Articles: disease.
-
To examine whether the reduction in mortality after standard titre measles immunisation in developing countries can be explained simply by the prevention of acute measles and its long term consequences. ⋯ These observations suggest that standard titre measles vaccine may confer a beneficial effect which is unrelated to the specific protection against measles disease.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Efficacy trial of malaria vaccine SPf66 in Gambian infants.
SPf66 malaria vaccine is a synthetic protein with aminoacid sequences derived from pre-erythrocytic and asexual blood-stage proteins of Plasmodium falciparum. SPf66 was found to have a 31% protective efficacy in an area of intensive malaria transmission in Tanzanian children, 1-5 years old. We report a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of SPf66 against clinical P falciparum malaria in Gambian infants. 630 children, aged 6-11 months at time of the first dose, received three doses of SPf66 or injected polio vaccine (IPV). ⋯ No significant differences in parasite rates or in any other index of malaria were found between the two groups of children. The findings of this study differ from previous reports on SPf66 efficacy from South America and from Tanzania. In The Gambia, protection against clinical attacks of malaria during the rainy season after immunisation in children 6-11 months old at time of the first dose was not achieved.
-
Detailed standardized annual reports are analysed for 17 rural hospitals in four African countries, with admission figures of 1.2 million patients (excluding deliveries) and more than 67,000 deaths over a period of 16 years. The countries involved are Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana. Figures on admission, causes of death and clinical case fatality rates are presented per country and per 4-year calendar period for the most important infectious diseases. ⋯ A need for detailed studies with good "standardized" hospital records is emphasized. Representative data are needed from all hospitals in a given catchment area, with defined diagnoses for diseases and details regarding age and sex. This kind of information is highly desirable for planning and operation of curative and preventive medical care in developing countries.
-
We investigated whether reported psychiatric morbidity was increased after termination of pregnancy compared with other outcomes of an unplanned pregnancy. ⋯ The findings on DSH are probably explicable by confounding variables, such as adverse social factors, associated both with the request for termination and with subsequent self-harm. No overall increase in reported psychiatric morbidity was found.