Evaluation of a New Recombinant K39 Rapid Diagnostic Test for Sudanese Visceral Leishmaniasis.

A new rK39 rapid diagnostic dipstick test (DiaMed-IT-Leish) was compared with aspiration and a direct agglutination test (DAT) for diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in 201 parasitologically confirmed cases, 133 endemic controls, and in 356 clinical suspects in disease-endemic and -epidemic areas in Sudan. The sensitivity of the rK39 test in parasitologically confirmed VL cases was 90%, whereas the specificity in disease-endemic controls was 99%. The sensitivity of the DAT was 98%. In clinically suspected cases, the sensitivity of the rK39 test was 81% and the specificity was 97%. When compared with the diagnostic protocol based on the DAT and aspiration used by Médecins sans Frontières in epidemic situations, the positive predictive value was 98%, and the negative predictive value was 71%. This rK39 rapid diagnostic test is suitable for screening as well as diagnosis of VL. Further diagnostic work-up of dipstick-negative patients with clinically suspected VL is important. The ease and convenience of the dipstick test will allow decentralization and improved access to care in disease-endemic areas in Sudan

Chemical constituents and antioxidant activities of the fruits extracts of Piper capense

The fruits of P. capense from Ethiopia were hydro-distilled with Clevenger apparatus to furnish 2.6-2.8% yellowish oil which was analyzed with GC–MS. Results of the GC-MS analysis revealed the presence of twenty one components with the major ones are β-caryophyllene (5%), g-muurolene (7.22%), germacrene D (9.30%), dihydroxy-isocalamendiol (11.6%), and cis-muurola-3,5-diene (15.6%). The fruits were also successively extracted with n-hexane and EtOAc to give 1.3% and 2.3% yield on dry weight basis, respectively. The EtOAc extract was screened for the presence of secondary metabolites which showed the presence of alkaloids, phenols, steroids, flavonoids, saponins and terpenoids while tannin was not detected. The EtOAc extract after silica gel column chromatography resulted in the isolation of 5-hydroxy-7,4’-dimethoxyflavone. The DPPH radical scavenging activity of the EtOAc extract, essential oil and 5-hydroxy-7,4’-dimethoxyflavone were evaluated and found to inhibit DPPH radical by 78%, 70% and 84% at 100 µg mL-1, respectively. Likewise, the EtOAc extract, essential oil and 5-hydroxy-7,4’-dimethoxyflavone inhibited peroxidation of lipid by 74, 64 and 80%, respectively. The results are significant compared to ascorbic acid used as positive control suggesting the use of the fruit of P. capense as a natural antioxidant

Sexual and reproductive health communication and awareness of contraceptive methods among secondary school female students, northern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

Sexual and reproductive health communication and awareness of contraceptive methods among secondary school female students, northern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study. Health, 14: 252 http://dx.doi. org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-252 Access to the published version may require subscription. N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper. BMC Public Permanent link to this version: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-87988 R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Open Access Sexual and reproductive health communication and awareness of contraceptive methods among secondary school female students, northern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study Abstract Background: Adolescent girls continue to fall victim to unintended pregnancy and its consequences, with particular problems arising in low income countries. Awareness about methods of contraception is an important step towards gaining access and using suitable contraceptive methods. However, studies assessing the relationship between sexual and reproductive health communication and awareness of contraceptive methods among secondary school female students are lacking. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 807 female students in six secondary schools in Mekelle town, Ethiopia. Study participants were selected with a stratified cluster sampling technique. Data collection was carried out using a structured, self-administered questionnaire, and data entry was done using EPI Info Version 3.3.2 software. The data were then cleaned and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to determine factors associated with awareness of female students on methods of contraception. Result: Of all the students, 127(15.8%) reported ever having had sex, of whom 109(85.8%) had ever used contraceptives. Twenty (16%) of the sexually active students reported having been pregnant, of whom 18(90%) terminated their pregnancies with induced abortion. Discussion on sexual and reproductive health matters with their parent/s and peer/s in the six months prior to the study was reported by 351(43.5%) and 493(61.1%) of the students respectively. 716(88%) students were aware of different methods of contraception. Discussing sexual and reproductive health issues with parents (AOR =2.56(95% CI: 1.45, 4.50)) and peers (AOR = 2.46(95% CI: 1.50, 4.03)) were found to be independent predictors for contraceptive awareness among students. Conclusions: Discussion on sexual and reproductive health issues with family and peers has a positive effect on contraceptive awareness of students. Therefore, strategies to improve open parent-child communication, and appropriate peer-to-peer communication in schools on sexual and reproductive health should be established and strengthened

FS-Net: Full Scale Network and Adaptive Threshold for Improving Extraction of Micro-Retinal Vessel Structures

