Hydrocephalus, healing, and disrupted daily living: exploring maternal experiences at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi.

Background: Each year, nearly 400,000 new cases of paediatric hydrocephalus are estimated to occur worldwide, and almost half of these cases are expected to affect children in Africa. At Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), an urban tertiary hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, located in south-east Africa, around 200 children received neurosurgical treatment for hydrocephalus in 2023. These children require lifelong follow-up and care, which places significant demands on their caregivers.

Cytoadherence characteristics of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes from Malawian children with severe and uncomplicated malaria.

Cytoadherence of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes to the microvascular endothelium is believed to be a key factor in the development of cerebral malaria. Erythrocyte rosette formation has been correlated with malaria severity in studies from east and west Africa. We cultured fresh isolates from Malawian children with severe (n = 76) or uncomplicated (n = 79) malaria to pigmented trophozoite stage and examined rosette formation and adherence to CD36, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), chondroitin sulfate A (CSA), and thrombomodulin (TM).

Usefulness of clinical case-definitions in guiding therapy for African children with malaria or pneumonia.

The World Health Organisation has developed disease-specific clinical case-definitions to guide management of children with fever or cough, the cardinal signs of malaria and pneumonia. To assess the usefulness of the case-definitions and to investigate their interaction, we studied children with fever or cough brought to a hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi. For all children, a thick blood smear was examined for Plasmodium falciparum parasites.

Co-trimoxazole for childhood febrile illness in malaria-endemic regions.

The efficacy of co-trimoxazole for the treatment of Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia in children younger than 5 years of age was evaluated in Malawi. 46 children with P falciparum parasitaemia, 37% of whom also met clinical criteria for a diagnosis of acute lower respiratory tract infection, were treated with 20 mg/kg co-trimoxazole twice daily for five days. Parasitaemia (mean clearance time 2.