Pathways and policy options for food and nutrition gaps in arid agricultural farming systems in the Tigray Region, north Ethiopia.

Food and nutrition security is a major global challenge especially indeveloping countries.Agriculture is main means of livelihoods and hunger is drastically increasing from time to time especially due to effects of climate change, conflict and other manmade and natural calamities in these countries. Similarly, the Tigray Region is one of the Ethiopia's most food and nutrition insecure regions with agriculture serving as the main source of income and employment.

Clinical characteristics and treatment outcome of patients with visceral leishmaniasis and HIV co-infection in northwest Ethiopia.

Objectives: To describe the clinical presentation of patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL) with and without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) co-infection and factors associated with poor outcome in northwest Ethiopia.

Method: Retrospective review of 241 patients with VL (92 with and 149 without HIV co-infection).

Results: HIV co-infection was present in 92 (38%) of the patients.

Field evaluation of rK39 test and direct agglutination test for diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in a population with high prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus in Ethiopia.

Accuracy of an rK39 rapid diagnostic test (DiaMed-IT-Leish ) for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) was compared with splenic aspiration and the direct agglutination test (DAT) in a population with a high prevalence of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Ethiopia. There were 699 patients clinically suspected of having VL (153 parasitologically confirmed, 482 DAT confirmed, and 130 DAT negative), and 97 DAT-negative controls. A total of 84% were tested for HIV and 34% were HIV positive.