PLoS medicine
-
Penelope Enarson and colleagues describe the development, scale-up, and achievements of a national pneumonia program in Malawi, which is based on a successful anti-tuberculosis service delivery model.
-
Alex McMahon and colleagues critique the International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) guidance on good clinical practice (GCP), arguing that it is having a disastrous effect on noncommerical randomized clinical trials in Europe.
-
Data from HIV treatment programs in resource-limited settings show extensive rates of loss to follow-up (LTFU) ranging from 5% to 40% within 6 mo of antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation. Our objective was to project the clinical impact and cost-effectiveness of interventions to prevent LTFU from HIV care in West Africa. ⋯ Interventions that prevent LTFU in resource-limited settings would substantially improve survival and would be cost-effective by international criteria with efficacy of at least 12%-41%, depending on the cost of intervention, based on a reported 18% cumulative incidence of LTFU at 1 y after ART initiation. The commitment to start ART and treat HIV in these settings should include interventions to prevent LTFU.
-
In the second in a series of six articles on packages of care for mental health disorders in low- and middle-income countries, Caroline Mbuba and Charles Newton discuss treatment for epilepsy.