BACKGROUND Seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC), the administration of complete therapeutic courses of antimalarials to children aged 3-59 months during the malaria transmission season, is a new strategy recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for malaria control in Sahelian countries such as Mali with seasonal transmission. The strategy is a highly cost-effective approach to reduc...

OBJECTIVE 1) To evaluate the tuberculosis (TB) related financial burden of patients and health care providers over the course of diagnosis and treatment by choice of directly observed treatment (DOT); and 2) to examine treatment outcomes for different DOT programmes in Cambodia. SETTING AND DESIGN: Subjects were patients diagnosed with smear-positive pulmonary TB between July 2008 and January ...

SETTING Achieving successful treatment of infectious pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) could reduce the spread of tuberculosis (TB) and the emergence of multidrug resistance. OBJECTIVE To explore factors associated with successful treatment for sputum-positive PTB. DESIGN This study used a population-based retrospective cohort design. All PTB patients residing in southern Taiwan recorded in the ...

BACKGROUND One of the main problems faced by the Mexican National Tuberculosis Program is the high rate of patients abandoning treatment. This study aimed to determine the magnitude of unaccounted costs of tuberculosis (TB) treatment in Tijuana, Mexico. METHODOLOGY Subjects were recruited at 21 health centres. Patients had confirmed active pulmonary TB, had been on treatment for more than 12 ...

The article, “Compliance with Antimalaria Chemoprophylaxis in a Combat Zone,” confirmed the limited adherence to such preventive measures among military service members. The authors analyzed the reasons for noncompliance while presenting measures undertaken to address them. These measures include education and training, supply of medicines before departure, directly observed therapy, and an est...

BACKGROUND WHO recommends intermittent-preventive-treatment (IPTp) with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) and insecticide-treated-nets (ITNs) to prevent malaria in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa, however uptake remains unacceptably low. We evaluated the effectiveness of antenatal clinics (ANC) to deliver two doses of IPTp and ITNs to pregnant women in Segou district, Mali. METHODS We used hous...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis is an endemic disease in Saudi Arabia. Efforts to control this disease started in 1992 with the establishment of a National Tuberculosis Control Committee. Field application of a national tuberculosis control program (NTCP) was implemented in Riyadh in 1996 by the Ministry of Health, according to the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO). This study was aimed...

The objective of this systematic review was to investigate the effectiveness of interventions to improve medication adherence in ethnic minority populations. A literature search from January 2000 to August 2012 was conducted through PubMed/Medline, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. Search terms used included: medication (MeSH), adherence, medication adherence (MeSH), com...

BACKGROUND Completion of treatment for tuberculosis infection (TBI) with 9 months of self-administered daily isoniazid (9H) has historically been low (<50%) among New York City (NYC) Health Department tuberculosis clinic patients. Treatment of TBI with 3 months of once-weekly isoniazid and rifapentine (3HP) administered under directly observed therapy (DOT) might increase treatment acceptance a...