Patterns of knowledge and condom use among population groups: Results from the 2005 Ethiopian Behavioral Surveillance Surveys on HIV

Background: Behavioral surveys help interpret the magnitude of HIV/AIDS. We analyzed indicators of knowledge on HIV/AIDS and condom use among different groups of populations selected for behavioral surveillance in Ethiopia. Methods: We used HIV/AIDS Behavioural Surveillance Surveys (BSS) data collected from ten target groups in Ethiopia. These were female sex workers, military personnel, police force, pastoralists, long distance truck drivers, intercity bus drivers, road construction workers, teachers, factory workers and ANC catchment populations. Results: Data from 14,524 individuals were analyzed. The majority were male (63.6%). Knowledge of the three preventive methods (abstinence, faithfulness and consistent condom use), misconceptions and comprehensive knowledge was 57%, 75% and 18.5%, respectively. Female sex workers and the defence force showed positive results in using condom during last sexual encounter and did so consistently with non regular sexual partners and paying partners. Women, pastoralists and the illiterate were negatively impacted. Conclusion: Inadequate and incorrect knowledge on HIV/AIDS was observed with special deficiency among the underserved groups such as pastoralists. Women and the older age group were found to be at a disadvantage. The findings indicate the need to expand prevention activities to hard-to-reach groups and such a certain specific population segments. Population groups such as female sex workers and the defense force that were known to be severely affected by the epidemic and are focus of HIV/AIDS interventions showed positive behaviors. Although this s encouraging, considerable proportion of the study groups did not use condom during sex with non regular partners. This underscores the importance of intensifying interventions across all groups and extended to their localities

Examining out of pocket payments for maternal health in rural Ethiopia: Paradox of free health care un-affordability

Background: One of the components of reproductive health is maternal care. Maternal health care is supposed to be provided free of charge for public health concerns thus women have the right to get services related to maternal care free of charge at government health care facilities. But there is low utilization of the services. Only 12% of women receive ANC and only 6% get assistance of skilled health worker during delivery in Ethiopia. There are different factors for the low utilization of services. Un-affordability of services is cited as the first main reason contributing to the low utilization.Objectives: To examine the magnitude of out of pocket expenditure for maternal health series in rural Ethiopia.Methods: This study was conducted within ten randomly selected kebeles of the Butajira DSS from October 2007 to May 2008 using a cross-sectional survey design and a source population of households that expend out-of-pocket on RH services during the period of 12 months prior to the study.Results: In the study, nearly three fifth of the studied families paid out of pocket expenditures exceeding 20% of their monthly household expenditure for maternal health care seeking. Excluding expenditures for food, about 61% of them paid more than 40% of their non-food expenditure on maternal health care. Households in the lower wealth quintiles are paying greater proportion of their income (49%) than those in the highest wealth quintile who paid 19% of their income. In addition to the direct expenditures made at point of service, the indirect expenditures of reaching to the services are also found to be substantial. These indirect expenditures share 32% of ANC, 31% of obstetric care, and 44% of abortion services. Thus even if direct expenditures at point of service in public providers are assumed to be negligible, women are obliged to go to expensive private providers to reduce the indirect costs of care seeking such as waiting time. Regarding coping mechanism to respond to expenditure, households usually borrow from relatives and friends and 4.4% of the households resorted to distress sale of their assets.Conclusions: This study identified the presence of price elasticity among the poor that suggests out-of-pocket expenditure has a regressive distributional impact and poor and very poor people were expending more. On top of this, all expenses were covered from regular income which leads to catastrophic household economic crises.Recommendations: Health care providers should be evenly distributed, easily accessible and work on awareness creation on the advantages of early care seeking and preventive care. On the other hand, health care financing should also be based on the principle of cost sharing and move into prepayment schemes or insurance

Where we are on θ13\theta_{13}: addendum to "Global neutrino data and recent reactor fluxes: status of three-flavour oscillation parameters"

