Achieving universal health coverage in Nepal

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2019/02/15/amrit-banstola-et-al-achieving-universal-health-coverage-in-nepal

Need and scope of global partnership on public health research

BACKGROUND:A large and growing body of "big data" is generated by internet search engines, such as Google. Because people often search for information about public health and medical issues, researchers may be able to use search engine data to monitor and predict public health problems, such as HIV. We sought to assess the feasibility of using Google search data to analyze and predict new HIV diagnoses cases in the United States. METHODS AND FINDINGS:From 2007 to 2014, we collected search volume data on HIV-related Google search keywords across the United States. State-level new HIV diagnoses data were collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and AIDSVu.org. We developed a negative binomial model to predict HIV cases using a subset of significant predictor keywords identified by LASSO. The Google search data were combined with state-level HIV case reports provided by the CDC. We use historical data to train the model and predict new HIV diagnoses from 2011 to 2014, with an average R2 value of 0.99 between predicted versus actual cases, and average root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 108.75. CONCLUSIONS:Results indicate that Google Trends is a feasible tool to predict new cases of HIV at the state level. We discuss the implications of integrating visualization maps and tools based on these models into public health and HIV monitoring and surveillance

State of Post-injury First Response Systems in Nepal—A Nationwide Survey

Copyright © 2021 Banstola, Smart, Raut, Ghimire, Pant, Joshi, Joshi and Mytton. Injuries account for 9.2% of all deaths and 9.9% of the total disability-adjusted life years in Nepal. To date, there has not been a systematic assessment of the status of first response systems in Nepal. An online survey was cascaded through government, non-governmental organisations and academic networks to identify first response providers across Nepal. Identified organisations were invited to complete a questionnaire to explore the services, personnel, equipment, and resources in these organisations, their first aid training activities and whether the organisation evaluated their first response services and training. Of 28 organisations identified, 17 (61%) completed the questionnaire. The range of services offered varied considerably; 15 (88.2%) provided first aid training, 9 (52.9%) provided treatment at the scene and 5 (29.4%) provided full emergency medical services with assessment, treatment and transport to a health facility. Only 8 (47.1%) of providers had an ambulance, with 6 (35.3%) offering transportation without an ambulance. Of 13 first aid training providers, 7 (53.8%) evaluated skill retention and 6 (46.2%) assessed health outcomes of patients. The length of a training course varied from 1 to 16 days and costs from US$4.0 to 430.0 per participant. There was a variation among training providers in who they train, how they train, and whether they evaluate that training. No standardisation existed for either first aid training or provision of care at the scene of an injury. This survey suggests that coordination and leadership will be required to develop an effective first response system across the country.National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Programme (Project ref 16/137/49) using UK aid from the UK Government

The feasibility of community mobilisation for child injury prevention in rural Nepal: A programme for female community health volunteers

Background. Injuries accounted for 23% of all deaths in children and adolescents in Nepal during 2010 (n = 3,700). Despite this, there is no national death registration or injury surveillance system. Non-fatal injuries are many times more common than fatal injuries and may leave the injured person with lifelong consequences. Children in low-income settings are exposed to widespread risks of injuries but there is little awareness of how they can be prevented. Community mobilisation has been shown to be effective to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity. This study aimed to develop a child safety programme and assess the feasibility of delivering the programme through a community mobilisation approach. Methods. We developed a culturally appropriate, educational programme for Female Community Health Volunteers that included both primary and secondary prevention materials for unintentional child injuries. We determined the feasibility of evaluating its effectiveness through the mobilisation of women’s groups in rural Nepal. Ten women’s groups across 9 wards in one village development committee area completed the programme during 6 monthly meetings. Parent-reported injuries were collected through a notification system established for this study. Experience of the programme by women’s group participants and leaders was assessed through a structured questionnaire and process measures assessed the delivery and reach of the programme. Results. Programme resources were developed for this setting and adapted following feedback from users. Nine FCHVs received first-aid training and shown how to use the facilitation manualand injury prevention resources. The FCHVs convened 10 women’s groups to run over 6 months with 24–29 mothers attending each meeting (290 mothers participated in total). Each group presented their views on child injury risks and proposed prevention activities at local public meetings. Women reported 155 injuries to children under 18 years during 7 months of follow up using the notification system. Conclusions. It is feasible to develop and implement a community mobilisation intervention where women’s groups work together with local FCHVs to prevent injuries in children. The intervention was well received by the women’s groups and by community members. The effectiveness and cost effectiveness of the intervention should now be evaluated through an experimental study

ABO phenotypes and malaria related outcomes in mothers and babies in The Gambia: a role for histo-blood groups in placental malaria?

