These predicted properties, and associated uncertainty, were used to derive fertilizer recommendations for maize using the Quantitative Evaluation of the Fertility of Tropical Soils (QUEFTS) model parameters for sub-Saharan Africa. Most soil properties (pH, SOC, total nitrogen, and exchangeable K) were well predicted (Concordance Correlation Coefficient values between 0.88 and 0.96 and Ratio of Performance to Interquartile values between 1.4 and 5.9) by all the spectrometers but there were performance variations between soil properties and spec- trometers. Use of the predicted soil data for the development of fertilizer recommendations gave promising results when compared to the recommendations obtained with the conventional soil analysis. For example, the least performing NeoSpectra Saucer over/under-estimated up to 8 and 24 kg ha-1N and P, respectively, though there was insignificant variation in estimation of P fertilizer among spectrometers. We conclude that spectral technology can be used to determine major soil properties with satisfactory precision, sufficient for specific fertilizer decision making in East Africa, possibly even with portable equipment in the fiel

Absorbable versus silk sutures for surgical treatment of trachomatous trichiasis in Ethiopia: a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Trachoma causes blindness through an anatomical abnormality called trichiasis (lashes touching the eye). Trichiasis can recur after corrective surgery. We tested the hypothesis that using absorbable sutures instead of silk sutures might reduce the risk of recurrent disease among patients with major trichiasis in a randomised trial. METHODS AND FINDINGS: 1,300 individuals with major trichiasis from rural villages in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia were recruited and assigned (1:1) by computer-generated randomisation sequence to receive trichiasis surgery using either an absorbable suture (polyglactin-910) or silk sutures (removed at 7-10 days) in an otherwise identical surgical technique. Participants were examined every 6 months for 2 years by clinicians masked to allocation. The primary outcome measure was recurrent trichiasis (≥one lash touching the eye) at 1 year. There was no difference in prevalence of recurrent trichiasis at 1 year (114 [18.2%] in the absorbable suture group versus 120 [19.7%] in the silk suture group; odds ratio = 0.90, 95% CI 0.68-1.20). The two groups also did not differ in terms of corneal opacification, visual acuity, conjunctival inflammation, and surgical complications. CONCLUSIONS: There was no evidence that use of absorbable polyglactin-910 sutures was associated with a lower prevalence of trichiasis recurrence at 1 year postsurgery than silk sutures. However, from a programmatic perspective, polyglactin-910 offers the major advantage that patients do not have to be seen soon after surgery for suture removal. The postoperative review after surgery using absorbable polyglactin-910 sutures can be delayed for 3-6 months, which might allow us to better determine whether a patient needs additional surgery. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00522860

Feeding your soil-nurturing the people

United States Agency for International Developmen

Decision support tools for fertilizer recommendation

United States Agency for International Developmen

Natural resource management: Africa RISING science, innovations and technologies with scaling potential from the Ethiopian highlands

United States Agency for International Developmen

Leishmania aethiopica field isolates bearing an endosymbiontic dsRNA virus induce pro-inflammatory cytokine response

Infection with Leishmania parasites causes mainly cutaneous lesions at the site of the sand fly bite. Inflammatory metastatic forms have been reported with Leishmania species such as L. braziliensis, guyanensis and aethiopica. Little is known about the factors underlying such exacerbated clinical presentations. Leishmania RNA virus (LRV) is mainly found within South American Leishmania braziliensis and guyanensis. In a mouse model of L. guyanensis infection, its presence is responsible for an hyper-inflammatory response driven by the recognition of the viral dsRNA genome by the host Toll-like Receptor 3 leading to an exacerbation of the disease. In one instance, LRV was reported outside of South America, namely in the L. major ASKH strain from Turkmenistan, suggesting that LRV appeared before the divergence of Leishmania subgenera. LRV presence inside Leishmania parasites could be one of the factors implicated in disease severity, providing rationale for LRV screening in L. aethiopica.A new LRV member was identified in four L. aethiopica strains (LRV-Lae). Three LRV-Lae genomes were sequenced and compared to L. guyanensis LRV1 and L. major LRV2. LRV-Lae more closely resembled LRV2. Despite their similar genomic organization, a notable difference was observed in the region where the capsid protein and viral polymerase open reading frames overlap, with a unique -1 situation in LRV-Lae. In vitro infection of murine macrophages showed that LRV-Lae induced a TLR3-dependent inflammatory response as previously observed for LRV1.In this study, we report the presence of an immunogenic dsRNA virus in L. aethiopica human isolates. This is the first observation of LRV in Africa, and together with the unique description of LRV2 in Turkmenistan, it confirmed that LRV was present before the divergence of the L. (Leishmania) and (Viannia) subgenera. The potential implication of LRV-Lae on disease severity due to L. aethiopica infections is discussed

Integrating an NTD with One of “The Big Three”: Combined Malaria and Trachoma Survey in Amhara Region of Ethiopia

The “big three” killer diseases are malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis; control programs for these diseases are usually well developed and financed. The neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of ancient afflictions that are frequently sidelined by planners and are under-resourced. Opportunities of integrating the big three with NTDs have been talked about but not widely acted upon. There is potential synergy for an integrated trachoma and malaria control program since control of both diseases is community-based. The first step in accessing these synergies has been an integrated malaria prevalence and indicator and trachoma prevalence and risk factor survey. This has been achieved at the incremental cost of one additional staff member per field team. The results give unprecedented precision for the calculation of intervention targets for the integrated program and demonstrate that it is possible to integrate NTDs with the “big three.