scholarly journals Effectiveness of rotavirus vaccine in the prevention of diarrhoeal diseases among children under age five years in Kavango East and West Regions, Namibia

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Magesa ◽  
Marian Sankombo ◽  
Fillipine Nakakuwa

Background: Diarrheal diseases due to rotavirus infection contribute greatly to morbidity and mortality rates of babies and young children in many developing countries. This public health concern can effectively be reduced by the use of the rotavirus vaccine, though there is an anecdotal evidence indicating that despite introduction of the vaccine the number of cases of diarrhoea diseases are still high in Namibia, particularly in Kavango east and west regions. Objective: This study evaluated the effectiveness of the rotavirus vaccine in preventing diarrhoea cases among children under age five years in Kavango regions. Methods: The study employed a quasiexperimental design comparing diarrhoea cases before (2010-2013) and after (2014- 2017) introduction of the rotavirus vaccine among children under age five years. Data were extracted from District Health Information System version 2 and analysed by using one way analysis of covariance. Results: Before introduction of the rotavirus vaccine, there were 14 500 diarrhoea cases, which is 1.6% rate of infection. After introduction of the rotavirus vaccine, there were 14 400 diarrhoea cases, which is 1.58% rate of infection. This is supported by the effect size (partial eta2) of 0.01%, which is very small. The trend of diarrhoea cases after rotavirus vaccine introduction fluctuated with no major decline of diarrhoea cases. Conclusions: The study concluded that rotavirus vaccine is less effective in preventing diarrhoea diseases among children under age five years in the Kavango regions. Further research is needed to substantiate these findings as other factors can contribute to fluctuation of diarrhoea cases.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Maurice Bilung ◽  
Chai Fung Pui ◽  
Lela Su’ut ◽  
Kasing Apun

In the last decades, leptospirosis had gained public health concern due to morbidity and mortality rates caused by pathogenicLeptospira. The need for rapid and robust molecular typing methods to differentiate this zoonotic pathogen is of utmost importance. Various studies had been conducted to determine the genetic relatedness ofLeptospiraisolates using molecular typing methods. In this study, 29 pathogenicLeptospiraisolates from rat, soil, and water samples in Sarawak, Malaysia, were characterized using BOX-PCR and ERIC-PCR. The effectiveness of these two methods with regard to the ease of interpretation, reproducibility, typeability, and discriminatory power was also being evaluated. Using BOX-PCR, six clusters and 3 single isolates were defined at a genetic distance percentage of 11.2%. ERIC-PCR clustered the isolates into 6 clusters and 2 single isolates at a genetic distance percentage of 6.8%. Both BOX-PCR and ERIC-PCR produced comparable results though the discriminatory index for ERIC-PCR (0.826) was higher than that for BOX-PCR (0.809). From the constructed dendrogram, it could be summarized that the isolates in this study were highly heterogeneous and genetically diverse. The findings from this study indicated that there is no genetic relatedness among the pathogenicLeptospiraisolates in relation to the locality, source, and identity, with some exceptions. Out of the 29 pathogenicLeptospiraisolates studied, BOX-PCR and ERIC-PCR successfully discriminated 4 isolates (2 isolates each) into the same cluster in relation to sample sources, as well as 2 isolates into the same cluster in association with the sample locality. Future studies shall incorporate the use of other molecular typing methods to make a more thorough comparison on the genetic relatedness of pathogenicLeptospira.


2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Venkata Vijaya K. Dalai ◽  
Jason E. Childress ◽  
Paul E Schulz

Dementia is a major public health concern that afflicts an estimated 24.3 million people worldwide. Great strides are being made in order to better diagnose, prevent, and treat these disorders. Dementia is associated with multiple complications, some of which can be life-threatening, such as dysphagia. There is great variability between dementias in terms of when dysphagia and other swallowing disorders occur. In order to prepare the reader for the other articles in this publication discussing swallowing issues in depth, the authors of this article will provide a brief overview of the prevalence, risk factors, pathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnosis, current treatment options, and implications for eating for the common forms of neurodegenerative dementias.


Author(s):  
Bethan Evans ◽  
Charlotte Cooper

Over the last twenty years or so, fatness, pathologised as overweight and obesity, has been a core public health concern around which has grown a lucrative international weight loss industry. Referred to as a ‘time bomb’ and ‘the terror within’, analogies of ‘war’ circulate around obesity, framing fatness as enemy.2 Religious imagery and cultural and moral ideologies inform medical, popular and policy language with the ‘sins’ of ‘gluttony’ and ‘sloth’, evoked to frame fat people as immoral at worst and unknowledgeable victims at best, and understandings of fatness intersect with gender, class, age, sexuality, disability and race to make some fat bodies more problematically fat than others. As Evans and Colls argue, drawing on Michel Foucault, a combination of medical and moral knowledges produces the powerful ‘obesity truths’ through which fatness is framed as universally abject and pathological. Dominant and medicalised discourses of fatness (as obesity) leave little room for alternative understandings.


2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (32) ◽  
Author(s):  

Resistance to antimicrobials has become a major public health concern, and it has been shown that there is a relationship, albeit complex, between antimicrobial resistance and consumption


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameera Begum ◽  
Riaz Abdulla ◽  
Akhter Hussain

UNSTRUCTURED The menace of COVID 19 pandemic has become a major public health concern all over the world. It is a pandemic outbreak that originated from Wuhan, Hubei province of China in December 2019. All healthcare professionals including dental surgeons are in the front line and a high chance of constantly getting infected. Droplet and aerosol transmissions are the utmost concern in dental clinics and dental college hospitals. Hence, COVID 19 has a high risk of spread through droplets and aerosols generated during dental procedures from infected patients. This review article highlights the dental perspective and discusses the various preventive measures undertaken to control the spread of infection in dental clinics and dental college hospital setups.


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