BACKGROUND: Host susceptibility to P.falciparum is critical for understanding malaria in pregnancy, its consequences for the mother and baby, and for improving malaria control in pregnant women. Yet host genetic factors which could influence placental malaria risk are little studied and there are no reports of the role of blood group polymorphisms on pregnancy outcomes in malaria endemic areas. This study analyses the association between ABO blood group phenotypes in relation to placental malaria pathology. METHODS: A total of 198 mother/child pairs delivering in Banjul and the Kombo-St Mary District (The Gambia) were analysed. ABO blood group was measured by agglutination. Placental malaria parasites wee enumerated and the presence of malaria pigment noted. Birth anthropometry was recorded and placental weight. Maternal and infant haemoglobin was measured. RESULTS: 89 (45%) subjects were primiparae and 110 (55%)multiparae. The ABO phenotype distribution was 38(A), 52(B), 6(AB) and 102(O). Placental histo-pathology showed active placental malaria in 74 (37%), past infection in 42 (21%) and no infection in 82 cases (41%). In primiparae blood group O was associated with a higher risk of active infection (OR = 2.99; 95% CI = 1.24–7.25), and a lower risk of past infection (OR = 0.31, 0.10–1.01, p < 0.05). In multiparae the O phenotype was associated with reduced prevalence of active or past placental infection (OR = 0.45; 95% CI 0.21–0.98). The mean feto-placental weight ratio was significantly higher in multiparae with group O women compared to non-O phenotypes (5.74 vs 5.36; p = 0.04). Among primiparae with active placental infection, mean birth weight was higher in children of mothers with the O phenotype (p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: These results indicate that blood group O was significantly associated with increased placental malaria infection in primiparae and reduced risk of infection in multiparae. This parity related susceptibility was not present with other ABO phenotypes. Cell surface glycans, such as ABO and related antigens have special relevance in reproductive biology and could modulate specific cell interactions as those associated with the pathogenesis of placental malaria

Data analysis issues for allele-specific expression using Illumina's GoldenGate assay.

BACKGROUND: High-throughput measurement of allele-specific expression (ASE) is a relatively new and exciting application area for array-based technologies. In this paper, we explore several data sets which make use of Illumina's GoldenGate BeadArray technology to measure ASE. This platform exploits coding SNPs to obtain relative expression measurements for alleles at approximately 1500 positions in the genome. RESULTS: We analyze data from a mixture experiment where genomic DNA samples from pairs of individuals of known genotypes are pooled to create allelic imbalances at varying levels for the majority of SNPs on the array. We observe that GoldenGate has less sensitivity at detecting subtle allelic imbalances (around 1.3 fold) compared to extreme imbalances, and note the benefit of applying local background correction to the data. Analysis of data from a dye-swap control experiment allowed us to quantify dye-bias, which can be reduced considerably by careful normalization. The need to filter the data before carrying out further downstream analysis to remove non-responding probes, which show either weak, or non-specific signal for each allele, was also demonstrated. Throughout this paper, we find that a linear model analysis of the data from each SNP is a flexible modelling strategy that allows for testing of allelic imbalances in each sample when replicate hybridizations are available. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis shows that local background correction carried out by Illumina's software, together with quantile normalization of the red and green channels within each array, provides optimal performance in terms of false positive rates. In addition, we strongly encourage intensity-based filtering to remove SNPs which only measure non-specific signal. We anticipate that a similar analysis strategy will prove useful when quantifying ASE on Illumina's higher density Infinium BeadChips.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Type and extent of trans-disciplinary co-operation to improve food security, health and household environment in low and middle income countries: systematic review

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Dr Steve Turner and Dr Adam Price for their insightful comments that improved the manuscript. We would like to thank Heather Clark and Bimbola Kalejaiye for their help in data extraction. We are also grateful to Melanie Bickerton and Dr Amudha Poobalan for their systematic review advice.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres