Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0024530 (malaria)
 44,886 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In 1992, the worst drought in recorded history hit southern Africa. It especially affected the eastern area of Swaziland where staff at a rural district hospital, Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki, struggled to treat rising numbers of ill and malnourished people. 10% of the population in this area reached the advanced stage of starvation. Almost 50% did not have enough food to meet their nutritional needs. Women had to travel as far as 15 miles to retrieve water from tankers and sometimes wait for days because other water sources evaporated. Maize did not grow. The subsistence farmers and their families, who made up most of the population, were able to use food stored from the year before, but it only postponed hunger. They sold their cattle (their symbol of wealth), borrowed money, and migrated to cities, leaving children and grandparents to provide for themselves. This area also had an influx of refugees from Mozambique who tended to receive more food than the natives. The incidence, but not the types, of diseases increased much during the drought. These diseases included diarrhea, respiratory infections, measles, marasmus, kwashiorkor, and vitamin deficiencies. The drought did reduce the incidence of malaria, however. Nongovernmental organizations helped with food and in measuring the effects of the drought, e.g., with anthropometric surveys of young children. The international community offered to send Swaziland more than 100,000 tons of cereal, but by December 1992 the cereal had not arrived. The people distributed the limited food to those most in need. The limited maize available for distribution was yellow, but the people were accustomed to white maize and believed yellow maize to be poisonous. When droughts occur, the crux of the problem in developing countries is the pressure exerted by multinational lending institutions to earn foreign currency to pay interest on national debt.
 ...
PMID:Another African disaster. 846 97

This article reports survey results to Ghanaian nursing students' perceptions of public health issues. Their views were ascertained through a questionnaire designed to capture ratings of educational curriculum concerns and perceptions of the importance of public health factors. Both frequency data and chi-square analysis were used to assess the ordinal position of health factors and gender differences, respectively. Chi-square analysis was also done to assess differences by age. Differences between men and women respondents existed on six of 15 health factors (p less than .05) including malaria, heart disease, measles, cancer, malnutrition and car accidents, while differences between age groups were found on two of the 15 factors (violence and cancer). Based on the ascertained student perceptions, current efforts in Ghana suggest that preventive health is an emerging concern to public health officials. As such, Ghanaian nursing students hold perceptions not dissimilar to those of U.S. health professions students.
 ...
PMID:Nursing student perceptions of public health issues in Ghana. 155 72

The international community has launched the Children's Vaccine Initiative, which has created the most ambitious grouping of public and private sector interests ever to tackle a global health issue. Developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank, and the Rockefeller Foundation, the initiative is the result of decisions taken at the World Summit for Children, held in New York in September 1990. During that meeting, world leaders requested greater resources for the development of new or better vaccines. The Children's Vaccine Initiative, says WHO Director-General Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, will not only yield specific benefits in improving vaccines, it will also establish a process of collaboration between the public and private sectors, which will have far-reaching benefits in other areas. The new initiative comes on the heels of another international effort, the successful Expanded Program on Immunization, which in 1990 achieved its goal of immunizing 80% of the world's children against 6 major childhood diseases: poliomyelitis, measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The new initiative will strive to develop vaccines against a wider spectrum of viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases which cause mortality in children. These diseases include rotavirus infection, hepatitis A and E, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, acute respiratory diseases, meningococcal meningitis, diarrheal diseases, pneumococcal pneumonia, and malaria. The new initiative will also seek to improve existing vaccines, making them easier to administer and less painful and costly.
 ...
PMID:New children's vaccine initiative launched. 160 Apr 43

