Impact of oral azithromycin and intermittent preventive treatment with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine regimen on child mortality in Sierra Leone: trial protocol for a randomised, two-arm, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial (ICARIA).

Background: Azithromycin has been shown to be beneficial in preventing infectious diseases, including malaria, infectious diarrhoea and pneumonia. A cluster randomised control trial on azithromycin MDA in children in Niger, Malawi and Tanzania found a reduction in all-cause under-five (U5) mortality in communities who received azithromycin compared to placebo. However, the reduction was largest and statistically significant only in Niger.

Cellular function of the GndA small open reading frame-encoded polypeptide during heat shock.

Over the past 15 years, hundreds of previously undiscovered bacterial small open reading frame (sORF)-encoded polypeptides (SEPs) of fewer than fifty amino acids have been identified, and biological functions have been ascribed to an increasing number of SEPs from intergenic regions and small RNAs. However, despite numbering in the dozens in , and hundreds to thousands in humans, same-strand nested sORFs that overlap protein coding genes in alternative reading frames remain understudied. In order to provide insight into this enigmatic class of unannotated genes, we characterized GndA, a 36-amino acid, heat shock-regulated SEP encoded within the +2 reading frame of the gene in K-12 MG1655.

Sustained clinical benefit of malaria chemoprevention with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) in pregnant women in a region with high SP resistance markers.

Objective: The effectiveness of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) is threatened by increasing SP-resistance in Africa. We assessed the level of SP-resistance markers, and the clinical and parasitological effectiveness of IPTp-SP in southern Mozambique.

Methods: P.

Immunisation coverage and factors associated with incomplete immunisation in children under two during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sierra Leone.

Background: Routine childhood immunisation is one of the most important life-saving public health interventions. However, many children still have inadequate access to these vaccines and millions remain (partially) unvaccinated globally. As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted health systems worldwide, its effects on immunisation have become apparent.