Due to several factors, such as environmental and climate changes, the risk of health threats originating at the human-animal-environment interface, including vector-borne diseases (VBDs) and zoonoses, is increasing. Low-resource settings struggle to counter these multidimensional risks due to their already-strained health systems and are therefore disproportionally affected by the impact caused by these changes. Systemic approaches like One Health (OH) are sought to strengthen prevention and preparedness strategies by addressing the drivers of potential threats with a multidisciplinary and multisectoral approach, considering the whole system at the human-animal-environment interface.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the complexity of factors involved in the emergence of health threats requires a holistic One Health (OH) approach to enhance the effectiveness of prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR) strategies. Therefore, we conducted a scoping review to explore how the OH approach has been adopted in the context of PPR strategies to health threats, and the challenges and benefits deriving from its integration.
Methods: We defined the research questions and a strategy to guide the peer-reviewed and grey literature search to identify relevant articles and documents (identification).
Background: Defaulting is the most frequent cause of Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) program failure. Lack of community sensitization, financial/opportunity costs and low quality of care have been recognized as the main driving factors for default in malnutrition programs. The present study aimed to evaluate if a logistic reorganization (generic outpatient department, OPD vs dedicated clinic, NRU) and a change in management (dedicated vs non dedicated staff) of the follow-up of children between 6 and 24 months of age with acute malnutrition, can reduce the default, relapse and readmission rate and increase the recovery rate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTB Programs should promote the use of digital health platforms, like Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to collect patients' information, thus reducing data incompleteness and low accuracy and eventually improving patients' care. Nevertheless, the potential of digital health systems remains largely unexploited in low-resource settings. Angola is one of the 14 countries with a triple burden of TB, TB/HIV and MDR-TB (multidrug-resistant TB) and it is among the three countries, together with Congo and Liberia that have never completed a drug-resistance survey so far.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiabetes is common in urban settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. Household food insecurity has been suggested to increase the chance of developing diabetes among adults. The relationship between diabetes and food insecurity has not been explored in Angolan urban settings so far.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Pediatr
February 2021
Background: Dietary counseling can play an important role in managing child malnutrition but is often inadequate or absent. Moreover, little emphasis is given to the usefulness of local available foods in the rehabilitation of malnourished children. This study aimed to evaluate the adherence and effectiveness of nutritional education during rehabilitation of children (6-24 months) with acute malnutrition, in a setting of unavailability of therapeutic/supplementary foods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the lack of surveys, surveillance program and/or statistical data, epidemiologic studies can provide a better understanding of diabetes in Sub-Saharan Africa. This was a cross-sectional survey to determine prevalence of diabetes and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) among adults attending six health centres in six different districts of Luanda (Angola) during August-November 2018, followed by a case-control study to assess the risk factors for IFG and diabetes in a subgroup of subjects not receiving treatment for diabetes. Factors associated with diabetes/IFG were assessed using a generalized ordered logit model and the effects were expressed as odds ratios (OR for IFG/diabetes vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the face of the rising burden of non-communicable diseases like diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension in sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases like Tuberculosis (TB) are still endemic, the double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases appears to be increasing rapidly. However, the size of the problem and what is the proper health system approach to deal with the double burden is still unclear. The aim of this project was to estimate the double burden of DM hypertension and TB and to pilot the integration of the screening for DM and hypertension in the TB national programs in six TB centers in Luanda, Angola.
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