INTRODUCTION Most low-income countries lack complete and accurate vital registration systems. As a result, measures of under-five mortality rates rely mostly on household surveys. In collaboration with partners in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, and Mali, we assessed the completeness and accuracy of reporting of births and deaths by community-based health workers, and the accuracy of annualized under-...

BACKGROUND Mali has one of the world's lowest contraceptive use rates and a high rate of unmet need for family planning. In order to increase access to and choice of quality family planning services, Marie Stopes International (MSI) Mali introduced social franchising in public-sector community health centers (referred to as CSCOMs in Mali) in 3 regions under the MSI brand BlueStar. PROGRAM DE...

In Mali, adolescent girls face many physical stresses which, with a history of poor nutrition, can result in delayed growth and development. Despite the fact that adolescent girls encounter nutritional demands, most research in Mali has focused only on young children. This study examines anthropometric and reproductive data on 1,056 adolescent girls (aged 10-17 years) from the Segou Region of M...

The global child mortality rate has dropped significantly in the last two decades with Sub-Saharan Africa experiencing the fastest decline. However, Mali seems to be an exception, with a barely noticeable annual reduction rate of 1.8% between 1990 and 2011. We hypothesize that an increase in the number of climate shocks are partially responsible for the slow decline of child mortality in Mali. ...

1Programme PAC-CI / CHU de Treichville, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire 2CHU d’odonto-Stomatologie, Bamako, Mali 3CHU Gabriel Touré, Bamako, Mali 4Inserm U897, Equipe VIH et Santé Globale, Bordeaux, France 5University of San Francisco, California, USA 6Université de Bordeaux, France D. Meless1, B. Ba2, C. N’Diaye3, J. Nadri4, F. Dicko3, M. Sylla3, DK. Ekouévi1, F. Dabis4, C. Shiboski5, E. Arrivé4, 6 O-1...

Schistosoma haematobium is one of the most prevalent parasitic flatworms, infecting over 112 million people in Africa. However, little is known about the genetic diversity of natural S. haematobium populations from the human host because of the inaccessible location of adult worms in the host. We used 4 microsatellite loci to genotype individually pooled S. haematobium eggs directly from each p...

Methods First, APPS developed a situational analysis tool at a cross-country workshop to define questions for systematic data collection on 12 patient safety action areas. Second, each APPS hospital formed teams to conduct analyses. Third, an external expert worked on-site with each team to validate findings. Finally, results were shared at a second cross-country Workshop, forming the basis for...

Millets are extremely important in the African SAT (semi-arid tropics), produced in 18.50 million ha by 28 countries covering 30% of the continent. This is a significant 49% of the global millet area, with a production of 11.36 million tons by 1994. There are nine species which form major sources of energy and protein for about 130 million people in SSA (Sub-Saharan Africa). Among these, only f...

Genetics and genomic medicine in Mali: challenges and future perspectives.