Health Literacy Amongst Tuberculosis Patient in a General Hospital in North Central Nigeria

Background: Healthy literacy has been shown to improve health care access and adherence to Tuberculosis (TB) treatment. Still it remains largely unstudied in many high risks, underserved and low literacy African populations. This study aims to bridge the existing knowledge gap by assessing health literacy among patients with TB in a rural town in Northern Nigeria.Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted among patients who attended the TB clinic of a secondary health care facility in Babura, Jigawa State, Nigeria between Oct 2008 and March 2009. All patients who visited the TB clinic during this period were interviewed.Result: Many (71.6%) reported having been educated about TB by a health worker, mostly on predisposing factors 43.2%, general facts (31.1%) and disease process (21.6%) but less on patient's role in disease management (1.4%). Functional health literacy was high; mean score was 7.9±0.3 out of 10. Knowledge about the disease process, diagnostic requirements and treatment regimen were the highest. However 97.3% felt drugs were no longer necessary once symptoms abated. Patient involvement in treatment decisions was also suboptimal as only 52.7% reported making a joint decision about drug “pick up” options with their physicians.Conclusion: Very high functional literacy score seemed to have been achieved among these rural low literacy TB patients even without a structured health literacy program. However patient participation in treatment seems to be underemphasized and was thus suboptimal. An important gap in patient education regarding continued TB treatment was identified and should be targeted for intervention.Keywords: Health Literacy, Tuberculosis, General Hospital, Nigeri

Haematology, Carcass and Relative Organ Weights of Growing Rabbits on Skip-A-Day Concentrate Feeding Regime

The potentials of two common weeds, Aspilia africana (Aa) and Tridax procumbens (Tp), as forages for rabbits were investigated in a study that lasted for 70 days. Thirty five (35) rabbit bucks of mixed breed of between 5 to 7 weeks of age, weighing 519 ±5g, were used for the study. The haematological, carcass and organ characteristics were examined. The rabbits were divided into 5 treatment groups of seven (7) rabbits each, with each rabbit serving as a replicate in a complete randomized design. Group 1 was placed on sole concentrate feeding while concentrate was skipped for 1, 2 and 3 days in groups 2, 3, and 4 respectively with ad-libitum forage (Aspilia africana {Aa} and Tridax procumbens {Tp}) feeding. Group 5 was fed on a sole forage diet of 250 g Aa: 250 g Tp for 56days, after which they were fed concentrate in addition to the forage for two weeks. The red blood cell count values for rabbits on sole concentrate feeding was significantly (P<0.05) higher than the values observed in rabbits on treatments 2, 3 4 and 5, that were similar (P>0.05). The final weights of the rabbits decreased linearly (P<0.05) as the number of days of concentrate feeding decreased. The dressing percentages in treatments 1, 2, 3 and 4 (64.21, 62.97, 64.73 and 62.51 % respectively) were similar (P>0.05) but significantly higher (P<0.05) than the value for rabbits in treatment 5 (56.88 %). Organ characteristics of the rabbits showed that, apart from the relative kidney weights, other organ weights were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by the dietary treatments. It can be concluded that although feeding rabbit with sole concentrate gave the highest weight gain, the use of these forages could reduce cost of production, especially feed cost, drastically, and where it is difficult to get concentrates, these forages can be fed to rabbits for maintenance. Their use would be expected to minimize cost of maintaining a clean environment and the use of non-competitive forages as rabbit feeds could encourage rural rabbit production.Keywords: Carcass, growing rabbit, forages, relative organs weights, skip-a day

Prevalence, years lived with disability, and trends in anaemia burden by severity and cause, 1990-2021: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background Anaemia is a major health problem worldwide. Global estimates of anaemia burden are crucial for developing appropriate interventions to meet current international targets for disease mitigation. We describe the prevalence, years lived with disability, and trends of anaemia and its underlying causes in 204 countries and territories. Methods We estimated population-level distributions of haemoglobin concentration by age and sex for each location from 1990 to 2021. We then calculated anaemia burden by severity and associated years lived with disability (YLDs). With data on prevalence of the causes of anaemia and associated cause-specific shifts in haemoglobin concentrations, we modelled the proportion of anaemia attributed to 37 underlying causes for all locations, years, and demographics in the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. Findings In 2021, the global prevalence of anaemia across all ages was 24·3% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 23·9–24·7), corresponding to 1·92 billion (1·89–1·95) prevalent cases, compared with a prevalence of 28·2% (27·8–28·5) and 1·50 billion (1·48–1·52) prevalent cases in 1990. Large variations were observed in anaemia burden by age, sex, and geography, with children younger than 5 years, women, and countries in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia being particularly affected. Anaemia caused 52·0 million (35·1–75·1) YLDs in 2021, and the YLD rate due to anaemia declined with increasing Socio-demographic Index. The most common causes of anaemia YLDs in 2021 were dietary iron deficiency (cause-specific anaemia YLD rate per 100 000 population: 422·4 [95% UI 286·1–612·9]), haemoglobinopathies and haemolytic anaemias (89·0 [58·2–123·7]), and other neglected tropical diseases (36·3 [24·4–52·8]), collectively accounting for 84·7% (84·1–85·2) of anaemia YLDs. Interpretation Anaemia remains a substantial global health challenge, with persistent disparities according to age, sex, and geography. Estimates of cause-specific anaemia burden can be used to design locally relevant health interventions aimed at improving anaemia management and prevention. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation