Influence on sensitivity to insecticides: a case study of a settled area and a game park in Liwonde

The close proximity of Liwonde National Park to Liwonde town creates a unique situation of a large human population adjacent to a natural undisturbed animal reserve. The closeness of the two ecosystems has an impact on biology of mosquitoes of the area, such as susceptibility to insecticides. Susceptibility to insecticide was determined using knockdownbioassays. The mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, was exposed to 0.05% deltamethrin and 0.75 % permethrin giving LT 50 and LT 90. The LT50 values for A. gambiae from the town was 17.23 minutes and those from the park, 14.7 minutes (p< 0.05). The calculated LT 90 values were 32.8 and 28.3minutes respectively. These results suggest that human settlements using insecticides in mosquito control reduce susceptibility of mosquitoes to regularly used insecticides such as deltamethrin and permethrin in this study

Comparison of deltamethrin as indoor residual spray or on insecticide treated nets for mosquito control in Lake Chilwa

We conducted a study on the control of mosquitos on Chisi Island in Lake Chilwa from August to November, 2006. The aim was to compare the cost and efficacy of deltamethrin, a pyrethroid based insecticide, when used in insecticide treated nets (ITN) and when used in indoor residual spray (IRS). Thirty village huts were enrolled in the study. Fifteen were systematically selected in a stratified manner and sprayed with deltamethrin following manufacturers' standard application procedures of 0.02g/m2. The remaining fifteen were provided with ITNs. In both groups deltamethrin KO tabs were used. Pyrethroid knockdown (PKD) spray was used for indoor rest captures in the houses monthly for three months. Houses treated with IRS had significantly reduced number of mosquitoes resting indoors than houses provided with nets (

An Assessment of donkeys’ welfare using physical and emotional parameters: a Case of Mkwinda EPA, Bunda Area, Lilongwe, Malawi

A donkey (Equus africanus asinus) is commonly used for traction by smallholder farmers in Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi, where most of the donkey population is concentrated. Though donkeys‘ behaviour is often mistakenly interpreted as aggressive, they arestoic and generally considered weaker animals compared to oxen. This in turn raises concern over their treatment and general wellbeing as they are being used to support livelihoods of smallholder farmers. A study was done in Lilongwe, Mkwinda EPA, using the hands-on donkey welfare toolin form of a semi structured questionnaire, on 48 donkeys, to examine physical parameters which were body condition, lameness, wound availability, other signs of injury and disease and the emotional parameter which looks at the donkey‘s behavior which were scored ‗best‘ to ‗worst‘ numerated by values ranging from one to five respectively. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics and Spearman‘s rank order correlation. The results indicate most of the sampled donkeys fall under the ideal BCS of 3 while other parameters scored differently, giving ―worst‖ scores of 5 for lameness and behaviour, ―worse‖ scores of 4 for wounds and other signs of injury and disease parameter. There is a positive correlation between wounds and Lameness score, significant at 0.362 (P&lt; 0.05). This insinuates that prolonged standing in grazing wetlands causes softening of the skin in the hoof regions which results in wound prevalence hence the difficulty in the gait. The study specifically revealed that the majority of the sampled donkeys were affected by poor water and feed intake, poor housing, lack of donkey veterinary clinics, unhygienic grazing areas, inappropriate handling of donkeys and lack of knowledge on the need for good donkey welfare. Furthermore, most of the donkeys, after reaching the end of their production cycle, were used for light loading, left on free range, or sold to others. Therefore, there is an intensive need to enhance donkey welfare.Key words: hands-on donkey welfare, semi structured questionnaire, physical and emotional parameters, descriptive statistics, Spearman‘s rank order correlatio

Residual unstructured heterogeneity effects of (a) residential wards, and (b) primary health care facilities

Shown are the caterpillar plots of posterior means (circles), with 95% error bars.<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Applications of Bayesian approach in modelling risk of malaria-related hospital mortality"</p><p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/6</p><p>BMC Medical Research Methodology 2008;8():6-6.</p><p>Published online 19 Feb 2008</p><p>PMCID:PMC2287185.</p><p></p

Posterior probabilities, at nominal level of 80%, for the spatial effects in Figure 3

Black denotes regions with strictly negative credible intervals, white denotes regions with strictly positive credible intervals, while grey shows areas of no significant difference. Lake Chilwa is in diagonal solid lines.<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Applications of Bayesian approach in modelling risk of malaria-related hospital mortality"</p><p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/6</p><p>BMC Medical Research Methodology 2008;8():6-6.</p><p>Published online 19 Feb 2008</p><p>PMCID:PMC2287185.</p><p></p

Temporal variation of risk: (a) time trend, and (b) seasonal effect at time of admission (in weeks)

The posterior means (solid line) are plotted together with 95% pointwise credible intervals (dotted line).<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Applications of Bayesian approach in modelling risk of malaria-related hospital mortality"</p><p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/6</p><p>BMC Medical Research Methodology 2008;8():6-6.</p><p>Published online 19 Feb 2008</p><p>PMCID:PMC2287185.</p><p></p

Nonlinear effect of (a) age of the child (in months); (b) length of hospital stay (in days)

Shown are the posterior means (solid line) together with 95% pointwise credible intervals (dotted line).<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Applications of Bayesian approach in modelling risk of malaria-related hospital mortality"</p><p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/6</p><p>BMC Medical Research Methodology 2008;8():6-6.</p><p>Published online 19 Feb 2008</p><p>PMCID:PMC2287185.</p><p></p