Bottlenecks for high coverage of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy: the case of adolescent pregnancies in rural Burkina Faso.

Background: While IPTp-SP is currently being scaled up in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the coverage with the required>or=2 doses of SP remains considerably short of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) goal of 80%, not to mention of the recently advocated universal coverage.

Methods: The study triangulates quantitative data from a health center randomized community-based trial on IPTp-SP effectiveness and the additional benefit of a promotional campaign with qualitative data from focused ethnography.

Findings: In rural Burkina Faso, despite the significantly higher risk of malaria infection among adolescent primigravidae (PG) (OR 2.

Eubacterial HslV and HslU subunits homologs in primordial eukaryotes.

ATP-dependent protease complexes are present in all three kingdoms of life, where they rid the cell of misfolded or damaged proteins and control the level of certain regulatory proteins. They include the proteasome in Eukaryotes, Archea, and Actinomycetales and the HslVU (ClpQY) complex in other eubacteria. We showed that genes homologous to eubacterial HslV (ClpQ) and HslU (ClpY) are present in the genome of trypanosomatid protozoa and are expressed.

Molecular characterization of antigen 24, a specific immunodominant antigen family from Leishmania infantum.

Leishmania infantum immunoelectrophoretic antigen 24 (AG 24), a visceral leishmaniasis associated immunodominant antigen, has been characterized with a monospecific antiserum by combining SDS-PAGE, immunoblotting, metabolic labelling, radio-immunoprecipitation and in vitro poly A+ mRNA translation. AG 24 appeared to correspond to a multi-antigen family of 6-9 members ranging from 20 to 31 kDa and proteinic by nature with no post-translational modifications. A similar banding pattern was recognized by infection sera.

Likelihood ratios: a real improvement for clinical decision making?

The concept of likelihood ratio has been advocated for several years as one of the better means to evaluate diagnostic tests and as a practical and valuable tool in clinical decision making. In this paper we review the basic concepts underlying the evaluation of diagnostic tests and we explore the properties and usefulness of both positive and negative likelihood ratios compared with sensitivity and specificity. Particular attention is given to the use of likelihood ratios in the clinical setting.