Temporal changes in haematocrit following artemisinin-based combination treatments of uncomplicated falciparum malaria in children

Semilog plots of deficit in haematocrit from 30 % versus time in children with haematocrit <30 % at presentation (Pattern 6). (DOCX 16 kb

Therapeutic efficacy and effects of artesunate-amodiaquine and artemether-lumefantrine on malaria-associated anaemia in Nigerian children aged two years and under

Multilingual abstracts in five official working languages of the United Nations. (PDF 403 kb

Use of area under the curve to evaluate the effects of antimalarial drugs on malaria associated anemia after treatment

To evaluate the effects of antimalarial drugs on Plasmodium falciparum malaria associated anemia (MAA), we use the area under curve (AUC) of anemia levels after treatment as an approach to combine their duration and magnitude. The method involves numerical estimation, by trapezoidal rule, of AUC from a plot of deficit in hematocrit levels from 30% (the lower threshold of normal) versus time in anemic children. Using the method, we evaluated, in randomized trials, the effects of artesunate-mefloquine (AMQ) versus mefloquine alone (MQ), and artemether-lumefantrine (AL) versus amodiaquine-artesunate (AA) on the time-course of recovery from MAA in 109 children. Anemia resolution times were similar (10.9 ± 6.2 [SD] vs 13.3 ± 8.9 d, P = 0.2) but mean AUC was significantly lower in AMQ- compared to MQ- treated children (35.5 ± 7.1 [SEM] vs 49.8 ± 11.3 %.h, P = 0.02) indicating larger exposure to anemia in MQ-treated children. In ALand AA- treated children, both anemia resolution times (8.6 ± 5.3 [SD] vs 8.6 ± 4.8 d, P = 0.98) and mean AUC (57.1 ± 12.9 [SEM] vs 46.3 ± 8.7 %.h, P = 0.74) were similar. Estimation of AUC appears more robust than estimation of anemia resolution time in evaluating antimalarial drug effects and can be used in both observational studies and clinical trials assessing the effects of therapies on MAA

Factors associated with teenage pregnancy in southwest Nigeria

Background: Teenage pregnancy is a major contributor to maternal and child mortality, and to the vicious cycle of ill-health and poverty worldwide and thus, requires urgent intervention. This cross-sectional study therefore assessed the prevalence and contextual factors associated with teenage pregnancy in south-west Nigeria.Method: A total of 350 consenting teenagers between ages 13 and 19 were recruited using a multi-stage sampling technique. The validated semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on socio-demographic characteristics of teenagers, risk factors and prevalence of teenage pregnancy.Results: The mean age ± SD of the respondents is 16.79 ± 1.52 years. Majority (341, 97.4%) of them were single. More than a quarter (28%) of the girls were sexually active with over half sexual debut occurring at age 16 and thereafter, while, pleasure was the most cited reason (59.2%) for engaging in sexual intercourse. The prevalence of teenage pregnancy and childbirth was 7.7% and 3.4% respectively, with over half (59.3%) of the pregnancy resulting into an abortion. Individual and socio-economic factors such as age, early marriage, ethnicity, lack of formal education, family disruptions, poverty, early sexual debut, sex for financial gains, having pregnant sibling, use of alcohol, social media naive and a positive attitude towards premarital sex significantly increase the vulnerability of girls to becoming pregnant.Conclusion: The findings of this study show that though numerous, these contextual factors are largely modifiable through effective policy and interventions on early marriage, comprehensive sexuality education, ensuring girls enrolment in schools, community poverty alleviation programmes targeted at vulnerable girls and families as well as addressing gender norms that expose girls unduly

Uganda's experience in Ebola virus disease outbreak preparedness, 2018-2019.

BACKGROUND: Since the declaration of the 10th Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in DRC on 1st Aug 2018, several neighboring countries have been developing and implementing preparedness efforts to prevent EVD cross-border transmission to enable timely detection, investigation, and response in the event of a confirmed EVD outbreak in the country. We describe Uganda's experience in EVD preparedness. RESULTS: On 4 August 2018, the Uganda Ministry of Health (MoH) activated the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) and the National Task Force (NTF) for public health emergencies to plan, guide, and coordinate EVD preparedness in the country. The NTF selected an Incident Management Team (IMT), constituting a National Rapid Response Team (NRRT) that supported activation of the District Task Forces (DTFs) and District Rapid Response Teams (DRRTs) that jointly assessed levels of preparedness in 30 designated high-risk districts representing category 1 (20 districts) and category 2 (10 districts). The MoH, with technical guidance from the World Health Organisation (WHO), led EVD preparedness activities and worked together with other ministries and partner organisations to enhance community-based surveillance systems, develop and disseminate risk communication messages, engage communities, reinforce EVD screening and infection prevention measures at Points of Entry (PoEs) and in high-risk health facilities, construct and equip EVD isolation and treatment units, and establish coordination and procurement mechanisms. CONCLUSION: As of 31 May 2019, there was no confirmed case of EVD as Uganda has continued to make significant and verifiable progress in EVD preparedness. There is a need to sustain these efforts, not only in EVD preparedness but also across the entire spectrum of a multi-hazard framework. These efforts strengthen country capacity and compel the country to avail resources for preparedness and management of incidents at the source while effectively cutting costs of using a "fire-fighting" approach during public health emergencies

