Publications by authors named "W J MacLeod"
In low-to-middle-income countries, acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) remains the leading infectious cause of death among infants and children under 5 years old. Case-control studies based on upper respiratory sampling have informed current understandings of ALRI etiologies; in contrast, minimally invasive tissue sampling (MITS) offers a method of directly interrogating lower respiratory tract pathogens to establish etiologic distributions. This study performed in the postmortem setting used MITS and a Determination of Cause of Death (DeCoDe) panel to elucidate the causes of fatal pneumonia in the community in Lusaka, Zambia.
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- Under South Africa's Universal Test and Treat (UTT) policy, CD4 counts are no longer mandatory for HIV treatment eligibility, but they still serve as an important indicator of disease progression.
- An analysis of CD4 testing data from various South African provinces showed that overall first CD4 tests had increased slightly after the UTT policy was implemented, despite a previous decline in testing numbers.
- The study found no significant decline in CD4 testing volumes at patient presentation since the UTT policy began, differing from trends observed in other resource-limited settings that depend heavily on external funding.
Background: While diarrhoeal disease remains a leading cause of death in children aged <5 years in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), it also poses significant health risks for older children, underscoring the importance of our study focusing on children aged <10 years. In this systematic review, we assessed common diarrhoea aetiologies in children aged <10 years in LMICs.
Methods: We identified relevant articles in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science using pre-defined search criteria.
Article Synopsis
- Previous studies show higher illness and mortality rates in infants born to HIV-positive mothers, potentially linked to differences in nasopharyngeal (NP) microbiomes between HIV-exposed and unexposed infants.
- This study analyzed NP swabs from 20 healthy infants (10 HIV-exposed and 10 unexposed) to identify microbiome development over the first 14 weeks of life, using samples from Lusaka, Zambia.
- Results indicate subtle differences in the NP microbiomes of HIV-exposed infants compared to their mothers and unexposed infants; further research is needed to fully understand the implications of these findings.
The fall-And rise-In hospital-based care for people with HIV in South Africa: 2004-2017.
PLOS Glob Public Health
September 2024
ART scale-up has reduced HIV mortality in South Africa. However, less is known about trends in hospital-based HIV care, which is costly and may indicate HIV-related morbidity. We assessed trends in hospital-based HIV care using the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) National HIV Cohort.
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