Trends in asthma indicators from population surveys (prevalence) and routine statistics (primary care, prescriptions, hospital admissions and mortality) in the UK were reviewed from 1955 to 2004. The prevalence of asthma increased in children by 2 to 3-fold, but may have flattened or even fallen recently. Current trends in adult prevalence are flat. The prevalence of a life-time diagnosis of as...

The diffusion of mobile telephones in Taiwan has demonstrated astonishing growth since its telecommunications market was open for competition in early 1990s, following government deregulations in Taiwan’s telecommunications sectors. Although scholars have attributed the success of mobile telephone diffusion to aggressive marketing activities, few have explored advertising discourses promoting m...

Declines in case management of diarrhoea among children less than five years old In the January 2007 Bulletin, Forsberg et al. present an elegant analysis of the trends in diarrhoea case management using data from national Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 1986 to 2003. 1 They conclude that despite global efforts to promote appropriate diarrhoea management during this time, only slow pr...

Since the early 1990s, Malawi has tried to undertake economic reforms, including the restructuring of the public sector, even as it embraced democratic reforms. Paucity of human and financial resources has made the process difficult and drawn out. However, towards the end of the 1990s, the reforms began to bear fruit. Notably, the efficiency of the civil service improved, while the government c...

The performance of prenatal screening tests for the identification of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) has markedly improved since the 1970s and early 1980s when maternal age was the sole mode of screening the general pregnant population. With the discovery of second trimester serum markers in the 1980s and 1990s and implementation of double, triple, and quad marker testing; the discovery of first tr...

Abstract According to empirical studies, a statistically significant factor for German exports success is high cost (or price) competitiveness. Studies by Deutsche Bundesbank recommend correcting the nominal effective exchange rate broad indicators (Deutsche Bundesbank, 1998, 2016a). This would call total economy unit labour costs. In contrast these findings, Dustmann et al. (2014) suggest usin...

BACKGROUND Little is known about HIV-1 subtype distribution in Morocco. Some data suggest an emergence of new HIV subtypes. We conducted phylogenetic analysis on a nationally representative sample of 60 HIV-1 viral specimens collected during 2004-2005 through the Morocco national HIV sentinel surveillance survey. RESULTS While subtype B is still the most prevalent, 23.3% of samples represente...