Assessing Dose-Exposure-Response Relationships of Miltefosine in Adults and Children using Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling Approach.

Objectives: Miltefosine is the first and only oral medication to be successfully utilized as an antileishmanial agent. However, the drug is associated with differences in exposure patterns and cure rates among different population groups e.g.

Integral Role of Water in the Solid-State Behavior of the Antileishmanial Drug Miltefosine.

Miltefosine is a repurposed anticancer drug and currently the only orally administered drug approved to treat the neglected tropical disease leishmaniasis. Miltefosine is hygroscopic and must be stored at subzero temperatures. In this work, we report the X-ray structures of miltefosine monohydrate and methanol solvate, along with 12- and 14-carbon chain analogue hydrates and a solvate.

Barriers to hepatitis C treatment in the era of direct-acting anti-viral agents.

Background: Direct-acting anti-virals (DAA) are safe, effective treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV). Suboptimal linkage to specialists and access to DAAs are the leading barriers to treatment; however, data are limited.

Aim: To determine predictors of follow-up, receipt of DAAs, and reasons for the lack thereof.

Trauma Exposures and Posttraumatic Stress among Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa.

Zimbabwean refugees can be considered a vulnerable group in terms of how they are displaced with many of them having lived through hardships on their way to South Africa and other African countries. Zimbabwe is known to be Africa's most extraordinary producer of migrants and the biggest producer of refugees in Southern Africa. It is estimated that 3.

Social outcome expectations regarding delayed sexual debut among adolescents in Mankweng, South Africa.

Aims: To describe outcome expectations related to delayed sexual transition, to examine the dimensionality and internal consistency of such expectations, and to examine variations in social outcome expectations across subgroups defined by demographic variables, indicators of socioeconomic status and predictors related to school and educational ambitions.

Methods: Data stem from a survey among school students (grades 8-12) in Mankweng, Limpopo, South Africa (n = 5,697). A five-item scale of outcome expectations was analysed with frequency and percentage distributions, principal components analysis, Cronbach's alpha, and general linear model procedures, while controlling for the cluster nature of the sample (school classes).

The relationship between body mass index and self-concept among adolescent black female university students.

The study investigated the relationship between body mass index and self-concept among adolescent black female university students. The study used a mixed research design (quantitative and qualitative methods). Media images of handsome faces and beautiful bodies are used to sell almost everything, from clothes and cosmetic to luncheon, meats, and so on.

Growth failure after recurrent fever in young guinea pigs.

Infection causes fever and suppression of appetite, a combination of effects which threatens normal growth in infected children. We have used an animal model to study the effects on growth of recurrent simulated Gram-positive bacterial infection. After weaning, 10 guinea pig pups underwent surgery under general anaesthesia for the implantation of temperature-sensitive radiotelemeters and thereafter were assigned to receive intramuscular injections of either 50 microg/kg muramyl dipeptide (MDP), or sterile saline.

The relationship between parental physical availability and child sexual, physical and emotional abuse: a study among a sample of university students in South Africa.

The relationship between perceived parental physical availability and child sexual, physical and emotional abuse was investigated. The sample comprised 722 undergraduate students of psychology at the University of the North, South Africa. Participants filled in a retrospective self-rated questionnaire in a classroom setting.

Correlations for perceived family environmental factors with substance use among adolescents in South Africa.

Perceived family environmental factors were used to predict self-reported use of substances (drugs or alcohol) among adolescents in South Africa. 435 high school students (ages 15 to 19 years, M=17.2 yr.

Illicit drug use, cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking behaviour among a sample of high school adolescents in the Pietersburg area of the Northern Province, South Africa.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of illicit drug use, cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking behaviour among a sample of high-school adolescents in the Pietersburg area (Central Region) of the Northern Province, South Africa.

Participants: Participants in this study were 435 secondary-school adolescent students around the Pietersburg area (Central Region), in the Northern Province. Two hundred and forty-three (56%) participants were female and 192 (44%) were male.

Changing stress levels through gaining information on stress.

Objective: The aim of this research was to find out the effect of the Information Phase of a Stress Management Program (SMP) on the perceptions of participants about their stress levels.

Method: A total sample of 100 workers (nursing staff, private business men and women, laboratory assistants, the protective services [foreman and security staff], as well as people in human resources departments) took part in this study. All the participants were from the Northern and Gauteng Provinces in South Africa.

