Operational Efficiency of Urban Malaria Scheme in a District of Central Gujarat, India: An Evaluation Study

The history of malaria elimination dates back to the late nineteenth century with the discovery of Plasmodium parasite and transmission of malaria through mosquito vectors.

Urban Malaria Scheme 

Even today, malaria does not cease to be a major public health problem in India. 75 million cases and 0.8 million deaths were reported from India before the launch of National Malaria Control Program in 1953. India contributes 70% of malaria cases and 69% of malaria deaths in the South-East Asia Region. However, there has been a scale up in malaria control activities due to increased interest in research activities to find newer strategies for malaria control. Thus, in the last 10 years, total malaria cases have reduced by 42%, (1.92 million in 2004 to 1.1 million in 2014) and deaths have reduced by 40.8% (from 949 to 562).

PDF LINK

Aspergillus flavus Disseminated Infection in Paediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia: A Case Report

Incidence of invasive fungal infections (IFI) has progressively increased over the past few decades. Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is associated with the highest morbidity andmortality in immunocompromised patients.

Aspergillus flavus is the second leading cause of IA affecting mostly upper airways and skin. Invasive cutaneous asperigillosis (ICA) is a rare condition characterized by more or less itching macules, papules, plaques or haemorrhagic bullae, potentially evolving into necrotic ulcers covered by a dark eschar. Primary ICA, deriving from fungus direct inoculation into an injured site, can be distinguished from secondary ICA, usually resulting from systemic dissemination of inhaled hyphae through the blood stream. Immunological deficiency in paediatric haemato-oncology patients is due both to the malignancy and chemotherapy regimen, emerging as the main predisposing factors to IFI.

PDF LINK

Sensitivity of Acute Flaccid Paralysis Surveillance in Nigeria (2006-2015)

In 1988, the World Health Assembly committed WHO to eradicating poliomyelitis; and since then, significant progress has been made as the incidence of poliomyelitis hasdeclined by more than 99%.

Acute Flaccid Paralysis

The main strategies which brought about this success included improved routine immunization, supplemental mass immunization, adequate outbreak response capacity and effective surveillance.Nigeria has recorded tremendous progress in polio eradication. The last cases of WPV and cVDPV from AFP cases had onset of paralysis in July 2014 and May 2015 respectively; and the country was removed from the list of polio endemic countries in September 2015.

PDF LINK

Neonatal Hepatitis B Surface Antigenemia Detected Less than 24 Hours Post Immunization

Perinatal hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection occurs during delivery from an infected mother; it is associated with few or no symptoms at birth, but has a high risk of chronicsubclinical disease in later childhood or adulthood.

Up to 90% of infants infected perinatally will develop chronic infection. The risk of transmission is 70 to 90% from women seropositive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B antigen at the time of delivery. Prenatal HBsAg screening is routinely offered early in the pregnancy or at delivery if the mother HBV status is unknown. Full term new-born born to mothers with unknown HBV status should receive the HBV vaccine soon after birth and HBV immunoglobulin (HBIG) if mother HBsAg is positive.

PDF LINK

Zika in Pregnancy

Zika in Pregnancy is special issue of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases: Open Access journal. This issue aims to cover all aspects of the related research to Zika virus inpregnancy. Zika in Pregnancy is a peer-reviewed journal.

Zika

All the articles are extensively reviewed according to the review policy of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases: Open Access journal. The goal of this special issue is to disseminate current research from the scientific community to the readers from every discipline. The special issue encourages the authors to contribute from all over the world. Zika in pregnancy is planned to up-date the readers about the current level of knowledge about Zika virus in general and specifically with maternal and fetal prospects. Zika in Pregnancy is published in English language and articles in other languages need to be translated with proper editing and should be free of grammatical errors.

PDF Link

Only the Funeral Industry is Benefitting from HIV/AIDS in Rural Nigeria

We have our hands tied because human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome(HIV/AIDS) is tightening its grips on Nigeria and threatening our populace with heavy burden.

HIV/AIDS

“This genocide of our generation” has more casualties than any other war as we are losing the leaders of tomorrow” since our shift focused on treatment instead of prevention. As of 2014 in Nigeria, the HIV prevalence rate among adults ages 15-49 was 3.17 per cent. Nigeria has the second-largest number of people living with HIV, as 9% of all people living with HIV globally are in Nigeria, 14% of the global deaths from HIV related illness are in Nigeria and with a population of about 170 million and despite the recent drop in HIV prevalence to 4.4%, about 3.8-4.0 million people are now estimated to be HIV positive with growth rate of 1500 per day with an infection every minute.

PDF Link

Zmpb Gene in Streptococcus Pneumoniae Causing Meningitis

Streptococcus pneumoniae is among the leading and most aggressive (around 30% of attributable mortality) causes of meningitis (Van de Beek et al. O’Brien et al. and the pathogenesis of this infection is not yet clearly understood.

The capsular polysaccharide plays a central role in the pathogenesis of pneumococcal infection; however, other virulence factors need to be considered.

An intense inflmmatory response is observed in infections due to S. pneumoniae and this is at least partially attributed to ZmpB, a zinc metalloprotease present in virtually all pneumococcal strains, ZmpB likely to serve as an important but unknown housekeeping function associated with the human host.

PDF LINK

Epidemiology and Clinical Characteristics of Cryptococcal Meningitis in China (1981-2013): A Review of the Literature

Most of patients with cryptococcal meningitis in China were not HIV victims. Profile of the diseases in patients with non-HIV infection was poorly understood.

We summarized the epidemiology and clinical characteristics of cryptococcal meningitis in China. A comprehensive analysis of the reported cases of cryptococcal meningitis in China was conducted, covering publications from 1981 to 2013 from CNKI database.

Among the 306 reports and 6514 cases about cryptococcal meningitis, there were 21% patients with HIV infection, 39% with other underlying diseases and 40% without underlying diseases.

PDF LINK