Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · May 2006
Validity of verbal autopsy procedures for determining cause of death in Tanzania.
To validate verbal autopsy (VA) procedures for use in sample vital registration. Verbal autopsy is an important method for deriving cause-specific mortality estimates where disease burdens are greatest and routine cause-specific mortality data do not exist. ⋯ Verbal autopsy reliably estimated CSMFs for diseases of public health importance in all age groups. Further validation is needed to assess reasons for lack of positive results for some conditions.
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · May 2006
The burden of disease in Zimbabwe in 1997 as measured by disability-adjusted life years lost.
To rank health problems contributing most to the burden of disease in Zimbabwe using disability-adjusted life years as the population health measure. ⋯ Using local sources of information to a large extent, it was possible to develop plausible estimates of the size and the relative significance of the major health problems in Zimbabwe. The disease pattern of Zimbabwe differed substantially from regional estimates for sub-Saharan Africa justifying the need for countries to develop their own burden of disease estimates.
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · Nov 2005
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyOpen randomized study of artesunate-amodiaquine vs. chloroquine-pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine for the treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Nigerian children.
Artemisinin-based combination antimalarials are currently considered effective alternatives for the treatment of malaria in Africa, but there are few studies of such combinations in Nigerian children. We assessed the safety, treatment efficacy and effects on gametocyte carriage of the combination of artesunate plus amodiaquine and chloroquine plus pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine in children. ⋯ The combination of artesunate plus amodiaquine is therapeutically superior to a combination of chloroquine plus pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine, and significantly reduced gametocyte carriage following treatment.
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Trop. Med. Int. Health · Nov 2005
Randomized Controlled TrialTreatment of lymph node tuberculosis--a randomized clinical trial of two 6-month regimens.
The currently recommended treatment for lymph node tuberculosis is 6 months of rifampicin and isoniazid plus pyrazinamide for the first 2 months, given either daily or thrice weekly. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of a 6-month twice-weekly regimen and a daily two-drug regimen. ⋯ Both the self-administered daily regimen and the fully observed twice-weekly regimen were highly efficacious for treating patients with lymph node tuberculosis and may be considered as alternative options to the recommended regimens.