Meeting report
Geneva, 16-18 November 2016
A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Clinical Infectious Diseases® 2016;62(12):1586–94
PLoS ONE 13(8): e0202499. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202499
This was a school-based cross-sectional study conducted in 2015 among 305 school children aged 7–16 years from two primary schools located in Ilemela and Magu Districts, north-western Tanzania. Single stool and urine samples w...ere collected from each participant and examined for the presence of Schistosoma mansoni eggs, parasite antigen, and parasite DNA using KK thick smears, POC-CCA tests, and real-time PCR, respectively.
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Persons with disabilities are one of the most vulnerable and socially excluded groups in any crisis-affected community. They may be in hidden in homes, overlooked during needs assessments and not consulted in the design of programs.4 While gender-based violence (GBV) affects women, girls, men and bo...ys, the vast majority of survivors globally are women and girls.5 Persons with disabilities have difficulty accessing GBV programs, due to a variety of societal, environmental and communication barriers, increasing their risk of violence, abuse and exploitation.
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Naicker et al. BMC Palliative Care (2016) 15:41 DOI 10.1186/s12904-016-0114-7
The current COVID-19 epidemic, like other infectious disease outbreak
previously, imposes to Child Protection actors to work and deliver services with
great creativity and flexibility, especially in those areas of interventions
traditionally relying on group-gathering (i.e. Child Friendly Spaces)... and face-toface
interactions.
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The micronutrient powders will be distributed at the health facilities where instructions on use will be provided by Health Care Providers. Community Health Volunteers will educate, counsel, and mobilize caregivers at the community level to visit health facilities for nutrition assessment and provis...ion of the micronutrient powders.
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The harmonized training package for Point-of-use-fortification using micronutrient powders has been developed to guide in training frontline health workers. The micronutrient powders will be distributed at the health facilities where instructions on use will be provided by Health Care Providers. Com...munity Health Volunteers will educate, counsel, and mobilize caregivers at the community level to visit health facilities for nutrition assessment and provision of the micronutrient powders.
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In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child pornography and other child sexual abuse material, Mama Fatima Singhateh, focuses on the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) p...andemic on increased risk and various manifestations of sale and sexual exploitation of children. The Special Rapporteur outlines the push and pull factors, protection challenges and good practices, and provides recommendations on measures to address the heightened risks of sale and sexual exploitation of children, both online and offline, during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis and the ensuing lockdowns.
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In many conflicts around the world, more children die from diseases linked to unsafe water than from direct violence. UNICEF is releasing Water Under Fire volume 3, a report that highlights the issues children face in accessing water in times of war. The report demonstrates the humanitarian impact o...n children through case studies from Iraq, State of Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine. Attacks on water, sanitation services and staff must stop.
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Shortages of healthcare workers is detrimental to the health of communities, especially children. This paper describes the process of capacity building Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to deliver integrated preventive and curative package of care of services to manage common childhood illness in h...ard-to-reach communities in Bondo Subcounty, Kenya
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Cryptococcal disease, particularly cryptococcal meningitis is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among people living with HIV with advanced HIV disease. It is estimated that it is responsible for nearly 19% of AIDS-related mortality, second only to tuberculosis. Rapid screening, diagnosi...s and linking to appropriate treatment are critical actions national programs must take to reduce the burden of disease.
WHO in 2022 introduced updated guidelines for diagnosing, preventing, and managing cryptococcal disease among adults, adolescents and children living with HIV. This policy brief provides a summary of the key recommendations, clinical considerations, and also stresses the importance of ensuring access to life-saving antifungals. There is an urgent need for countries to scale-up management for not just cryptococcal meningitis, but address cryptococcal disease in the context of a package of care for advanced HIV disease as recommended by WHO.
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Conflict, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic effects of the Ukraine crisis are interacting to create new and worsen existing hunger hotspots, reversing the gains families had made to escape poverty.
The sub-Saharan African region, carries 90% of the over 250 million cases of schistosomiasis occurring worldwide. In this region, after Nigeria, Tanzania is second country having the highest cases of schistosomiasis and approximately 51.5%0 of the Tanzanian population is either exposed or live in ar...eas with high risk of exposure. The country is endemic to both Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma haematobium, these infections are common in communities characterised with limited access to water, sanitation, hygienic practices and health services. Schistosoma mansoni infection is associated with hepatosplenic disease characterised with hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, progressive periportal fibrosis (PPF) which can lead to portal hypertension and its related sequelae, mainly ascites, liver surface irregularities, oesophageal varices and haematemesis. The main consequences of S. haematobium infection are haematuria, dysuria, nutritional deficiencies, urinary bladder lesions, hydronephrosis, urinary bladder squamous cell carcinoma and in children, growth retardation. Preventive chemotherapy using mass drug administration (MDA) of praziquantel targeting primary school aged children is the main strategy for controlling schistosomiasis in Tanzania.
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Schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths (STH) infections are major public health problems. We aimed to study the 6-mo impact of mass drug administration with praziquantel and albendazole on urinary schistosomiasis and STH.We examined children (aged 2–15 y) from one hamlet, who provided urin...e and faeces samples at baseline (n=197), 1 mo (n=102) and 6 mo (n=92); 67 completed the protocol.At baseline, 47/67 (70.1%) children presented Schistosoma haematobium (75.8% in the baseline total sample) and 12/67 (17.9%) with STH (30.5% in the initial sample, p=0.010). Among the children, 47.3% had heavy Schistosoma haematobium infection. The most frequent STH was Trichuris trichiura in 9.0%. We also found Hymenolepis nana (13.2%) and Plasmodium falciparum (9.1%) infections and anaemia (82.1%). One mo after chemotherapy there was a significant (p=0.013) reduction of Schistosoma haematobium prevalence (23.5%) and a high egg reduction rate (86.9%). Considering the sample of 67 children, the mean egg concentration was 498 at baseline, 65 at 1 mo and 252 at 6 mo (p<0.05). We also observed a reduction in STH infections, 50% in Ascaris lumbricoides, 33.3% in T. trichiura and 50% in hookworms. At 6 mo, the prevalence of Schistosoma haematobium (76.1%) was similar to the baseline and the STH reduction was not significant.Longitudinal studies have reported many losses in these settings, but we were able to show that mass drug administration for control of schistosomiasis and STH present low effectiveness, that reinfections occur rapidly and that stand alone anthelmintic therapy is not a sustainable choice.
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