Institutional mechanisms for water supply to informal settlements in Zambia a grounded theory approach

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.Effective provision of water services to informal settlements in Zambia has, andcontinues to challenge policy makers and those mandated to provide this service.Despite effecting widespread reforms for the sector in the mid to late 1990’s witha prime intent of rapidly reinvigorating the sector, problems still remain as vastnumbers of the informal settlement populace continue to live without adequateand sustained access to clean water. The complex nature of these informalsettlements has been cited as one of the key factors responsible for this situationin that the housing units are constructed devoid of any municipal planning andcontrol; are poorly constructed; and, not laid out in a systematic geometric arraywhich is essential for effective provision of modern water reticulationinfrastructure. Other factors include challenges by the service providers tomobilise resources required to install the network infrastructure and also theirinability to fully meet and recover their operational costs. The literature reviewquestioned whether other actors should be willingly allowed to participate in orderto augment service provision and also whether provision of incentives to theservice providers would serve to eradicate this condition of poor service delivery.The research was undertaken using a grounded theory approach within thesocial constructivist paradigm which is most suited where there is an absence oftheory to underpin the research area, or where the existent knowledge base inthe particular area is devoid of any theoretical foundation. The methods of datacollection included focus group discussions and in-depth semi-structuredinterviews. The research revealed that existing service delivery approaches tothese areas needs to be remodelled primarily through overhaul of the existentpolicy framework, if they are to fully cater for the various operational impedimentsinherent in informal settlements. Other findings included the requirement ofoperational incentives to entice the service providers to service these areas andthe formation of ‘quad partnerships’ through which to render services. Thetheoretical propositions (key cornerstones) for informal settlement water supplystated in this research were derived and assembled from these key findings

A Model of Tuberculosis Screening for Pregnant Women in Resource-Limited Settings Using Xpert MTB/RIF

Timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal tuberculosis (TB) is important to reduce morbidity and mortality for both the mother and child, particularly in women who are coinfected with HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the integration of TB/HIV screening into antenatal services but available diagnostic tools are slow and insensitive, resulting in delays in treatment initiation. Recently the WHO endorsed Xpert MTB/RIF, a highly sensitive, real-time PCR assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that simultaneously detects rifampicin resistance directly from sputum and provides results within 100 minutes. We propose a model for same-day TB screening and diagnosis of all pregnant women at antenatal care using Xpert MTB/RIF. Pilot studies are urgently required to evaluate strategies for the integration of TB screening into antenatal clinics using new diagnostic technologies

A Model of Tuberculosis Screening for Pregnant Women in Resource-Limited Settings Using Xpert MTB/RIF

Timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal tuberculosis (TB) is important to reduce morbidity and mortality for both the mother and child, particularly in women who are coinfected with HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the integration of TB/HIV screening into antenatal services but available diagnostic tools are slow and insensitive, resulting in delays in treatment initiation. Recently the WHO endorsed Xpert MTB/RIF, a highly sensitive, real-time PCR assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that simultaneously detects rifampicin resistance directly from sputum and provides results within 100 minutes. We propose a model for same-day TB screening and diagnosis of all pregnant women at antenatal care using Xpert MTB/RIF. Pilot studies are urgently required to evaluate strategies for the integration of TB screening into antenatal clinics using new diagnostic technologies

A model of tuberculosis screening for pregnant women in resource-limited settings using Xpert MTB/RIF

Timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal tuberculosis (TB) is important to reduce morbidity and mortality for both the mother and child, particularly in women who are coinfected with HIV. TheWorld Health Organization (WHO) recommends the integration of TB/HIV screening into antenatal services but available diagnostic tools are slow and insensitive, resulting in delays in treatment initiation. Recently the WHO endorsed Xpert MTB/RIF, a highly sensitive, real-time PCR assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that simultaneously detects rifampicin resistance directly from sputum and provides results within 100 minutes. We propose a model for same-day TB screening and diagnosis of all pregnant women at antenatal care using Xpert MTB/RIF. Pilot studies are urgently required to evaluate strategies for the integration of TB screening into antenatal clinics using new diagnostic technologies