There is a dearth of published literature on health care systems in Angola. Like many sub-Saharan African countries, Angola is experiencing rapid urbanization. The authors provide an analysis of the health status, environmental health conditions, and health-related behavior of the urban poor in Luanda, Angola. Although data are patchy and rarely disaggregated to reveal severe conditions in the shanty towns, a grave picture emerges. An average infant mortality rate of 104/1,000, with malaria and intestinal infections the main causes of death in children under 1 year old, reflects the poor environmental conditions, which are worsening as urbanization continues at a rapid rate. Use of health services is limited; for example, 50 percent of women give birth at home, mainly unassisted, and only 28 percent of children are covered by measles immunization (as validated by card). A discussion of existing health strategies, programs, and their constraints is set in the context of the future possibilities of the ending of the 15-year war and the introduction of structural adjustment policies.
 ...
PMID:From chronic emergency to development: an analysis of the health of the urban poor in Luanda, Angola. 160 52

Finland has helped Namibia to pass through the transition period after independence in March 1990. For example, it helped develop a census to provide baseline health and demographic data so the government can proceed with planning its health policy. A goal is to switch from the curative health system it inherited to a primary health care system so as to achieve Health for All by the year 2000. Indeed the government assures free health services to all citizens. The Ministry of Health and Social Services has identified 4 strategies to achieve this goal: granting health promotion and prevention top priority; increase use of information, education, and communication; community participation; and intersectoral cooperation. Morbidity in Namibia is high, e.g., the tuberculosis, measles, and malaria rates are 295, 281, and 473/100,000 population, respectively; the growth of 33% of the children is stunted; and 6% suffer from severe malnutrition. Namibia is dependent upon food imports because parts of Namibia receive very little rain, resources are not equally distributed, landlords do not live near their land holdings, and poverty. The government plans to hold a conference on land to discuss land ownership. The government intends to improve women's status which in turn will improve their, their children's, and the population's health. The constitution guarantees women's rights. Various priority areas of the Ministry include immunization, maternal health (prenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care), and family planning. Namibia has hosted workshops on these topics and has organized a national AIDS committee which has held 9 workshops on AIDS. The government recognizes that the health of the population depends on national economic development as well as the state of education, housing, agriculture, sanitation, and communication.
 ...
PMID:Namibia's health policies and strategies. 161 22

New vaccine developments will reflect achievements of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), as well as resistance from the public toward increasing numbers of vaccines. WHO's EPI program has concentrated on tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, and measles. 35 countries are attempting to control hepatitis B with universal vaccination. Now some countries are also recommending vaccination against Haemophilus influenza, mumps, and rubella. The complexity of multiple injections has prompted new research on acellular vaccines for pertussis, hepatitis A and B, varicella, and malaria. Combined vaccines and new adjuvants are also targets of intense research. Vaccines are a priority, because they are among the most cost-effective of medical interventions.
 ...
PMID:New developments in vaccinology. 163 65

Between April 1988-April 1989, researchers followed 4320 0-59 month old children from 31 villages in Mbarara district in southwest Uganda to examine socioeconomic risk factors for child mortality. They used anthropometric data and socioeconomic data collected during interviews. The major causes of death included diarrhea (23%), acute respiratory infections (20%), measles (14%), and malaria (13%). Fathers who had received 7 years education were more likely to have experienced the death of a child than those with more education (p.05), but mother's education did not significantly affect child mortality. The following poverty indicators were also significantly associated with child mortality: candles used for lighting (p=.003), family did not own a cow (p=.004), and lived in the village for 4 years (p=.052). Further children of birth order 5 were more likely to die than those at birth order of =or- 5 (p=.029). In fact, the children with the greatest child survival were those of birth order 3-5. All these indicators remained significant when the researchers added mid-upper arm circumference to a logistic model. The researchers concluded that nutritional status and certain socioeconomic factors are both independent and important predictors of child mortality. They commented further that even though improvement of family income and the household and the development of primary health care would increase child survival, these integrated changes will not occur effortlessly due to harsh economic conditions in Uganda. Policy makers and program managers should note that this study pointed out that differences in parental education, birth spacing, and child nutrition explained differences in mortality rates between households of basically the same socioeconomic status.
 ...
PMID:Determinants of child mortality in south-west Uganda. 173 6

