Costs of integrating hepatitis B screening and antiviral prophylaxis into routine antenatal care in Burkina Faso: Treat all versus targeted strategies.

Objective: Economic feasibility of eliminating mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in highly endemic African countries remains uncertain. Prevention of MTCT (PMTCT) involves screening pregnant women for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), identifying those with high viral loads or hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), and administering tenofovir prophylaxis to high-risk women. We estimated the costs of integrating PMTCT services into antenatal care in Burkina Faso, based on four different strategies to select women for tenofovir prophylaxis: (1) HBV DNA (≥200 000 IU/mL), (2) HBeAg, (3) hepatitis B core-related antigen rapid diagnostic test (HBcrAg-RDT) and (4) all HBsAg-positive women.

A Pill in the Lifeworld of Women in Burkina Faso: Can Misoprostol Reframe the Meaning of Abortion.

In Burkina Faso, induced abortion is socially stigmatized, condemned, disapproved and legally restricted to cases of rape, incest, fetal malformation or endangerment to the life of the mother. Many women often resort to unsafe procedures to induce abortion, which puts their health at great risk. Misoprostol, which is officially restricted to the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage or post-abortion care, is also used illegally by women to terminate their pregnancies.

Involving male partners in maternity care in Burkina Faso: a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To determine whether an intervention to involve the male partners of pregnant women in maternity care influenced care-seeking, healthy breastfeeding and contraceptive practices after childbirth in urban Burkina Faso.

Methods: In a non-blinded, multicentre, parallel-group, superiority trial, 1144 women were assigned by simple randomization to two study arms: 583 entered the intervention arm and 561 entered the control arm. All women were cohabiting with a male partner and had a low-risk pregnancy.

Too poor to live? A case study of vulnerability and maternal mortality in Burkina Faso.

This paper examines the concept of vulnerability in the context of maternal morbidity and mortality in Burkina Faso, an impoverished country in West Africa. Drawing on a longitudinal cohort study into the consequences of life-threatening or 'near miss' obstetric complications, we provide an in-depth case study of one woman's experience of such morbidity and its aftermath. We follow Kalizeta's trajectory from her near miss and the stillbirth of her child to her death from pregnancy-related hypertension after a subsequent delivery less than two years later, in order to examine the impact of severe and persistent illness and catastrophic health expenditure on her health and on her family's everyday life.

Mortality after near-miss obstetric complications in Burkina Faso: medical, social and health-care factors.

Objective: To investigate mortality in women in Burkina Faso in the 4 years following a life-threatening near-miss obstetric complication and to identify the medical, social and health-care-related causes of death.

Methods: In total, 1014 women were recruited after hospital discharge and followed for up to 4 years: 337 had near-miss complications and 677 had uncomplicated pregnancies. Significant differences in mortality between the groups were assessed using Fisher's exact test.