Childbirth patterns after previous caesarean birth in sub-Saharan Africa: a retrospective analytical study in two referral hospitals in a semi-urban setting in Cameroon

Background: Rising rates of caesarean section (CS) predispose to uterine rupture (UR) during subsequent childbirths. Childbirth after previous CS has poorly been studied in rural Africa. Objective was to describe and analyse the patterns of childbirths after previous CS.Methods: A retrospective analytical study of facility-based deliveries after previous caesarean birth from January 1, 2019 to April 30, 2021 in Bafoussam, Cameroon. We included 416 files of women with previous CS for term singleton pregnancies. Statistics were computed with SPSS®.Results: Mean age and mean parity were 29.9±5.6 years and 3.2±1.4 respectively. Almost half of participants [199 (47.8%)] had had a previous vaginal birth. Antenatal care (ANC) providers were nurses/midwives and general practitioners for 232 (55.8%) and 77 (18.5%) women respectively. The route of delivery wasn’t chosen during ANC for 312 (75.0%) women and 99 (23.8%) of participants were referred during labour. Elective repeat CS was done for 92 (22.1%) women and 324 (77.9%) underwent trial of labour after CS (TOLAC) of whom 131 (40.4%) gave birth by vaginal route. Onset of labour was spontaneous in 304 (93.8%) cases. UR complicated 13 (4.0%) cases of TOLAC. Previous vaginal birth predicted successful TOLAC and referred parturients had higher risk of UR. There were 28 (8.6%) perinatal deaths and 1 (0.3%) maternal death.Conclusions: In our semi urban setting, deliveries after previous caesarean births are unplanned. The success rate of TOLAC is low with a high rate of complications. There is need to improve quality of ANC, birth care and post-natal care for women with previous CS

De quoi parlent les patients dans les forums de santé : classification non-supervisée par LDA

National audienceNowadays, social media is increasingly used by patients and health professionals. This is a rich text resource, generated by many exchanges between patients and in some cases health professionals. In this paper, we use unsupervised learning model known as LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) to detect the different topics on health forums and social networks discussed by patients. Our main objective is to detect the different themes by patients during their accounts in social media and compare them with predefined themes existing in the questionnaires used in clinical trials. We also show pretreatments to be performed on these data for such tasks.De nos jours, les médias sociaux sont de plus en plus utilisés par les patients et les professionnels de santé. Il s'agit d'une ressource textuelle riche, générée par les très nombreux échanges entre patients et, dans certains cas, professionnels de santé. Dans cet article, nous utilisons le modèle d'apprentissage non supervisé connu sous le nom de LDA (Allocation de Dirichlet Latente) afin de détecter les différents thèmes abordés sur les forums de santé et les réseaux sociaux par les patients. Notre objectif est de repérer les nouveaux thèmes directement issus des préoccupations des patientes atteintes de cancer du sein et de les comparer aux thèmes existant dans les auto-questionnaires proposés dans les essais cliniques en oncologie. Mots

Explain sentiments using Conditional Random Field and a Huge Lexical Network

Abstract In this paper, we focus on a particular task which consists in explaining the source and the target of sentiments expressed in social networks. We propose a method for French, which overcomes a fine syntactic parsing and successfully integrate the Conditional Random Field (CRF) method and a smart exploration of a very large lexical network. Quantitative and qualitative experiments were performed on real dataset to validate this approach

A Model of Tuberculosis Screening for Pregnant Women in Resource-Limited Settings Using Xpert MTB/RIF

Timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal tuberculosis (TB) is important to reduce morbidity and mortality for both the mother and child, particularly in women who are coinfected with HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the integration of TB/HIV screening into antenatal services but available diagnostic tools are slow and insensitive, resulting in delays in treatment initiation. Recently the WHO endorsed Xpert MTB/RIF, a highly sensitive, real-time PCR assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that simultaneously detects rifampicin resistance directly from sputum and provides results within 100 minutes. We propose a model for same-day TB screening and diagnosis of all pregnant women at antenatal care using Xpert MTB/RIF. Pilot studies are urgently required to evaluate strategies for the integration of TB screening into antenatal clinics using new diagnostic technologies