Articles: disease.
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Infectious diseases are the main cause of mortality and morbidity in developing countries. The Expanded Programme on Immunization, initiated by WHO in 1974, now reaches 60 mill. a year at a cost of less than 2 US $ per immunized child, and saves 2.2 mill. lives annually. The present vaccines, however, have significant shortcomings. ⋯ By only modest investments modern gene technology could give improved and new vaccines which would potentially save 20 mill. lives a year. Particularly promising is the recent development of multi-vaccine-vectors. However, poor prospects for profit in developing countries and patent "swapping" by commercial producers severely hamper development in the vaccine field.
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Comparative Study
Iron status of Zairean pregnant women with and without serological markers of hepatitis B virus infection.
We assessed the iron status of 203 Zairean pregnant women: 38 with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (HBsAg(+)), 94 with antibodies to the surface antigen (Anti-HBs(+)) and 71 without HBV markers (HBsAg(-)/Anti-HBs(-)). Participants, age range 15-42 years and parity 1-12, were recruited from Mama Yemo Hospital in summer 1983. Haemoglobin (Hb), serum iron, total iron binding capacity and transferrin saturation (TS) were determined by standard techniques and serum ferritin (FERR) by radioimmunoassay. ⋯ Women with inflammation and identical HBV markers had higher mean FERR levels than those without inflammation. Neither the prevalence of anaemia, which varied between 32 and 35%, nor that of iron deficiency, which varied between 52 and 59%, differed significantly between the three groups of women. We conclude that in pregnant women, chronic asymptomatic HBV infection is not associated with a lower prevalence of iron deficiency and/or anaemia.
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From 1985 to 1990, the CFC has monitored the growing national epidemic of Lime disease, which appears to parallel increased public awareness and knowledge of Lyme disease. Cases have now been reported from all 50 states, but the national surveillance program has been hampered by persistent confusion between the two diseases, with clinicians frequently reporting a case of Lime disease as Lyme disease. Analysis of surveillance reports of cases fulfilling the case-definition of Lime disease indicates that Lime disease is distributed uniformly throughout the United States (in contrast to the focal geographic occurrence of Lyme disease); the...