Malaria is one of the most serious vector-borne diseases, affecting millions of people mainly in the tropics. Recently, a substantial decline in malaria incidence has been observed all over the world. Vector control is one of the key elements in achieving this world-wide malaria decline, with scaling up of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) and the expansion of Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) progr...

*Corresponding author: Dr. Andreas Kronbichler, Medical University Innsbruck, Department of Internal Medicine IV, Nephrology and Hypertension, Anichstraße 35, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria. E-mail: [email protected] Randomized controlled trials have revolutionised the treatment options in small vessel vasculitis. From large genome wide association studies we have learned that granulomat...

Evaluating Nationwide Health Interventions When Standard Before-After Doesn’t Work: Malawi’s ITN Distribution Program Nationwide health interventions are difficult to evaluate as contemporaneous control groups do not exist and before-after approaches are usually infeasible. We propose an alternative semi-parametric estimator that is based on the assumption that the intervention has no direct ef...

We conducted a study on the control of mosquitos on Chisi Island in Lake Chilwa from August to November, 2006. The aim was to compare the cost and efficacy of deltamethrin, a pyrethroid based insecticide, when used in insecticide treated nets (ITN) and when used in indoor residual spray (IRS). Thirty village huts were enrolled in the study. Fifteen were systematically selected in a stratified m...

In Niger, insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) have been distributed to the target group of households with young children and/or pregnant women at healthcare facilities in the course of antenatal/immunization clinics. With the aim of universal coverage, ITNs were additionally distributed to households through strengthened community health committees in 2009. This study assessed the impact of th...

Timor-Leste has some of the highest malaria rates in Asiathe WHO reports that 100% of the population is at year-round risk. A 2007 survey estimated that ITN usage (30 day) was only 28.8% in the under-5 population, and the MDG report also highlights several large disparities in ITN usage across the population69.6% urban and 45.5% rural; and 54% of males and only 46% of females, according to the ...

The Peruvian Ministry of Health has distributed insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) in the country's Amazon region since 1999. Net use is nearly universal among mestizo communities in this area, but residents traditionally use non-impregnated muslin nets. We evaluated the cultural acceptability of Ministry ITNs using qualitative methods. Our results show that nets serve various functions for users:...

HIV infection and malaria, two of the most common and important health problems in sub-Saharan Africa, have been demonstrated to have interactive pathology. In Malawi, where malaria is endemic, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) delivery is scaling up, we piloted integration of long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets (ITN) provision in three ART clinics. In July 2006, 1,910 ITNs were delivered t...

We study the topological properties of the multinetwork of commodity-specific trade relations among world countries over the 1992-2003 period, comparing them with those of the aggregate-trade network, known in the literature as the international-trade network (ITN). We show that link-weight distributions of commodity-specific networks are extremely heterogeneous and (quasi) log normality of agg...

Background. Malaria remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectives. The aim of this study was to determine ownership and utilization of ITNs among households with children under five in the previous night. Methods. A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Gursum district in Eastern Ethiopia. A total of 335 househ...