Interrogating the World Bank's role in global health knowledge production, governance, and finance.

Background: In the nearly half century since it began lending for population projects, the World Bank has become one of the largest financiers of global health projects and programs, a powerful voice in shaping health agendas in global governance spaces, and a mass producer of evidentiary knowledge for its preferred global health interventions. How can social scientists interrogate the role of the World Bank in shaping 'global health' in the current era?

Main Body: As a group of historians, social scientists, and public health officials with experience studying the effects of the institution's investment in health, we identify three challenges to this research. First, a future research agenda requires recognizing that the Bank is not a monolith, but rather has distinct inter-organizational groups that have shaped investment and discourse in complicated, and sometimes contradictory, ways.

Differential Ratings of Perceived Match and Training Exertion in Girls' Soccer.

Purpose: To understand the validity of differential ratings of perceived exertion (dRPE) as a measure of girls' training and match internal loads.

Methods: Using the centiMax scale (CR100), session dRPE for breathlessness (sRPE-B) and leg muscle exertion (sRPE-L) were collected across a season of training (soccer, resistance, and fitness) and matches from 33 players (15 [1] y). Differences and associations between dRPE were examined using mixed and general linear models.

From safe motherhood, newborn, and child survival partnerships to the continuum of care and accountability: moving fast forward to 2015.

The present paper provides an overview of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, Healthy Newborn Partnership, and Child Survival Partnership and their eventual merge into the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) in 2005. The promise and past successes of the PMNCH are highlighted, with a particular focus on the PMNCH's partner-centric approach showing the importance of collaboration for progress. The aims of the strategic framework for 2012-2015 are presented within the context of the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, launched in 2010, and growing political momentum to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 (reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, respectively).

Classical RS1 and environmental RS1 elements in Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor strains harbouring a tandem repeat of CTX prophage: revisiting Mozambique in 2005.

Currently, Vibrio cholerae O1 serogroup biotype El Tor strains producing classical type cholera toxin (altered strains or El Tor variants) are prevalent in Asia and in Mozambique. Mozambican strains collected in 2004 contained a tandem repeat of CTX prophage on the small chromosome and each CTX prophage harboured the classical rstR and classical ctxB. We found that the majority of the strains collected in 2005 in Mozambique contained extra elements on the large chromosome in addition to the tandem repeat of CTX prophage on the small chromosome.

Is HIV infection associated with an increased risk for cholera? Findings from a case-control study in Mozambique.

Objective: As residents of sub-Saharan Africa are at high risk for HIV and cholera, it is biologically plausible that immune suppression caused by HIV infection predisposes to cholera. Our aim was to assess the potential association between both diseases.

Methods: We conducted a case-control study in Beira, Mozambique, a high-risk area for HIV and cholera.

Stronger national plans for maternal, newborn and child health.

The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, launched in 2005, is a global initiative of 170 member bodies dedicated to ensuring that all women, neonates and children remain healthy and thrive. To do this, the partnership advocates proven, cost-effective interventions that evidence has shown can save at least 7 million of the more than 10 million children who die before their fifth birthday and over 500 000 women who die in pregnancy. For improvements to be made, its leadership is urging countries and donors to work together better and avoid duplication of interventions and single-disease approaches.

Private demand for cholera vaccines in Beira, Mozambique.

In the summer of 2005, we interviewed 996 randomly selected respondents in Beira, Mozambique concerning their willingness and ability to pay for cholera vaccine for themselves and for other household members. Respondents were told that two doses of the vaccine would be required 2 weeks apart, and that the cholera vaccine would offer excellent protection against infection for the first year following vaccination, and some protection during the second and third year after a person is vaccinated. This research was carried out in order to learn more about private demand for vaccines in a cholera-endemic area.

Countdown to 2015: tracking intervention coverage for child survival.

Background: The fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) calls for a two-thirds' reduction between 1990 and 2015 in deaths of children younger than five years; achieving this will require widespread use of effective interventions, especially in poor countries. We present the first report of the Child Survival Countdown, a worldwide effort to monitor coverage of key child-survival interventions in 60 countries with the world's highest numbers or rates of child mortality.

Methods: In 2005, we developed a profile for each of the 60 countries to summarise information on coverage with essential child survival interventions.

Feasibility of a mass vaccination campaign using a two-dose oral cholera vaccine in an urban cholera-endemic setting in Mozambique.

We conducted a study to assess the feasibility and the potential vaccine coverage of a mass vaccination campaign using a two-dose oral cholera vaccine in an urban endemic neighbourhood of Beira, Mozambique. The campaign was conducted from December 2003 to January 2004. Overall 98,152 doses were administered, and vaccine coverage of the target population was 58.

Health research, the MDGs and policy making in Mozambique.

Health research can play an important part in achieving the goals of improving health, economic development and reducing poverty, even though a review of the literature suggests that little attention is given to the subject. Mozambique as a developing country has scarce resources for health research and so its health research efforts need targeted at pressing concerns and be capable of influencing policy-making. A way forward is being developed so that position of policy-makers and researchers is clarified and co-ordination better organised.

Effectiveness of mass oral cholera vaccination in Beira, Mozambique.

Background: New-generation, orally administered cholera vaccines offer the promise of improved control of cholera in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the high prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in many cholera-affected African populations has raised doubts about the level of protection possible with vaccination. We evaluated a mass immunization program with recombinant cholera-toxin B subunit, killed whole-cell (rBS-WC) oral cholera vaccine in Beira, Mozambique, a city where the seroprevalence of HIV is 20 to 30 percent.

Quality of registration of maternal deaths in Mozambique: a community-based study in rural and urban areas.

Maternal mortality is an important indicator used to assess the level of development of a country and particularly the coverage of health services. In Africa where the maternal mortality ratios are about 100 times higher than those of developed countries the situation is even worse due to problems of underregistration. In Mozambique the figures officially used are derived from the data of some hospitals in the main cities.