Retinal vascular segmentation, is a widely researched subject in biomedical image processing, aims to relieve ophthalmologists' workload when treating and detecting retinal disorders. However, segmenting retinal vessels has its own set of challenges, with prior techniques failing to generate adequate results when segmenting branches and microvascular structures. The neural network approaches used recently are characterized by the inability to keep local and global properties together and the failure to capture tiny end vessels make it challenging to attain the desired result. To reduce this retinal vessel segmentation problem, we propose a full-scale micro-vessel extraction mechanism based on an encoder-decoder neural network architecture, sigmoid smoothing, and an adaptive threshold method. The network consists of of residual, encoder booster, bottleneck enhancement, squeeze, and excitation building blocks. All of these blocks together help to improve the feature extraction and prediction of the segmentation map. The proposed solution has been evaluated using the DRIVE, CHASE-DB1, and STARE datasets, and competitive results are obtained when compared with previous studies. The AUC and accuracy on the DRIVE dataset are 0.9884 and 0.9702, respectively. On the CHASE-DB1 dataset, the scores are 0.9903 and 0.9755, respectively. On the STARE dataset, the scores are 0.9916 and 0.9750, respectively. The performance achieved is one step ahead of what has been done in previous studies, and this results in a higher chance of having this solution in real-life diagnostic centers that seek ophthalmologists attention.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, under consideration at Pattern Recognition Letter

Applying the InterVA-4 model to determine causes of death in rural Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: In Ethiopia, most deaths take place at home and routine certification of cause of death by physicians is lacking. As a result, reliable cause of death (CoD) data are often not available. Recently, a computerized method for interpretation of verbal autopsy (VA) data, called InterVA, has been developed and used. It calculates the probability of a set of CoD given the presence of circumstances, signs, and symptoms reported during VA interviews. We applied the InterVA model to describe CoD in a rural population of Ethiopia. OBJECTIVE: VA data for 436/599 (72.7%) deaths that occurred during 2010-2011 were included. InterVA-4 was used to interpret the VA data into probable cause of death. Cause-specific mortality fraction was used to describe frequency of occurrence of death from specific causes. RESULTS: InterVA-4 was able to give likely cause(s) of death for 401/436 of the cases (92.0%). Overall, 35.0% of the total deaths were attributed to communicable diseases, and 30.7% to chronic non-communicable diseases. Tuberculosis (12.5%) and acute respiratory tract infections (10.4%) were the most frequent causes followed by neoplasms (9.6%) and diseases of circulatory system (7.2%). CONCLUSION: InterVA-4 can produce plausible estimates of the major public health problems that can guide public health interventions. We encourage further validation studies, in local settings, so that InterVA can be integrated into national health surveys.Berhe Weldearegawi, Yohannes Adama Melaku, Mark Spigt, and Geert Jan Dinan

Unintended pregnancy among female sex workers in Mekelle city, northern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Unintended pregnancy is a significant public health concern in the world. Particularly, female sex workers are exposed to the risk of unintended pregnancy, abortion and their consequences. The aim of this study was, therefore, to assess unintended pregnancy and associated factors among female sex workers in Mekelle city, northern Ethiopia. METHODS: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 346 female sex workers from five Kebelles (smallest administrative units in Ethiopia) of Mekelle city from March-April, 2014. Sex workers were selected with simple random sampling technique using sampling frame obtained from urban health extension program. Epi-data version 3.1 was used to enter data and analysis was done using SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were performed to identify factors associated with unintended pregnancy using odds ratio and 95% confidence interval with P-value of 0.05. RESULTS: The magnitude of unintended pregnancy among female sex workers in the past two years was 28.6%. During this period, 59 women had abortion which represents three-fifths, (59.6%), of those who had unintended pregnancies, and 17.1% of all female sex workers. Female sex workers who gave birth and had history of abortion formerly had 3.1 (AOR = 3.07, 95% CI: [1.54, 6.09]) and 15.6 (AOR = 15.64 95% CI: [8.03, 30.47]) times higher odds of unintended pregnancy compared to their counterparts, respectively. Sex workers who had steady partners had 2.9 (AOR = 2.87, 95% CI: [1.47, 5.61]) times higher odds of have unintended pregnancy than those who hadn't. Drug users had 2.7 (AOR = 2.68, 95% CI: [1.30, 5.52]) times higher odds of unintended pregnancy than those who hadn't use. Sex workers who had 60-96 months of duration in sex work were 67% less likely to have unintended pregnancy than those with <12 months (AOR = 0.33, 95% CI: [0.11, 0.95]). CONCLUSIONS: High level of unintended pregnancy and a range of associated factors were identified among sex workers. Improving utilization of effective pregnancy prevention methods in a consistent manner can avert the existing high level of unintended pregnancy among female sex workers.Rishan Weldegebreal, Yohannes Adama Melaku, Mussie Alemayehu, and Tesfay Gebregzabher Gebrehiwo

In vivo anti-malarial activity of hydroalcoholic extracts from Asparagus africanus Lam. in mice infected with Plasmodium berghei

