Lancet
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Efficacy, safety, and tolerability of augmentation pharmacotherapy with aripiprazole for treatment-resistant depression in late life: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.
Treatment-resistant major depression is common and potentially life-threatening in elderly people, in whom little is known about the benefits and risks of augmentation pharmacotherapy. We aimed to assess whether aripiprazole is associated with a higher probability of remission than is placebo. ⋯ National Institute of Mental Health, UPMC Endowment in Geriatric Psychiatry, Taylor Family Institute for Innovative Psychiatric Research, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Gene therapy with recombinant adeno-associated vectors for neovascular age-related macular degeneration: 1 year follow-up of a phase 1 randomised clinical trial.
Neovascular, or wet, age-related macular degeneration causes central vision loss and represents a major health problem in elderly people, and is currently treated with frequent intraocular injections of anti-VEGF protein. Gene therapy might enable long-term anti-VEGF therapy from a single treatment. We tested the safety of rAAV.sFLT-1 in treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration with a single subretinal injection. ⋯ National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Richard Pearce Bequest, Lions Save Sight Foundation, Brian King Fellowship, and Avalanche Biotechnologies, Inc.
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The slow global response to the Ebola crisis in west Africa suggests that important gaps exist in donor financing for key global functions, such as support for health research and development for diseases of poverty and strengthening of outbreak preparedness. In this Health Policy, we use the International Development Statistics databases to quantify donor support for such functions. ⋯ Much R&D spending falls outside ODA--ie, the assistance that is conventionally reported through ODA databases of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This expanded definition, which we term health ODA plus, provides a more comprehensive picture of donor support for health that could reshape how policy makers will approach their support for global health.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Immunogenicity of a new routine vaccination schedule for global poliomyelitis prevention: an open-label, randomised controlled trial.
Polio eradication needs a new routine immunisation schedule--three or four doses of bivalent type 1 and type 3 oral poliovirus vaccine (bOPV) and one dose of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV), but no immunogenicity data are available for this schedule. We aimed to assess immunogenicity of this vaccine schedule. ⋯ WHO, through a grant from Rotary International (grant number 59735).
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Successive Governments of India have promised to transform India's unsatisfactory health-care system, culminating in the present government's promise to expand health assurance for all. Despite substantial improvements in some health indicators in the past decade, India contributes disproportionately to the global burden of disease, with health indicators that compare unfavourably with other middle-income countries and India's regional neighbours. Large health disparities between states, between rural and urban populations, and across social classes persist. ⋯ In the process, several major challenges will need to be confronted, most notably the very low levels of public expenditure; the poor regulation, rapid commercialisation of and corruption in health care; and the fragmentation of governance of health care. Most importantly, assuring universal health coverage will require the explicit acknowledgment, by government and civil society, of health care as a public good on par with education. Only a radical restructuring of the health-care system that promotes health equity and eliminates impoverishment due to out-of-pocket expenditures will assure health for all Indians by 2022--a fitting way to mark the 75th year of India's independence.