Concepts and treatment for diabetes among traditional and faith healers in the northern province, South Africa.

The purpose of the study was to assess the concepts and treatment modalities for diabetes among traditional and faith healers in the Northern Province in South Africa. The sample consisted of 50 traditional healers (13 females and 37 males) and 50 faith healers (12 females and 38 males). They were interviewed on local terminology, clinical manifestations, causes, curability, and treatment for diabetes, help-seeking behaviour of diabetes patients, and the healers' sources of information about diabetes.

Prevalence of child psychological, physical, emotional, and ritualistic abuse among high school students in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa.

Based on self-reports the prevalence during childhood of psychological, physical, emotional, and ritualistic abuse among 559 high school students in Standards 7, 8, 9, and 10 of three high schools in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa was examined. The questionnaire asked for the demographic information and experiences of psychological, physical, and emotional abuse by their parents or adult caretakers as well as ritualistic abusive experiences before they were 17 years of age plus an estimate of self-perceived abuse during childhood and an overall rating of their own childhood. Analysis showed the self-reported prevalence rates to be as follows: 70.

Prevalence and patterns of child sexual abuse and victim-perpetrator relationship among secondary school students in the northern province (South Africa).

An investigation into the prevalence and characteristics of child sexual abuse in the Northern Province (South Africa) was conducted. A total of 414 secondary school students in standard 9 and 10 in three representative secondary schools completed a retrospective self-rating questionnaire in a classroom setting. The questionnaire asked about childhood sexual abuse and the victim-perpetrator relationship.

Risk factors and child sexual abuse among secondary school students in the Northern Province (South Africa).

Objective: This is an investigation into the risk factors that could discriminate childhood sexual abuse (CSA) from non-abuse in the Northern Province (South Africa).

Method: 414 students in standard 9 and 10 in three secondary schools in the province filled-in a retrospective self-rating questionnaire in a classroom setting. Questionnaires included modified and adapted questions from the Finkelhor's (1979) Risk Factor Checklist, and asked for physical contact forms of sexual abusive experiences of participants before the age of 17 years with an adult or a person at least 5 years older or a person in a position of power.

Diagnosis of X-linked adrenal hypoplasia congenita by mutation analysis of the DAX1 gene.

Objective: To develop a rapid diagnostic approach to individuals with the X-linked cytomegalic form of adrenal hypoplasia congenita (AHC) and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) due to mutations in DAX1, a new member of the nuclear hormone receptor gene superfamily.

Design: Molecular genetic diagnostic investigations of individuals with AHC and their relatives included polymerase chain reaction amplification of DAX1 for identification of intragenic mutations and fluorescence in situ hybridization with a cosmid containing the DAX1 gene for evaluation of larger deletions.

Participants: Families that had males affected with AHC were evaluated for mutations involving the DAX1 gene.

Communication of patients' worries in a psychiatric unit in Nigeria: a comparative study of patient-patient and patient-nurse communication.

The main question examined by this study is: do psychiatric patients communicate their worries more accurately to nurses than to other patients? The study also looked into the relationship between sex and diagnosis of patients' illness on the one hand, and the number of worries reported on the other. Subjects interviewed were in-patients who had stabilised in the ward. The patients, as well as nurses and colleague patients they nominated, used the "Hospital Patients Worry Inventory" to describe the things patients worry about while in hospital.

Genomic scanning for expressed sequences in Xp21 identifies the glycerol kinase gene.

Rapid genomic scanning methods are required to identify expressed sequences and we report an efficient, sensitive and specific approach which relies upon hybridization of an amplified, labeled cDNA library to digested cosmid DNA. We identified expressed sequences within a cosmid in the glycerol kinase (GK) "critical region" of Xp21 that had impressive similarity to prokaryotic GKs. We used this genomic sequence information to clone the human hepatic GK cDNA.

The traditional healer's approach to the treatment of obsessional neurosis. A case study at Ibadan.

This paper presents a case study of a Nigerian traditional healer's methods of treating obsessional thinking. Under supervision, two psychology students of the University of Ibadan watched several sessions during the treatment of a woman suffering from obsessional thoughts in a traditional healer's home. The mental state of the woman was assessed by a clinical interview at the beginning and end of the course of treatment, and the traditional healer was interviewed after each session.