Multifoetal Pregnancies At A Maternity Hospital In Nairobi

Objective: To review some of the aspects of multiple pregnancies.Design: A retrospective review of multiple pregnancy deliveries.Setting: Pumwani Maternity Hospital- Nairobi Kenya, between 1st January and 31st December 2006.Subjects: Three hundred and twenty eight mothers with twins and two sets of triplet deliveries.Results: The total annual deliveries were 15,642. The twinning rate was one in 48 deliveries and the triplet rate was one in 7,821 deliveries. Most of the mothers were of low parity and in the lower age group. Majority had no previous history of twins and were married. The sex differences in both the first and second twins were as of the normal population with males being delivered more than females. Most of the twins were delivered alive through spontaneous vertex delivery (SVD). Majority of first twins had no complications while in second twins the majority had more complications. Most of the deliveries had no obvious congenital malformations. Most of the twins were of low birth weight and were of the same sex (monozygotic). The most common complications in both first and second twins were prematurity and asphyxia. The majority of the twins were diagnosed during the prenatal period and the most common method of diagnosis was by ultrasonography. The majority of the mothers had no complications. The most common maternal complications being pre-eclampia (PET) and anaemia.Conclusion: Most of the mothers with multiple pregnancies were of low parity and in the lower age group. Diagnosis was mainly done by ultrasonography therefore emphasis should be done to improve clinical diagnosis especially in resource constrained facilities. A more detailed study should be undertaken especially the events in the pre-pregnancy and during the antenatal period. The present study assumes that same sex twins are the same as monozygotic twins. A more detailed study on the types of placentation would be useful. As PET, anaemia, prematurity and asphyxia are the most common maternal and neonatal complications medical workers need to be made aware of the appropriate management of the conditions. These babies will need long-term follow-u

Plant resting site preferences and parity rates among the vectors of Rift Valley Fever in northeastern Kenya

Background Mosquito lifespan can influence the circulation of disease causing pathogens because it affects the time available for infection and transmission. The life-cycle of mosquitoes is determined by intrinsic and environmental factors, which can include the availability of hosts and suitable resting environments that shelter mosquitoes from extreme temperature and desiccating conditions. This study determined the parity rates (an indirect measure of survival) and plant resting preference of vectors of Rift Valley fever (RVF) in northeastern Kenya. Methods Resting mosquitoes were trapped during the rainy and the dry season using a Prokopack aspirator from vegetation, whereas general adult populations were trapped using CDC light traps. At each site, sampling was conducted within a 1 km2 area, subdivided into 500 × 500 m quadrants and four 250 × 250 m sub-quadrants from which two were randomly selected as sampling units. In each sampling unit, plants were randomly selected for aspiration of mosquitoes. Only Aedes mcintoshi and Ae. ochraceus were dissected to determine parity rates while all mosquito species were used to assess plant resting preference. Results Overall, 1124 (79 %, 95 % CI = 76.8–81.1 %) mosquitoes were parous. There was no significant difference in the number of parous Ae. mcintoshi and Ae. ochraceus. Parity was higher in the rainy season than in the dry season. Daily survival rate was estimated to be 0.93 and 0.92 among Ae. ochraceus and Ae. mcintoshi, respectively. Duosperma kilimandscharicum was the most preferred plant species with the highest average capture of primary (3.64) and secondary (5.83) vectors per plant, while Gisekia africana was least preferred. Conclusion Survival rate of each of the two primary vectors of RVF reported in this study may provide an indication that these mosquitoes can potentially play important roles in the circulation of diseases in northern Kenya. Resting preference of the mosquitoes in vegetation may influence their physiology and enhance longevity. Thus, areas with such vegetation may be associated with an increased risk of transmission of arboviruses to livestock and humans

Bringing evidence to bear for negotiating tradeoffs in sustainable agricultural intensification using a structured stakeholder engagement process

Sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) has the potential to increase food security without detrimental effects on ecosystem services. However, adoption of SAI practices across sub-Saharan Africa has not reached transformational numbers to date. It is often hampered by lack of context-specific practices, sub-optimal understanding of tradeoffs and synergies among stakeholders, and lack of approaches that bring diverse evidence sources together with stakeholders to collectively tackle complex problems. In this study, we asked three interconnected questions: (i) What is the accessibility and use of evidence for SAI decision making; (ii) What tools could enhance access and interaction with evidence for tradeoff analysis; and (iii) Which stakeholders must be included? This study employed a range of research and engagement methods including surveys, stakeholder analysis, participatory trade-off assessments and co-design of decision dashboards to better support evidence-based decision making in Zambia, Tanzania and Ethiopia. At the inception, SAI evidence was accessible and used by less than half of the decision makers across the three countries and online dashboards hold promise to enhance access. Many of the stakeholders working on SAI were not collaborating and tradeoff analysis was an under-utilized tool. Structured engagement across multiple stakeholder groups with evidence is critical

Accuracy Assessment of the ESA CCI 20M Land Cover Map: Kenya, Gabon, Ivory Coast and South Africa

