BACKGROUND Influenza is a vaccine preventable disease that causes important morbidity and mortality worldwide. Estimating the burden of influenza disease is difficult. However, there are some methods based in surveillance data and laboratory testing that can be used for this purpose. OBJECTIVES Estimating the burden of serious illness from influenza by means of hospitalization and death recor...

OBJECTIVE To conduct a comprehensive review of data on pneumococcal disease incidence in Latin America and the Caribbean and project the annual number of pneumococcal disease episodes and deaths among children < 5 years of age in the region. METHODS We carried out a systematic review (1990 to 2006) on the burden of pneumococcal disease in children < 5 years of age in the region. We summarized...

Malaria with over 3 million deaths per year remains the foremost killer among all diseases and causes 400 000 cases of severe maternal anaemia and from 75 000-200 000 infant deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa[1]. Malaria is more severe in pregnant women than nonpregnant women leading to altered placental pathology and fetal abnormalities[2]. The role of heat shock proteins (hsps) in infectio...

a Center for Management of Health System, Indian Institute of Management, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad 380015, India. b Academy for Nursing Studies, Hyderabad, India. Correspondence to Kranti Vora (e-mail: [email protected]). doi:10.2471/BLT.07.048454 India has the largest number of births per year (27 million) in the world.1 With its high maternal mortality of about 300–500 per 100 000 births...

O ne of the 2 key goals of the Healthy People 2010 statement , the guiding document for the United States Department of Health and Human Services, is to " eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population " by the year 2010. 1 The US Congress has by law directed National Institutes of Health (NIH) to specifically define health disparities to include the components: • Minor...

THE goal of all labor and delivery units and of birthing centers is a safe birth for both newborn and mother. Yet, an examination of current statistics raises significant questions about whether that aim is being achieved. A report released this year found that more than 2 women die of pregnancy-related causes every day in the United States, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 d...

INTRODUCTION Sex-related physiological differences result in different expressions of diseases for men and women. Data are contradicting regarding the increase in the female risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) at mid-life. Thus, we studied possible sex differences in age-adjusted mortality for CVD and non-vascular diseases stratifying our findings by specific age groups. METHODS Over one mi...

Background: To describe factors contributed to the maternal deaths occurred in the West Azerbaijan, Iran from 2002 through 2011. Materials and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, data on the maternal deaths obtained from the national maternal mortality surveillance system were analyzed. The three delays model was used so as to recognize contributing factors of maternal deaths due to obstetric ...

Sudden death in childhood is rare. About 10% of paediatric deaths after the first year of life are sudden and population based studies put the individual age related risk at around 1:20 000 to 1:50 000 per year. w1–3 About half of these deaths are related to a previously known abnormality, the most common being epilepsy, asthma, and cardiovascular abnormalities. Another third are attributed to ...

Sudden death in childhood is rare. About 10% of paediatric deaths after the first year of life are sudden and population based studies put the individual age related risk at around 1:20 000 to 1:50 000 per year. w1–3 About half of these deaths are related to a previously known abnormality, the most common being epilepsy, asthma, and cardiovascular abnormalities. Another third are attributed to ...