A survey on EPI, CDD, child morbidity, and mortality was conducted in 1988 in one province of northeastern Vietnam. Thirty out of 114 communes were randomly selected for the survey and the interviews were made by 60 students from the provincial nursing school, supervised by 10 teachers. It was found that 23 per cent of the children (n = 211) were fully vaccinated, while 54 per cent had partial coverage. Lack of information or ignorance were the main causes of vaccination failure. The adjusted yearly diarrhoeal rate was 1.6 per child under 5 years of age (n = 9.691). Infant mortality and under-five mortality rates were found to be 28 per thousand live births (95 per cent confidence interval: 21-35; n = 2.321) and 44 (36-52), respectively. High literacy among mothers, good breast-feeding practices, low mortality due to diarrhoea, malaria, and measles, and a well-functioning rural health care system were considered to be the main contributing factors to the low infant mortality. The results also point out the weaknesses in the existing reporting system and indicates the need for follow-up studies.
 ...
PMID:Survey on immunization, diarrhoeal disease and mortality in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam. 179 45

This is an historical survey of the reasons for the rapid increase in life expectancy and decline in infant mortality in Costa Rica in this century, with regression analysis of determinants of infant mortality. Costa Rica, although a small, relatively poor Central American country, has as of 1985 a life expectancy of 74 years and infant mortality rate of 19/1000. Some of the general social features contributing to its success are racial and cultural homogeneity, constitutional renunciation of an army, a social-democratic welfare-oriented government since the 1940's and a universal education. In recent decades institutional reorganization included formation of a Central Sanitary Office in the Ministry of Health, a Central Assistance Office, and a Social Security System providing medical and hospital care. In the 1970s all hospitals were placed under Social Security. Now 98.9% of hospitalizations are covered, and 7% of the GDP goes for health care. The epidemiological transition began gradually with sanitation and economic growth in the early 20th century and accelerated with the advent of antibiotics, vaccines, and DDT in the 1940s and 1950s. After a stagnant period in the 1960s due to volcano eruptions, the 1970s saw vast improvements in education, communication, and health infrastructure resulting in control of malaria, tuberculosis, helminthiases, tetanus, measles, diarrheal and respiratory infectious deaths. In the 1970s, primary health care, in the form of quarterly home visits to disadvantaged rural and urban areas, equalized health indices across the country. Immunization reached 95% an sanitation 96% of homes. Secondary health care (outpatient) was extended under Social Security. In this era, fertility fell by half, primarily due to birth spacing and limiting of higher order births. Regression analysis shows that primary health care accounted for 41%, secondary medical care for 32%, socioeconomic progress for 22%, and decline in fertility for 5% of the fall in infant mortality.
 ...
PMID:Socioeconomic development, health interventions and mortality decline in Costa Rica. 180 67

It is estimated that five million Americans will travel to the developing world over the next year. This study examines the demographic profile, past medical and immunization history, itinerary, and reason for travel of 2, 445 travelers to the developing world seen at a travel medicine service from 1984 through 1989. The travelers age ranged from three months to 85 years (mean age 43). A chronic medical condition was reported by 654 (27%). Four percent of all travelers were intolerant of sulfonamides, and 9% had contraindications to mefloquine for malaria prophylaxis. Many travelers were due to receive the primary series or updatings of routinely recommended immunizations: 43% for tetanus/diphtheria, 55% of those born after 1956 for measles, and 70% for polio if their travel itinerary included a polio risk. Most travel (71%) was for vacations, 13% was for teaching or study, 11% for business, and 5% for missionary activities. The median duration of travel was 21 days; 5% traveled for more than one year. While over 150 countries were visited, 52% of all travel was to 10 countries in East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Far East, and South America. Information about the epidemiology of travel to the developing world can help physicians and travel medicine services develop more effective preventive measures for travelers.
 ...
PMID:Pre-travel health, immunization status, and demographics of travel to the developing world for individuals visiting a travel medicine service. 187 22


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>