In this addendum to arXiv:1103.0734 we consider the recent results from long-baseline $\nu_\mu\to\nu_e$ searches at the T2K and MINOS experiments and investigate their implications for the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ and the leptonic Dirac CP phase $\delta$. By combining the $2.5\sigma$ indication for a non-zero value of $\theta_{13}$ coming from T2K data with global neutrino oscillation data we obtain a significance for $\theta_{13} > 0$ of about $3\sigma$ with best fit points $\sin^2\theta_{13} = 0.013(0.016)$ for normal (inverted) neutrino mass ordering. These results depend somewhat on assumptions concerning the analysis of reactor neutrino data.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures and 1 tabl

Scope and Predictive Genetic/Phenotypic Signatures of Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) Responsiveness and β-Lactam Sensitization in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Addition of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) to standard antimicrobial susceptibility testing medium reveals certain methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains to be highly susceptible to β-lactams. We investigated the prevalence of this phenotype (NaHCO3 responsiveness) to two β-lactams among 58 clinical MRSA bloodstream isolates. Of note, ∼75% and ∼36% of isolates displayed the NaHCO3 responsiveness phenotype to cefazolin (CFZ) and oxacillin (OXA), respectively. Neither intrinsic β-lactam MICs in standard Mueller-Hinton broth (MHB) nor population analysis profiles were predictive of this phenotype. Several genotypic markers (clonal complex 8 [CC8]; agr I and spa t008) were associated with NaHCO3 responsiveness for OXA

Geotomography with solar and supernova neutrinos

We show how by studying the Earth matter effect on oscillations of solar and supernova neutrinos inside the Earth one can in principle reconstruct the electron number density profile of the Earth. A direct inversion of the oscillation problem is possible due to the existence of a very simple analytic formula for the Earth matter effect on oscillations of solar and supernova neutrinos. From the point of view of the Earth tomography, these oscillations have a number of advantages over the oscillations of the accelerator or atmospheric neutrinos, which stem from the fact that solar and supernova neutrinos are coming to the Earth as mass eigenstates rather than flavour eigenstates. In particular, this allows reconstruction of density profiles even over relatively short neutrino path lengths in the Earth, and also of asymmetric profiles. We study the requirements that future experiments must meet to achieve a given accuracy of the tomography of the Earth.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures; minor textual changes in section

Global neutrino data and recent reactor fluxes: status of three-flavour oscillation parameters

We present the results of a global neutrino oscillation data analysis within the three-flavour framework. We include latest results from the MINOS long-baseline experiment (including electron neutrino appearance as well as anti-neutrino data), updating all relevant solar (SK II+III), atmospheric (SK I+II+III) and reactor (KamLAND) data. Furthermore, we include a recent re-calculation of the anti-neutrino fluxes emitted from nuclear reactors. These results have important consequences for the analysis of reactor experiments and in particular for the status of the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$. In our recommended default analysis we find from the global fit that the hint for non-zero $\theta_{13}$ remains weak, at 1.8$\sigma$ for both neutrino mass hierarchy schemes. However, we discuss in detail the dependence of these results on assumptions concerning the reactor neutrino analysis.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures and 2 tables, v2: corrected version, main conclusions unchanged, references adde

Crossing the cosmological constant line in a dilatonic brane-world model with and without curvature corrections

We construct a new brane-world model composed of a bulk -with a dilatonic field-, plus a brane -with brane tension coupled to the dilaton-, cold dark matter and an induced gravity term. It is possible to show that depending on the nature of the coupling between the brane tension and the dilaton this model can describe the late-time acceleration of the brane expansion (for the normal branch) as it moves within the bulk. The acceleration is produced together with a mimicry of the crossing of the cosmological constant line (w=-1) on the brane, although this crossing of the phantom divide is obtained without invoking any phantom matter neither on the brane nor in the bulk. The role of dark energy is played by the brane tension, which reaches a maximum positive value along the cosmological expansion of the brane. It is precisely at that maximum that the crossing of the phantom divide takes place. We also show that these results remain valid when the induced gravity term on the brane is switched off.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX