Publications by authors named "A Ratsimbasoa"
Implementation of Mass Drug Administration for Lymphatic Filariasis in Madagascar: The Progress, Effectiveness and Financial Savings of Integrating into an Existing Polio Campaign.
Res Rep Trop Med
December 2024
Introduction: This paper presents (a) the progress made towards achieving the 2023 Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) Mass Drug Administration (MDA) campaign goals, (b) the estimated financial savings resulting from integrating LF MDA into Polio immunization campaigns, and (c) the best practices, challenges, and recommendations.
Methods: In 2023, 21,336,057 people in 83 districts were affected by LF and required Preventive Chemotherapy (PC). The National NTD Control Programme (NTDCP) conducted three phases of LF MDA campaigns in those districts.
Malaria remains a significant public health concern in Madagascar. The WHO recommends using parasitological methods to confirm Plasmodium infection before treatment. This study evaluated the performance of two rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), Bioline™ Malaria Ag Pf/Pan (Abbott Point of Care, Princeton, NJ) and Bioline™ Malaria Ag Pf/Pv (Abbott Point of Care, Princeton, NJ), compared with microscopy and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as reference methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite the high prevalence of mental disorders and epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries, nearly 80% of patients are not treated. In Madagascar, initiatives to improve access to epilepsy and mental health care, including public awareness and training of general practitioners (GPs), were carried out between 2013 and 2018. Our study's main objective was to assess the effectiveness of these initiatives, two to five years post-intervention.
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- Vivax malaria was previously thought to be absent in sub-Saharan Africa because many people lack the Duffy antigen receptor (DARC), which is key for the malaria parasite P. vivax to invade red blood cells.
- New research has found that some Duffy-negative individuals can temporarily express DARC during the development of their red blood cells, allowing P. vivax to invade these cells.
- This indicates that there may be many Duffy-negative individuals silently harboring P. vivax infections, potentially leading to underreported health issues in the region.
The erythrocyte silent Duffy blood group phenotype in Africans is thought to confer resistance to Plasmodium vivax blood-stage infection. However, recent studies report P. vivax infections across Africa in Fy-negative individuals.
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