Publications by authors named "J P du Toit"
Background: The characterization of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD related dementias (ADRD) pathophysiology has been revolutionized by the development of highly sensitive blood-based biomarkers. Although blood-based biomarkers allow for greater access, cost effectiveness, and scalability, there are limitations for their implementation in resource-constrained low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and rural settings, where access to equipment, freezers, and assays is often limited. Dried blood spot (DBS) collection emerges as a promising, convenient, and cost-effective method for acquiring blood samples in these contexts, but it is unclear whether highly sensitive assays typically applied to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), plasma, or serum can detect biomarker concentrations accurately.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Malnutrition contributes to 45% of all childhood deaths globally, but these modelled estimates lack direct measurements in countries with high malnutrition and under-5 mortality rates. We investigated malnutrition's role in infant and child deaths in the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) network.
Methods: We analysed CHAMPS data from seven sites (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and South Africa) collected between 2016 and 2023.
Article Synopsis
- Caring for newborns limits mammalian females' ability to gather resources, especially during the energy-demanding early lactation period.
- Different ungulates have developed various strategies for protecting their vulnerable newborns, from staying hidden to being mobile, which can influence their mothers' movement patterns.
- A study of 54 populations of 23 ungulate species shows that maternal movements are affected by the resource availability and type of neonatal strategy, highlighting the importance of these tactics in understanding how species adapt to environmental changes.
Socioeconomic status (SES) tends to influence an individual's access to health care. It is commonly assumed that a poorer SES is associated with a weaker physical health status, especially in disadvantaged populations such as people with cerebral palsy (CP). However, to our knowledge, no study has looked at this assumption.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: The emergence of acute neurological symptoms in children necessitates immediate intervention. Although low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) bear the highest burden of neurological diseases, there is a scarcity of diagnostic and therapeutic resources. Therefore, current understanding of the etiology of neurological emergencies in LMICs relies mainly on clinical diagnoses and verbal autopsies.
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