African health sciences
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African health sciences · Jun 2013
Cost effectiveness of facility and home based HIV voluntary counseling and testing strategies in rural Uganda.
In Uganda, the main stay for provision of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) has been at health facilities. Home based VCT on the other hand, was initiated in the country to improve service coverage. ⋯ Home based VCT was the least costly strategy per client tested and was also cost effective in identifying HIV sero-positive clients in rural areas. This strategy should therefore be promoted to improve service coverage and thereby facilitate early and extensive detection of clients eligible for treatment.
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African health sciences · Jun 2013
The outcome of non-carbapenem-based empirical antibacterial therapy and VRE colonisation in patients with hematological malignancies.
Febrile neutropenia (FN) is generally a complication of cancer chemotherapy. ⋯ Our results suggest that initiating of non-carbapenem based therapy does not provide high response rates in the treatment of febrile neutropenia attacks. Furthermore, non-carbapenem-based empirical therapy provides benefit in regard to cost-effectiveness and antimicrobial stewardship when local antibiotic resistance patterns of gram-negative bacteria are considered. Patients who are colonized with VRE are more likely to develop bacteremia with VRE strains as a result of invasive procedures and severe damage of mucosal barriers observed in this group of patients.