This working paper presents the overall and spatial accuracy assessment of the European Space Agency (ESA) 20 m prototype land cover map for Africa for four countries: Kenya, Gabon, Ivory Coast and South Africa. This accuracy assessment was undertaken as part of the ESA-funded CrowdVal project. The results varied from 44% (for South Africa) to 91% (for Gabon). In the case of Kenya (56% overall accuracy) and South Africa, these values are largely caused by the confusion between grassland and shrubland. However, if a weighted confusion matrix is used, which diminishes the importance of the confusion between grassland and shrubs, the overall accuracy for Kenya increases to 79% and for South Africa, 75%. The overall accuracy for Ivory Coast (47%) is a result of a highly fragmented land cover, which makes it a difficult country to map with remote sensing. The exception was Gabon with a high overall accuracy of 91%, but this can be explained by the high amount of tree cover across the country, which is a relatively easy class to map

Global importance of large-diameter trees

Aim: To examine the contribution of large‐diameter trees to biomass, stand structure, and species richness across forest biomes. Location: Global. Time period: Early 21st century. Major taxa studied: Woody plants. Methods: We examined the contribution of large trees to forest density, richness and biomass using a global network of 48 large (from 2 to 60 ha) forest plots representing 5,601,473 stems across 9,298 species and 210 plant families. This contribution was assessed using three metrics: the largest 1% of trees ≥ 1 cm diameter at breast height (DBH), all trees ≥ 60 cm DBH, and those rank‐ordered largest trees that cumulatively comprise 50% of forest biomass. Results: Averaged across these 48 forest plots, the largest 1% of trees ≥ 1 cm DBH comprised 50% of aboveground live biomass, with hectare‐scale standard deviation of 26%. Trees ≥ 60 cm DBH comprised 41% of aboveground live tree biomass. The size of the largest trees correlated with total forest biomass (r2 = .62, p < .001). Large‐diameter trees in high biomass forests represented far fewer species relative to overall forest richness (r2 = .45, p < .001). Forests with more diverse large‐diameter tree communities were comprised of smaller trees (r2 = .33, p < .001). Lower large‐diameter richness was associated with large‐diameter trees being individuals of more common species (r2 = .17, p = .002). The concentration of biomass in the largest 1% of trees declined with increasing absolute latitude (r2 = .46, p < .001), as did forest density (r2 = .31, p < .001). Forest structural complexity increased with increasing absolute latitude (r2 = .26, p < .001). Main conclusions: Because large‐diameter trees constitute roughly half of the mature forest biomass worldwide, their dynamics and sensitivities to environmental change represent potentially large controls on global forest carbon cycling. We recommend managing forests for conservation of existing large‐diameter trees or those that can soon reach large diameters as a simple way to conserve and potentially enhance ecosystem services

Broad and narrow host ranges in resolved species of Cintractia limitata s. lat. (Anthracoideaceae, Ustilaginomycotina) on Cyperus

Cintractia (Anthracoideaceae, Ustilaginomycotina) is a widespread genus of smut fungi that parasitizes species of Cyperaceae. Specimens of Cintractia spp. on species of Cyperus s. lat. were examined to resolve their taxonomy, including a species on Cyperus aromaticus, which is an invasive weed in Australia. A phylogenetic species concept was used to show that Cintractia limitata s. lat. contains three different species, Cintractia limitata, C. tangensis, and a new species C. kyllingae. The proposed taxonomy is based on phylogenetic analyses of the ITS rDNA region and on the position of the sori in diverse parts of inflorescences examined in approximately 100 specimens of Cintractia. A morphological synapomorphy in C. tangensis is sori with firmly agglutinated spore masses around the base of the peduncles, rarely in the spikelets. Cintractia limitata forms powdery spore masses between flowers and is known only to occur on Cyperus species with spikelets in capitate heads. Cintractia kyllingae was found on Cy. aromaticus and may have potential as a biological control agent in Australia

Broad and narrow host ranges in resolved species of Cintractia limitata s. lat. (Anthracoideaceae, Ustilaginomycotina) on Cyperus

Cintractia (Anthracoideaceae, Ustilaginomycotina) is a widespread genus of smut fungi that parasitizes species of Cyperaceae. Specimens of Cintractia spp. on species of Cyperus s. lat. were examined to resolve their taxonomy, including a species on Cyperus aromaticus, which is an invasive weed in Australia. A phylogenetic species concept was used to show that Cintractia limitata s. lat. contains three different species, Cintractia limitata, C. tangensis, and a new species C. kyllingae. The proposed taxonomy is based on phylogenetic analyses of the ITS rDNA region and on the position of the sori in diverse parts of inflorescences examined in approximately 100 specimens of Cintractia. A morphological synapomorphy in C. tangensis is sori with firmly agglutinated spore masses around the base of the peduncles, rarely in the spikelets. Cintractia limitata forms powdery spore masses between flowers and is known only to occur on Cyperus species with spikelets in capitate heads. Cintractia kyllingae was found on Cy. aromaticus and may have potential as a biological control agent in Australia