Background: Malaria is a major public health problem in the world in general and developing countries in particular, causing an estimated 1-2 million deaths per year, an annual incidence of 300-500 million clinical cases and more than 2 billion people are at risk of infection from it. But it is also becoming more difficult to treat malaria due to the increasing drug resistance. Therefore, the need for alternative drugs is acute. Objective: The This study aims at investigating the in vivo antiplasmodial activity of extracts of the roots and area parts from traditionally used medicinal plant, named Asparagus africanus (Liliaceae). Methods: A rodent malaria parasite, Plasmodium berghei, which was maintained at the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI) laboratory, was inoculated into Swiss albino mice. The mice were infected with 1x107 parasites intraperitoneally. The extracts were administered by an intra gastric tube daily for four days starting from the day of parasite inoculation. The control groups received the same amount of solvent (vehicle) used to suspend each dose of the herbal drug. Chloroquine was used as a standard drug, and was administered through the same route. Results: Extracts from the roots and aerial parts of A.africanus were observed to inhibit Plasmodium berghei parasitaemia in the Swiss albino mice by 46.1% and 40.7% respectively. Conclusion: The study could partly confirm the claim in Ethiopian traditional medicine that the plant has therapeutic values in human malaria. There is, thus, the need to initiate further in-depth investigation by using different experimental models. The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 20 (2) 2006: 112-11

Global, regional, and national levels of maternal mortality, 1990–2015 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background In transitioning from the Millennium Development Goal to the Sustainable Development Goal era, it is imperative to comprehensively assess progress toward reducing maternal mortality to identify areas of success, remaining challenges, and frame policy discussions. We aimed to quantify maternal mortality throughout the world by underlying cause and age from 1990 to 2015. Methods We estimated maternal mortality at the global, regional, and national levels from 1990 to 2015 for ages 10–54 years by systematically compiling and processing all available data sources from 186 of 195 countries and territories, 11 of which were analysed at the subnational level. We quantifi ed eight underlying causes of maternal death and four timing categories, improving estimation methods since GBD 2013 for adult all-cause mortality, HIVrelated maternal mortality, and late maternal death. Secondary analyses then allowed systematic examination of drivers of trends, including the relation between maternal mortality and coverage of specifi c reproductive health-care services as well as assessment of observed versus expected maternal mortality as a function of Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary indicator derived from measures of income per capita, educational attainment, and fertility. Findings Only ten countries achieved MDG 5, but 122 of 195 countries have already met SDG 3.1. Geographical disparities widened between 1990 and 2015 and, in 2015, 24 countries still had a maternal mortality ratio greater than 400. The proportion of all maternal deaths occurring in the bottom two SDI quintiles, where haemorrhage is the dominant cause of maternal death, increased from roughly 68% in 1990 to more than 80% in 2015. The middle SDI quintile improved the most from 1990 to 2015, but also has the most complicated causal profi le. Maternal mortality in the highest SDI quintile is mostly due to other direct maternal disorders, indirect maternal disorders, and abortion, ectopic pregnancy, and/or miscarriage. Historical patterns suggest achievement of SDG 3.1 will require 91% coverage of one antenatal care visit, 78% of four antenatal care visits, 81% of in-facility delivery, and 87% of skilled birth attendance. Interpretation Several challenges to improving reproductive health lie ahead in the SDG era. Countries should establish or renew systems for collection and timely dissemination of health data; expand coverage and improve quality of family planning services, including access to contraception and safe abortion to address high adolescent fertility; invest in improving health system capacity, including coverage of routine reproductive health care and of more advanced obstetric care—including EmOC; adapt health systems and data collection systems to monitor and reverse the increase in indirect, other direct, and late maternal deaths, especially in high SDI locations; and examine their own performance with respect to their SDI level, using that information to formulate strategies to improve performance and ensure optimum reproductive health of their population.GBD 2015 Maternal Mortality Collaborators ...Nicholas J Kassebaum ... Azmeraw T Amare ... Liliana G Ciobanu ... James Hancock ... Ratilal Lalloo ... Yohannes Adama Melaku ... John Nelson Opio ... G A Tessema ... et.al

Participation in physical activity is associated with reduced nocturnal hypoxaemia in males

Moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) interventions reduce the severity of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA); however, little epidemiological research exists to confirm these findings. 789 participants from the population-based Men Androgen Inflammation Lifestyle Environment and Stress (MAILES) Study underwent polysomnography. MVPA was assessed using the Active Australia questionnaire, which was completed when participants were first recruited to the MAILES study (2002-2006), and again in 2010. Multinomial logistic regressions established odds ratio between OSA severity categories with MVPA, whilst adjusted linear models determined associations between OSA metrics with MVPA. Cross-sectionally, each hour of MVPA was associated with reduced severity of mean oxygen desaturation (unstandardised β (B)=-0.002, p=0.043) and reduced time below 90% oxygen saturation (B=-0.03, p=0.034). Longitudinally, each hour increase in MVPA was associated with a 4% reduction in the odds of severe OSA and less severe mean oxygen desaturation (B=-0.003, p=0.014), time below 90% oxygen saturation (B=-0.02, p=0.02), and mean duration of apnoeas (B=-0.004, p=0.016). MVPA is associated with reduced hypoxaemia in a cohort of community dwelling males, approximately half of whom had untreated OSA. As nocturnal intermittent hypoxaemia is associated with cardiometabolic disorders, MVPA may offer protection for patients with OSA.David Stevens, Sarah Appleton, Yohannes Melaku, Sean Martin, Robert Adams and Gary Wittert, on behalf of the MAILES investigator