Socio-cultural and economic determinants of contraceptive use in the Lao People's Democratic Republic.

There is a lack of detailed information about population issues in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Available estimates are based upon the results of the most recent national census, taken in 1985, and a multi-round survey of a subsample of the population conducted during 1988-91. No contraceptive prevalence survey has ever been undertaken on a large scale. It is clear, however, that with a total fertility rate of 6.7 and an annual population growth rate of 2.9%, fertility in the country is among the highest in the world. Despite resource limitations in the country and the already rapid population growth rate, however, the Lao government has a pronatalist population policy supporting birth spacing, but not fertility limitation. In an attempt to explore the demand for contraceptive services, this article presents the results of household surveys of 4154 currently married women of mean age 30.4 years and their husbands about their actual and ideal family size, their knowledge of contraceptive methods and sources of supplies, and their current and potential use of contraception. The researchers considered the following six indicators to analyze the sociocultural and economic determinants of contraception: place of residence, ethnic group, perception of economic status by the interviewer, years spent at school, possession of items of communication with the modern world, and personal experience. The distribution of these factors is examined with regard to knowledge of the fecund period during the menstrual cycle, knowledge of various contraceptive methods and their source of supply, ideal family size and composition, demand for limitation or spacing of births, ever- and current use of contraception, reasons for non-use or for stopping use, satisfaction with the currently used method, and readiness to pay for contraception.Journal Articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The Efficacy of Chloroquine for the Treatment of Acute, Uncomplicated, Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria in Laos.

To assess the local efficacy of chloroquine for the treatment of acute, uncomplicated, Plasmodium falciparum malaria, children and adults from Sekong province (an area of Laos with a low intensity of transmission) were tested in a 28-day, in-vivo study. Complete data were collected from 88 of the 102 subjects enrolled between October 1999 and September 2000. After genotypic analysis to distinguish recrudescing infections from re-infections, 35 (39.7%, with a 95% confidence interval of 29.5%-50.7%) of these 88 patients were considered treatment failures. These results seriously question the use of chloroquine as the first-line treatment for P. falciparum malaria in the study area