Publications by authors named "Talha Sheikh Ahmed"
Article Synopsis
- Antimalarial drug resistance is a growing global health threat, particularly in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), where reliable data on prescriptions for children under five is lacking.
- A study analyzing surveys from 19 LMICs found that 87.1% of children under five received antimalarial prescriptions from unqualified sources, with substantial percentages in countries like Tanzania, Nigeria, and Ghana.
- The findings highlight the need for effective national and local strategies to limit unqualified drug prescriptions and improve healthcare access, especially in rural areas and among less educated or poorer families.
Article Synopsis
- - The study investigates the use of anti-malarial drugs among children under five in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), showing significant disparities in drug consumption across five LMICs.
- - Data from the Malaria Indicator Survey revealed that only 44.1% of 32,397 observed children had received anti-malarial drugs, with notable differences: Kenya (9.2%) and Mali (70.5%) exemplifying the extremes.
- - The findings highlight the need for universal strategies to improve access and availability of anti-malarial drugs, particularly given the low consumption rates in certain LMICs, suggesting that age, rural residence, educated mothers, and family wealth influence drug uptake. *
Background: Children in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) receive a staggering number of antibiotic prescriptions, many of which are inappropriate. We aimed to explore the proportion of antibiotic prescriptions from qualified sources of children under five who had a fever/cough in the two weeks prior to the survey in LMICs.
Methods: We used data from cross-sectional studies of the latest Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) datasets (n = 43,166) in 59 LMICs covering Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa-West Asia-Europe, Central Asia, South & Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Latin America & the Caribbean regions.