Towards integrated malaria molecular surveillance in Africa.

Integrated malaria molecular surveillance (iMMS) systems are essential for Africa's expanding malaria genomics initiatives. Here we highlight a few initiatives and demonstrate how iMMS can support evidence-based decisions and policies for National Malaria Programs and other malaria control stakeholders. We conclude with key considerations for advancing these malaria genomics initiatives towards sustainable iMMS.

Cascade testing effectively identifies undiagnosed sickle cell disease in The Gambia: a quality improvement project.

Objective: Sickle cell disease (SCD) has a high mortality during childhood in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Early diagnosis improves outcomes but newborn screening is not well established in LMICs. Cascade testing may be feasible and effective in identifying undiagnosed SCD and carriers of haemoglobin (Hb) S.

Socioeconomic inequality in postnatal care utilisation among reproductive age women in sub-Saharan African countries with high maternal mortality: a decomposition analysis.

Objective: To assess the socioeconomic inequality in postnatal care (PNC) utilisation and its contributors among women in 14 sub-Saharan African countries with high maternal mortality.

Design: Community-based cross-sectional study using Demographic Health Survey SETTING: Africa countries with the highest maternal mortality ratio (14 countries) PARTICIPANTS: All women who had given birth within 2 years prior to the survey (n=64 912) PRIMARY OUTCOMES: Postnatal care utilisation RESULTS: The percentage of women who had PNC utilisation was lowest in Ethiopia (23.4%: 95% CI: 22.

Content and design of respectful maternity care training packages for health workers in sub-Saharan Africa: Scoping review.

Background: Training health workers might facilitate respectful maternity care (RMC); however, the content and design of RMC training remain unclear.

Objective: To explore the content and design of RMC training packages for health workers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Search Strategy: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL Complete, Web of Science Core Collections, SCOPUS, and grey literature sources (including websites of RMC-focused key organizations and Ministries of Health) were searched for journal papers, reports, and training guides from January 2006 up to August 2022.

Climate change is intensifying rainfall erosivity and soil erosion in West Africa.

Soil erosion is a critical environmental challenge with significant implications for agriculture, water quality, and ecosystem stability. Understanding its dynamics is essential for sustainable environmental management and societal welfare. Here, we analyze rainfall erosivity and erosion patterns across West Africa (WAF) during the historical (1982-2014), near future (2028-2060), and far future (2068-2100) periods under Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs 370 and 585).

Explainable machine learning for modeling predictors of unintended pregnancy among married/in-union women in sub-Saharan Africa, a multi-country analysis of MICS 6 survey.

Introduction: Unintended pregnancy is defined as a pregnancy that is either mistimed (wanted at a later time) or unwanted (not wanted at all). It has been a concerning issue for reproductive health and public health, with significant negative effects on the mother, child, and the public at large. It is a worldwide public health issue that can have a major impact on the health of pregnant women and newborns.

West African Medicinal Plant Substances and Molecules Activities Against Viral Hepatitis B and Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Background: Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major global public health problem with devastating consequences, such as hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently, approved treatments are limited to interferon and nucleoside/nucleotide analogues for chronic hepatitis B and chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery for cancer. Both treatments have their limitations, making complete cure an elusive goal.

Beliefs surrounding the use of inhaled asthma medication in The Gambia: a qualitative study of asthma patients and healthcare workers.

Asthma-related mortality is high in low- and middle-income countries. Little is known about public perceptions of inhaled medicines. We conducted semi-structured interviews with asthma patients and healthcare workers at three secondary care facilities in The Gambia, between August and November 2022.

Improving infant Neurocognitive Development and Growth Outcomes with micronutrients (INDiGO): A protocol for an efficacy trial in rural Gambia.

Background: Undernutrition during the early years of life has a harmful and irreversible impact on child growth and cognitive development. Many of the interventions tested to improve outcomes across infancy have had disappointing or inconsistent impact, a common feature being the absence of any attempt to provide nutritional supplements to infants during the first six months. With increasing evidence of micronutrient deficiencies in this age group, alongside strong evidence that growth and developmental deficits begin before six months, a renewed focus on the micronutrient status of infants is required.

Short-term associations of diarrhoeal diseases in children with temperature and precipitation in seven low- and middle-income countries from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in the Global Enteric Multicenter Study.

Background: Diarrhoeal diseases cause a heavy burden in developing countries. Although studies have described the seasonality of diarrhoeal diseases, the association of weather variables with diarrhoeal diseases has not been well characterized in resource-limited settings where the burden remains high. We examined short-term associations between ambient temperature, precipitation and hospital visits due to diarrhoea among children in seven low- and middle-income countries.

Africa and the Cattle Without History.

The premise of this article is that African historiography has yet to embrace the genetic basis of cattle tolerance to tsetse-borne trypanosomiasis due to the literature's emphasis on human illness and landscape modification. By the early 1980s, empirical research indicated that N'Dama cattle possessed a tolerance to the disease that was heritable and, as such, could be strengthened through breeding. The Gambia's first president, who was a former veterinary surgeon, contributed to the breed's reappraisal.

How to (or how not to) implement crowdsourcing for the development of health interventions: lessons learned from four African countries.

Crowdsourcing strategies are useful in the development of public health interventions. Crowdsourcing engages end users in a co-creation process through challenge contests, designathons or online collaborations. Drawing on our experience of crowdsourcing in four African countries, we provide guidance on designing crowdsourcing strategies across seven steps: deciding on the type of crowdsourcing strategy, convening a steering committee, developing the content of the call for ideas, promotion, evaluation, recognizing finalists and sharing back ideas or implementing the solutions.

Understanding menstrual factors associated with poor mental health among female secondary school students in Uganda: a cross-sectional analysis.

Background: There is growing global concern about poor mental health among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, adolescent girls face multiple challenges in managing menstruation which can impact both their health and wellbeing. In this study we address an evidence gap on the association of a broad range of menstrual-related factors with mental health problems amongst secondary school female adolescents in Uganda.

The Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) Project: Longitudinal cohort study protocol.

There is a scarcity of prospective longitudinal research targeted at early postnatal life which maps developmental pathways of early-stage processing and brain specialisation in the context of early adversity. Follow up from infancy into the one-five year age range is key, as it constitutes a critical gap between infant and early childhood studies. Availability of portable neuroimaging (functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG)) has enabled access to rural settings increasing the diversity of our sampling and broadening developmental research to include previously underrepresented ethnic-racial and geographical groups in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs).