Viewpoint: evaluating the impact of malaria control efforts on mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.

Objective: To describe an approach for evaluating the impact of malaria control efforts on malaria-associated mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, where disease-specific mortality trends usually cannot be measured directly and most malaria deaths occur among young children.

Methods: Methods for evaluating changes in malaria-associated mortality are examined; advantages and disadvantages are presented.

Results: All methods require a plausibility argument-i.

The value of electromyography of the lumbar paraspinal muscles in discriminating between chronic-low-back-pain sufferers and normal subjects.

The authors studied the surface electromyographic (EMG) spectrum of the paraspinal muscles of 350 subjects. They were classified by their history as normal (n=175), chronic low back pain (n=145), or past history (n=30). They pulled upwards on a floor-mounted load cell at two-thirds of their maximum voluntary contraction for 30 s, while the EMG was measured from the paraspinal muscles at the L4/L5 level.

Role of flies and provision of latrines in trachoma control: cluster-randomised controlled trial.

Background: Eye-seeking flies have received much attention as possible trachoma vectors, but this remains unproved. We aimed to assess the role of eye-seeking flies as vectors of trachoma and to test provision of simple pit latrines, without additional health education, as a sustainable method of fly control.

Methods: In a community-based, cluster-randomised controlled trial, we recruited seven sets of three village clusters and randomly assigned them to either an intervention group that received regular insecticide spraying or provision of pit latrines (without additional health education) to each household, or to a control group with no intervention.

Herpes simplex 2 risk among women in a polygynous setting in rural West Africa.

Objectives: To determine risk factors for herpes simplex 2 (HSV2) infection in women in a polygynous rural Gambian population.

Methods: Data from women who participated in a cross-sectional survey of reproductive health were matched to their own and, for women who had been or were married (ever-married), their spouses' data collected in a cross-sectional survey of fertility interests, including information on marital histories.

Results: Data were available on 150 never-married and 525 ever-married women.

Reporting of fertility events by men and women in rural Gambia.

We conducted a survey of male and female fertility in rural villages in The Gambia and compared men and women's reports of recent pregnancy events in the aggregate and of children ever born for matched couples. Despite widespread polygyny and sex differences in fertility, men's and women's reports were similar. Small sex differences in reports of recent stillbirths and neonatal deaths were found.