The effects of COVID-19 on maternal, newborn and child health services in Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea's health system faces ongoing challenges in the provision of maternal and child health and has some of the poorest health indicators in the world. In this paper, we describe the impact of COVID-19 on maternal and child health, as examples of primary health care services. We conducted 131 semi-structured interviews with different population groups in seven provinces (Jul-Nov 2021).

Improving the sustainability and quality of kidney health care through life cycle assessments, quality improvement, education and technical innovations: the KitNewCare approach.

The European Union (EU)-funded KitNewCare consortium aims to create and manage a comprehensive EU-wide programme focusing on sustainability in Kidney Care. Around 850 million people have chronic kidney disease (CKD) worldwide and by 2030, 6 million will need kidney replacement therapy, mainly haemodialysis. As the world population gets older, projections for the end of the century worsen.

Baseline evaluation of the World Health Organization (WHO) infection prevention and control (IPC) core components in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs).

Background: Comprehensive infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes are proven to reduce the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). However, published assessments of IPC programmes against the World Health Organization (WHO) IPC Core Components in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) at the national and acute healthcare facility level are currently unavailable.

Methods: From January 2022 to April 2023, a multi-country, cross-sectional study was conducted in PICTs.

Copeptin and high sensitive troponin for a rapid rule out of acute myocardial infarction?

Background: Rapid and reliable exclusion of acute myocardial infarction during emergency department triage is an important clinical need. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential role of copeptin, a marker of acute endogenous stress, together with high sensitive troponin-I for a rapid and early rule-out of acute myocardial infarction.

Methods: Copeptin and myoglobin were measured in 80 subjects presenting to the emergency department with chest pain and symptoms suggestive of acute myocardial infarction, 46 patients had a negative high sensitive troponin-I concentration at presentation, 3, 6 and 12 hours; whereas 34 patients had negative or very low high sensitive troponin-I at presentation, but rising troponin values at 3, 6 and 12 hours.

Reduction of free immunoglobulin light chains using adsorption properties of hemodiafiltration with endogenous reinfusion.

In this work we investigated the acute effects of hemodiafiltration with endogenous reinfusion (HFR therapy) on the removal of free immunoglobulin light chains (FIgLCs), which may be considered members of the family of uremic toxins. In two groups of patients - group 1 (polyclonal FIgLCs production) and group 2 (monoclonal plasma cell proliferative disorders), we analyzed the pre- and postdialysis levels of kappa- and lambda-chains. In group 1 we observed a significant reduction of FIgLCs (p < 0.