Publications by authors named "J Njeri Wainaina"
Background: One in five newborns in Nairobi County, Kenya, may require inpatient neonatal care. We sought to examine referrals to and from three busy first-level referral public hospitals in Nairobi and what infrastructure and systems are available to support neonatal transport from these first-referral level hospitals to the main tertiary care center.
Methods: Patient-level data of newborns over 12 months were retrospectively extracted from routinely collected patient data and examined to characterize those referred into and out of three newborn units in the study hospitals.
Article Synopsis
- The study highlights a significant reduction in neonatal mortality rates worldwide from 1990 to 2017, emphasizing the need for proper post-discharge follow-up care for surviving infants as healthcare systems adapt to this change.
- A retrospective cohort study in Kenya analyzed data from over 136,000 discharged neonates to identify their follow-up care requirements, finding that a substantial portion exhibited multiple medical needs across various specialties.
- The findings indicate that almost half of these infants require specialized follow-up care due to factors like low birth weight, prematurity, and serious medical conditions, stressing the urgency of addressing these post-discharge care gaps.
Background: Prokaryotic microbes have impacted marine biogeochemical cycles for billions of years. Viruses also impact these cycles, through lysis, horizontal gene transfer, and encoding and expressing genes that contribute to metabolic reprogramming of prokaryotic cells. While this impact is difficult to quantify in nature, we hypothesized that it can be examined by surveying virus-encoded auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) and assessing their ecological context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoil microorganisms are pivotal in the global carbon cycle, but the viruses that affect them and their impact on ecosystems are less understood. In this study, we explored the diversity, dynamics, and ecology of soil viruses through 379 metagenomes collected annually from 2010 to 2017. These samples spanned the seasonally thawed active layer of a permafrost thaw gradient, which included palsa, bog, and fen habitats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The emergence of COVID-19 precipitated containment policies (e.g., lockdowns, school closures, etc.
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