Coaching Community Health Volunteers in Integrated Community Case Management Improves the Care of Sick Children Under-5: Experience from Bondo, Kenya.

Background: Shortages of healthcare workers is detrimental to the health of communities, especially children. This paper describes the process of capacity building Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to deliver integrated preventive and curative package of care of services to manage common childhood illness in hard-to-reach communities in Bondo Subcounty, Kenya.

Methods: A pre-test/post-test single-group design was used to assess changes in knowledge and skills related to integrated community case management (iCCM) among 58 Community Health Volunteers who received a six-day iCCM clinical training and an additional 3-week clinical coaching at health facilities.

RED for PMTCT: an adaptation of immunization's Reaching Every District approach increases coverage, access, and utilization of PMTCT care in Bondo District, Kenya.

Gaps exist in coverage, early access, and utilization of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services in Kenya. The Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program, led by Jhpiego, piloted an adaptation of immunization's Reaching Every District (RED) approach in Bondo District as a way of improving PMTCT care. Routine district-level monthly summary service delivery pre- and post-implementation data were analyzed.

"A cup of tea with our CBD agent … ": community provision of injectable contraceptives in Kenya is safe and feasible.

Background: In rural areas of Kenya, where the majority of Kenya's population lives, contraceptive use remains low compared with that in urban areas (37% vs. 47%). Inadequate access to family planning services in rural areas is partly due to fewer health facilities and the shortage of health care workers.

Heavy episodic drinking among Kenyan female sex workers is associated with unsafe sex, sexual violence and sexually transmitted infections.

This study examined patterns of alcohol use and its association with unsafe sex and related sequelae among female sex workers in Mombasa, Kenya. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted using snowball sampling. Binge drinkers (> or =5 alcoholic drinks on > or =1 occasion in the previous month) were compared with non-binge drinkers.

Expanded Phase I safety and acceptability study of 6% cellulose sulfate vaginal gel.

Background: An expanded Phase I trial was performed to assess the safety and acceptability of 6% cellulose sulfate gel (CS) in comparison with K-Y Jelly.

Methods: Sexually abstinent (cohort I) and sexually active (cohort II) women in India, Nigeria and Uganda applied 3.5 ml of either 6% CS gel or K-Y Jelly for seven consecutive days.

The effect of rapid HIV-1 testing on uptake of perinatal HIV-1 interventions: a randomized clinical trial.

Objective: We examined whether HIV-1 testing using a rapid assay increases the proportion of pregnant women obtaining HIV-1 results and the uptake of perinatal HIV-1 interventions.

Methods: Pregnant women attending public health clinics in Nairobi were offered voluntary counselling and testing for HIV-1. Consenting women were randomly assigned to receive either rapid or conventional HIV-1 testing.

Vitamin A and risk of HIV-1 seroconversion among Kenyan men with genital ulcers.

Background: Vitamin A is involved in normal immune function and the maintenance of mucosal integrity through complex effects on cellular differentiation.

Objective: We sought to determine whether serum vitamin A levels were associated with altered susceptibility to primary infection with HIV-1 in men with high-risk sexual behaviour and genital ulcers who presented for treatment at an STD clinic in Nairobi, Kenya.

Methods: HIV-1 seronegative men were prospectively followed.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of single-dose ciprofloxacin versus erythromycin for the treatment of chancroid in Nairobi, Kenya.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial was conducted in Nairobi, Kenya, to compare single-dose ciprofloxacin with a 7-day course of erythromycin for the treatment of chancroid. In all, 208 men and 37 women presenting with genital ulcers clinically compatible with chancroid were enrolled. Ulcer etiology was determined using culture techniques for chancroid, serology for syphilis, and a multiplex polymerase chain reaction for chancroid, syphilis, and herpes simplex virus (HSV).

Community acquired bacterial infections and their antimicrobial susceptibility in Nairobi, Kenya.

The purpose of the study was to determine the pattern and antimicrobial sensitivity on community acquired bacterial strains in Nairobi, Kenya. Clinical specimens collected from out-patient clinics at the Kenyatta National Hospital were cultured on appropriate media and identified according to Cowen and Steel's manual. The antimicrobial sensitivity was determined using comparative disc diffusion techniques.

Pattern of bacterial infections and antimicrobial susceptibility at the Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya.

To monitor clinically significant isolates and their antimicrobial susceptibilities, all specimens sent to microbiology laboratory of the Kenyatta National Hospital were cultured on appropriate media. The susceptibility of the isolates was performed on Muller Hinton or diagnostic sensitivity test (DST) agar using comparative discs diffusion technique. The results were then entered into Microbe Base 2 computer programme.