Ending cervical cancer: A call to action.

The outlook for elimination of the scourge of cervical cancer is bright, because we now have the tools to achieve this goal. In recent years human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in high-income countries has resulted in dramatic decreases in HPV infection and associated cervical disease. If all countries with a substantial burden of disease introduce the vaccine nationally, we can protect the vast majority of women and girls most at risk.

Positioning women's and children's health in African union policy-making: a policy analysis.

Background: With limited time to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, progress towards improving women's and children's health needs to be accelerated. With Africa accounting for over half of the world's maternal and child deaths, the African Union (AU) has a critical role in prioritizing related policies and catalysing required investments and action. In this paper, the authors assess the evolution of African Union policies related to women's and children's health, and analyze how these policies are prioritized and framed.

Situational analysis of varying models of adherence support and loss to follow up rates; findings from 27 treatment facilities in eight resource limited countries.

Objectives: Large-scale provision of ART in the absence of viral load monitoring, resistance testing, and limited second-line treatment options places adherence support as a vital therapeutic intervention. We aimed to compare patient loss to follow up rates with the degree of adherence support through a retrospective review of patients enrolled in the AIDSRelief program between August 2004 and June 2005.

Methods: Loss to follow up data were analysed and programs were categorised into one of four tiered levels of adherence support models: Tier I, II, III, and IV which increase from lowest to highest support.

Immunoglobulin classes and nutritional factors in plasma and breast milk of lactating mothers in Nigeria.

Background: Breast milk is important for the overall well-being of infants. Although lactation is relatively robust in the face of poor nutrition, the implication of poor nutrition on non-nutritive factors in breast milk is inconclusive.

Objective: This study was designed to find associations between nutritional and immune factors in maternal blood and breast milk with the aim to improve the needed public and individual strategies for a healthy infant.

Serum and seminal plasma hormonal profiles of infertile Nigerian male.

Male infertility constitutes a worldwide problem, especially in Nigeria where most men do not readily accept that they may contribute to the couple's infertility. In order to assess hormonal disturbances in the male infertility we compared male reproductive hormonal levels in human serum and seminal plasma and evaluated the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular-axis in infertile Nigerian males. The biophysical semen parameters were assessed by W.

Selenium status of idiopathic infertile Nigerian males.

Selenium concentration in the sera and seminal plasma of 60 infertile males (40 oligospermia and 20 azoospermia) and 40 males with proven evidence of fertility (normospermia; control group) were estimated using atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Results were correlated with spermatogram and hormonal levels in order to determine their relationship and significance in male infertility. The mean serum concentrations of selenium was found to be significantly increased in oligospermic compared to azoospermic subjects and controls (p < 0.

Calpain-10 gene polymorphisms and type 2 diabetes in West Africans: the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus (AADM) Study.

Purpose: To investigate whether the three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), SNP-43, -56, and -63 of CAPN10 were associated with type 2 diabetes in a West African cohort.

Methods: A total of 347 diabetic subjects and 148 unaffected controls from four ethnic groups in two West African countries were enrolled in this study. After genotyping three SNPs of CAPN10 and one SNP from CYP19, the allele, genotype, and haplotype frequencies as well as the odds ratios were calculated to test their association with type 2 diabetes.

Autoimmune diseases in a Nigerian woman--a case report.

Autoimmune diseases (AD) are conditions in which there is the development of antibodies against self cells/ organs. AD could either be organ-specific or non-organ specific (systemic) in clinical presentation. Commonly reported ADs includes: Myasthenia gravis, Hashimoto thyroiditis, Guillian-Barre syndrome, vitiligo, type 1 diabetes mellitus, Graves diseases, Goodpastures syndrome, pemphigus, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosis, Addisons disease, multiple sclerosis, pernicious anaemia, autoimmune haemolytic anaemia, chronic active hepatitis, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.

A genome-wide search for type 2 diabetes susceptibility genes in West Africans: the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus (AADM) Study.

The incidence of type 2 diabetes is growing rapidly, not only in developed countries but also worldwide. We chose to study type 2 diabetes in West Africa, where diabetes is less common than in the U.S.

Microalbuminuria in controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.

Microalbuminuria assessment using albumin: creatinine ratio (ACR) by ELISA in early morning urine sample was studied in 83 (43 males, 40 females) normotensive type 2 diabetic patients and 40 (20 males; 15 females) age matched apparently healthy control subjects attending the medical outpatient clinic of the University College Hospital, Ibadan. The prevalence of microalbuminuria among the diabetic patients was found to be 60% and 30% among the controls. The level of microalbuminuria was found to correlate with age, duration of diabetes, blood pressure and waist:hip ratio.

Prevalence and determinants of diabetic retinopathy and cataracts in West African type 2 diabetes patients.

Objective: To quantify the prevalence of, and risk factors for, diabetic retinopathy and cataracts in patients with type 2 diabetes, and their spouse controls, enrolled from 5 centers in 2 West African countries (Ghana and Nigeria).

Method: The analysis cohort was made up of 840 subjects with type 2 diabetes, and their 191 unaffected spouse controls, who were enrolled and examined in Lagos, Enugu, and Ibadan, in Nigeria, and in Accra and Kumasi, in Ghana. A diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy was made only where a participant had a minimum of one microaneurysm in any field, as well as exhibiting hemorrhages (dot, blot, or flame shaped), and maculopathy (with or without clinically significant edema).

Anterior pituitary gland assessment in sickle cell anaemia patients with delayed menarche.

Pituitary gland dysfunction and its contribution to menarcheal delay in sickle cell anaemia patients was investigated. Ten SS patients mean age 17.5 years who had not achieved menarche were recruited and 10 each of AS and AA controls, mean ages 17.

Prostate specific antigen in the Nigerian African.

The biological characteristics of prostate-specific antigen were studied in the Nigerian African. Two hundred and fourteen persons were selected for the study. The group was made up of 59 apparently healthy men (age range 22-76 years), 58 men (age range 40-91 years) who had biopsy proven diagnosis of cancer of the prostate gland, 81 men (age range 46-87 years) who had biopsy proven benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) and 16 women (age range 23-47 years).

In search of susceptibility genes for type 2 diabetes in West Africa: the design and results of the first phase of the AADM study.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to map type 2 diabetes susceptibility genes in West African ancestral populations of African-Americans, through an international collaboration between West African and US investigators.

Design And Methods: Affected sib-pairs (ASP) along with unaffected spouse controls are being enrolled and examined in West Africa, with two sites established in Ghana (Accra and Kumasi) and three in Nigeria (Enugu, Ibadan, and Lagos). Eligible participants are invited to study clinics to obtain detailed epidemiologic, family, and medical history information.

Predictive value of abdominal obesity cut-off points for hypertension in blacks from west African and Caribbean island nations.

Background: Waist circumferences (WC) >/=94 cm for men and >/=80 cm for women (action level I) and >/=102 cm for men and >/=88 cm for women (action level II) have been suggested as limits for health promotion purposes to alert the general public to the need for weight loss. In this analysis we examined the ability of the above cut-off points to correctly identify subjects with or without hypertension in Nigeria, Cameroon, Jamaica, St Lucia and Barbados. We also determined population- and gender-specific abdominal adiposity cut-off points for epidemiological identification of risk of hypertension.