BACKGROUND During May-June 2010, a childhood lead poisoning outbreak related to gold ore processing was confirmed in two villages in Zamfara State, Nigeria. During June-September of that year, villages with suspected or confirmed childhood lead poisoning continued to be identified in Zamfara State. OBJECTIVES We investigated the extent of childhood lead poisoning [≥ 1 child with a blood lead ...

The impact of annual single-dose community-wide treatment on the transmission of Wuchereria bancrofti was investigated in 5 villages in the East Sepik Province where pretreatment prevalence of microfilaraemia ranged from 34% to 73%. Anopheles punctulatus and An. koliensis were the only carriers of the parasite. 3 villages received diethylcarbamazine citrate (DEC) in combination with ivermectin ...

BACKGROUND Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is an important vector-borne disease in Iran. The present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Deltamethrin treated nets in comparison to Indoors Residual Spraying (IRS) for the control of leishmaniasis in a new focal area of Iran. METHODS The study was carried out in 5 villages in the west of Iran during 2012-2013. One village was selected to the ap...

BACKGROUND A third of the 2·5 billion people worldwide without access to improved sanitation live in India, as do two-thirds of the 1·1 billion practising open defecation and a quarter of the 1·5 million who die annually from diarrhoeal diseases. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a rural sanitation intervention, within the context of the Government of India's Total Sanitation Campaign, to...

The pitch levels of female speech in two villages situated in a relatively remote area of China were compared. The dialects spoken in the two villages are similar to Standard Mandarin, and all subjects had learned to read and speak Standard Mandarin at school. Subjects read out a passage of roughly 3.25 min in Standard Mandarin, and pitch values were obtained at 5-ms intervals. The overall pitc...

OBJECTIVE To conduct the first rigorous evaluation of the long-term effect of the Comprehensive Rural Health Project on childhood mortality in rural Maharashtra. METHODS Background information and full birth histories were collected by conducting household surveys and interviewing women. Control villages resembling project villages in terms of population size were randomly selected from an ar...

The abundance and age structure of Anopheles albimanus populations were estimated by UV updraft light traps and human landing catches within villages and in nearby breeding sites of southern México. Four villages and 5 breeding sites were selected for the study. Light trap and human landing catches were simultaneously carried out in each breeding site and each village. Anopheles albimanus was t...

BACKGROUND The Health outcomes of an individual depend on his /her life position. OBJECTIVES The purpose of the present paper aimed to study spontaneous abortion (as a high risk factor among rural pregnant) due to their life status. PATIENTS AND METHODS The study was conducted among 40 young rural pregnant women, 12 to 20 years old by implementing a questionnaire during 2012 to 2013 in four...

An isolated area with diarrhoea epidemic was explored at Pakhirala village of the Sundarbans, a coastal region of South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, eastern India. The Pakhirala village was surrounded by other villages affected by a similar epidemic. The affected villages experienced this epidemic following the cyclone Aila, which had hit the coastal region of the Sundarbans in eastern ...

Domestic fleas were collected in 12 villages in the western Usambara Mountains in Tanzania. Of these, 7 are considered villages with high plague frequency, where human plague was recorded during at least 6 of the 17 plague seasons between 1986 and 2004. In the remaining 5 villages with low plague frequency, plague was either rare or unrecorded. Pulex irritans, known as the human flea, was the p...