) Maceil, C. E.; In The Encyclopedia of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy has been applied to a planar fused-silica surface covered with crystal violet (CV + ) cations to characterize the silanol groups indirectly. A radiation-polarization dependence of the adsorption isotherm of CV + at the CH 3 CN/silica interface is measured and fit to a two-site Langmuir equation to determine the relative populations of two different types of isolated silanol groups. CV + binding at type I sites yields a free energy of adsorption of -29.9 ( 0.2 kJ/mol and a saturation surface density of (7.4 ( 0.5) × 10 12 cm -2 , whereas the values of -17.9 ( 0.4 kJ/mol and (3.1 ( 0.4) × 10 13 cm -2 are obtained for the type II sites. The CV + cations, each with a planar area of ∼120 Å 2 , seem to be aligned randomly while lying over the SiOtype I sites, thereby suggesting that this type of site may be surrounded by a large empty surface area (&gt;480 Å 2 ). In contrast, the CV + cations on a type II sites are restricted with an average angle of ∼40°tilted off the surface normal, suggesting that the CV + cations on these sites are grouped closely together. The average tilt angle increases with increasing concentration of crystal violet so that CV + cations may be separated from each other to minimize the repulsion of nearby CV + and SiOH sites. Adsorption behavior of organic molecules on silica surfaces has been the major theme of interface studies for improving the efficiency of chromatographic separations. When cationic molecules are involved, the strong electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged silanol (SiOH) groups on the surface of the stationary-phase silica may cause unwanted peak broadening and tailing, mainly from a slow kinetic response of the electrostatic adsorption. [1][2][3][4][5][6] The surface charge density is one of the primary factors influencing the strength of electrostatics. Accordingly, insight into how the cationic molecules interact with the local silanol groups of the silica surface should aid in the improvement of the design of surface modifications. Silanol groups play the main role in influencing the interfacial adsorption behavior, possessing an average surface density of ∼4.9 × 10 14 cm -2 on the silica surface 7-9 or an average surface area of 20.4 Å 2 per silanol group. As compared to silica sol particles, which have higher surface areas of (0.1-5) × 10 22 Å 2 /g, 7-9 only a few studies focus on characterization of silanol groups on a planar silica surface. 10-12 Ong et al. 10 first reported that isolated and vicinal silanol groups both exist at the water/silica interface possessing different pK a values of 4.9 and 8.5, with corresponding surface populations of 19 and 81%, respectively. These results were confirmed by means of cross-polarization magic angle spinning NMR 13 and fluorescence microscopy. 14 The isolated silanol groups with pK a ) 4.9 are anticipated to be separated far from each other (&gt;5.5 Å), permitting proton dissociation. The vicinal silanol groups are located so closely as to form hydrogen bonds directly with their neighbors (&lt;3.3 Å), which share 46% of the surface population, or through a water-molecule bridge (3.5-5.5 Å), which covers ∼35% of the surface population. 12,[15][16][17] By using second harmonic generation (SHG) with a cationic crystal violet (CV + ) molecular probe to investigate the local density distribution of the isolated silanols (pK a ) 4.9) on the planar fusedsilica surface, Xu and co-workers 12 classified them into two types. The first type of silanol group is anticipated to be surrounded by a large empty surface area (g120 Å 2 ) with a surface density o

Inherent Irreversibility of Hydromagnetic Third-Grade Reactive Poiseuille Flow of a Variable Viscosity in Porous Media with Convective Cooling

The analysis of hydromagnetic inherent irreversibility of reactive third-grade poiseuille flow and incompressible fluid heat properties of a variable viscosity with convective cooling in fixed plates is investigated. The heat dissipation of reactive exothermic chemical in a uniform magnetic field moves past fluid in a porous medium in an irreversible mode and the entropy is created continually in the system within the channel stimulated by bimolecular chemical kinetic. The heat convective transfer at the walls surfaces with the immediate surrounding follows Newton’s law of cooling. The dimensionless nonlinear equations are solved by the method of weighted residual (WRM). The results are used to obtain the Bejan number of the system and the entropy generation rate. The effects of the selected relevant parameters on the flow, entropy generation and Bejan number are demonstrated graphically and conferred with reverence to the parameter

Dissipative Heat Transfer of Micropolar Hydromagnetic Variable Electric Conductivity Fluid Past Inclined Plate with Joule Heating and Non uniform Heat Generation

Computational simulations of hydromagnetic dissipative heat transfer of variable electric conductivity of micropolar fluid flow and non - uniform heat absorption or generation with joule heating have been studied in this work. The flow past an inclined surfa ce with an unvarying heat flux. The transformed dimensionless equations of the governing model are solved by Runge - Kutta algorithm coupled with shooting scheme to depict the dimensionless temperature, microrotation and velocity distributions at the border layer. The substantial bodily quantities of the flow are conferred. The results depict that the significance of the coefficient of the skin friction and the Nusselt number increases for uneven electric conductivity and non - homogeneous heat sink or source at the plat