[Physical activities and sport; implications for health and society].

The practice of physical and sporting activities (PSA) throughout life is now known to increase healthy life expectancy, to delay the onset of dependency, and to be an effective complementary treatment for many disorders, particularly obesity and disability. The notion of a "sedentary death syndrome " [SeDS] has been evoked on the other side of the Atlantic. Although the beneficial effects of PSA have long been known, statistical analyses have only recently confirmed at the group level what was often disputed at the individual level.

[Sport and health].

The report of the National Academy of Medicine named "Sport and Health" underlines the medical, social and educational dimensions of sporting activities. Various kinds of sporting practices are described: they concern the approximately 7,000 high level athletes, around 8,000 professional (licensed) sportsmen, and sporting club members (approximately 15 millions people). A large number of amateurs do not practice in any structure and therefore are neither managed in their activities nor medically followed.

[Short treatment of hepatic amebiasis by tinidazole. Apropos of 10 cases].

Ten cases of hepatic amoebiasis are notified in Bamako during 14 months among hospitalized adults. The diagnosis has aimed from clinical signs, specific antibodies seen through hemagglutination and echography. These patients are treated by tinidazole: 2 g/day in unique dose during 3-9 days.

[The synthesis of the epidemiology and treatment of malaria of the pregnant woman and the infant in subsaharan Africa].

This article summarizes informations regarding epidemiology, prophylaxis and treatment of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in pregnant women and children in subsaharian Africa. The authors recommend a regular antimalarial chemoprophylaxis using chloroquine and proguanil for pregnant women and particularly for primigravidae as they constitute a group at risk and considering the consequential effects on foetus. Precautions such as bed nets to avoid bites by infected mosquitoes are important.

[Lessons of the socioeconomic structure of a cohort of 50 drug addicts infected with HIV and followed up over a year].

Fifty drug addicts, users of intravenous heroin and infected by HIV, with an average age of 28 years, were followed for a period of one year. The purpose was to analyze, as precisely as possible, the medical and social cost of their illness as a function of the stage of the infection to which they belonged. The costs vary significantly according to the age and sex of the patients, and are higher in those patients with stage IV (confirmed clinical AIDS) than with stage II and stage III HIV infection.

[Resistant falciparum malaria at the F. Houphouet-Boigny hospital in Marseilles in 1985-1986-1987].

Chemoresistant P. falciparum malaria emerged in South Sahara Africa during 1978 and is now more than half of the imported malaria in F. Houphouet-Boigny Hospital in Marseilles (France), consequently the annual number of malaria cases has doubled as compared to the previous years.

[Current clinical aspects and role of parasitic density in the manifestations of falciparum malaria].

56 patients carriers of Plasmodium falciparum were observed throughout 1987: 47 males and 9 females of a mean age of 32. The following clinical aspects were observed: Falciparum malaria: 35 cases, malaria with a low parasitaemia (less than 1,000 HPM): 5 cases, tropical splenomegaly syndrome: 3 cases, isolated bi- or tricytopenia: 10 cases, cerebral malaria: 1 case, asymptomatic carriers: 2 cases. Statistically speaking, no significant correlation was observed between parasitaemia and the following clinical and biological symptoms: fever, splenomegaly, Hb level, platelet count.

[Imported falciparum malaria in Marseilles hospitals in 1987. Apropos of 104 cases].

Patients were composed of 85 adults and 19 children; 70 were European, 23 Comorian; malaria was contracted by 9 patients in French Guyana, 60 in Africa, 23 in Comoro Islands; prophylaxis was correct for 45 patients (nearly all of the cases with chloroquine) when the first symptoms occurred. Every case of malaria appeared during the month following their return from an endemic area. Fever was often moderate or intermittent, altered by prophylaxis and previous treatments.

[The teachings of the Center for Education and Research in Tropical Medicine and Health. Analysis and pedagogic developments].

Three different types of education and teaching are offered by the Education and Research Center in Tropical Health and Medicine: To 7th and 8th year students in medicine, given morning and afternoon over a period of 13 weeks, this type of education in tropical health and medicine requests a high degree of participation from the student; it is very well structured in its objectives and program with more than 50% of directed studies and guided training. Evaluation is carried out both in and at the end of sylabuses. To male and female nurses, teaching is given morning and afternoon over a period of 5 weeks.

[Trichinosis in Provence. Apropos of a familial epidemic].

An outbreak of trichinosis following meals in a rural area of Provence is reported. The epidemiologic parameters reconstitute the contamination cycle (man-pig: fox-rat) which indicated indisputably the diagnosis, the appropriate therapy, and also evidenced a rural zoonosis of trichinosis in Provence. The clinical picture among twenty-one people included morbilliform rash in 38% of cases and an enanthema in 24% of cases, uncommon findings, with respect to their frequency, and the other usual signs.

[African trypanosomiasis of icterohemorrhagic form].

A case report of trypanosomiasis (T. rhodesiense), observed in a French tourist is described. The clinical picture associated a cytolytic hepatic jaundice, a thrombopenia with hemorrhagic manifestations, a renal insufficiency and secondarily a neutropenia with anemia.

Albendazole: a new broad spectrum anthelmintic. Double-blind multicenter clinical trial.

A new anthelmintic drug, albendazole, has been tested in a multicenter double-blind placebo controlled study in 392 patients from France and West Africa in children and adults with single or mixed infections caused by roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, threadworms and tapeworms. All patients were closely observed before and after treatment for clinical side effects, hematological or clinical blood chemical changes. Fecal samples obtained before, and 7 days and 21 days after treatment were examined using a concentration technic (Ritchie), a coproculture (Harada-Mori) and an egg count (Kato).

[The influence of malaria chemoprophylaxis on health of a rural community in West Africa (author's transl)].

In the village population of Mali situated in the sudan savanna, malariometric indices and hematocrit values were performed before and after mass drug administration given every 15 days by a nurse to three-quarters of the population, with the remaining quarter receiving a placebo. In this population, endemic malaria was stable and high, essentially caused by Plasmodium falciparum. The "protected" population showed a decrease of parasite rate and spleen rate with concomitent rise in hematocrit values.

[Treatment of intestinal nematode infections with albendazole. Preliminary results (author's transl)].

A randomized double-blind study, in order to evaluate effectiveness and tolerance of albendazole, was carried out in 186 african subjects presenting intestinal nematode infections in Mali and Senegal. The drug, well tolerated, given as a single dose of 0.4 g (adolescents and adults) or 0.

[Imported malaria in Marseilles area and epidemiological aspects of 164 hospitalized cases from 1973 to 1978 (author's transl)].

In Marseilles, 250 medical practitioners have been questioned about imported malaria cases observed in their medical practice. In 1978, they confirmed parasitologically 18 malaria cases of which only 2 cases were admitted to an hospital; in 44 other suspected cases, the diagnosis was probable from epidemiological, clinical, immunological and therapeutical arguments. Considering the number of medical practitioners in the city and the number of confirmed hospital cases of imported malaria during the same year, more cases have been treated outside the city hospitals.