PLoS medicine
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Review Comparative Study
Patient outcomes with teaching versus nonteaching healthcare: a systematic review.
Extensive debate exists in the healthcare community over whether outcomes of medical care at teaching hospitals and other healthcare units are better or worse than those at the respective nonteaching ones. Thus, our goal was to systematically evaluate the evidence pertaining to this question. ⋯ The available data are limited by their nonrandomized design, but overall they do not suggest that a healthcare facility's teaching status on its own markedly improves or worsens patient outcomes. Differences for specific diseases cannot be excluded, but are likely to be small.
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Uganda is one of the few African countries where rates of HIV infection have fallen, from about 15 percent in the early 1990s to about five percent in 2001. At the end of 2005, UNAIDS estimated that 6.7 percent of adults were infected with the virus. The reasons behind Uganda's success have been intensely studied in the hope that other countries can emulate the strategies that worked. ⋯ Uganda receives funds from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which promotes the ABC approach with a focus on abstinence-driven public health campaigns. Other researchers question whether the ABC approach was really responsible for the decline in HIV infection. Critics of the ABC approach also argue that by emphasizing abstinence over condom use, the approach leaves women at risk of infection, because in many parts of the world women are not empowered to insist on abstinence or fidelity.
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Comparative Study
New rapid diagnostic tests for Neisseria meningitidis serogroups A, W135, C, and Y.
Outbreaks of meningococcal meningitis (meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis) are a major public health concern in the African "meningitis belt," which includes 21 countries from Senegal to Ethiopia. Of the several species that can cause meningitis, N. meningitidis is the most important cause of epidemics in this region. In choosing the appropriate vaccine, accurate N. meningitidis serogroup determination is key. To this end, we developed and evaluated two duplex rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for detecting N. meningitidis polysaccharide (PS) antigens of several important serogroups. ⋯ These RDTs are important new bedside diagnostic tools for surveillance of meningococcus serogroups A and W135, the two serogroups that are responsible for major epidemics in Africa.
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The success of the Onchocerciasis Control Programme is undeniable and exemplary, say the authors, but it is too early to claim victory against river blindness.
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Comparative Study
Birth outcome in women with previously treated breast cancer--a population-based cohort study from Sweden.
Data on birth outcome and offspring health after the appearance of breast cancer are limited. The aim of this study was to assess the risk of adverse birth outcomes in women previously treated for invasive breast cancer compared with the general population of mothers. ⋯ It is reassuring that births overall were without adverse events, but our findings indicate that pregnancies in previously treated breast cancer patients should possibly be regarded as higher risk pregnancies, with consequences for their surveillance and management.