International Journal of TROPICAL DISEASE & Health

This paper presents the composition of municipal solid waste in Uyo and vector-borne diseases associated with municipal solid waste within the vicinity of the dumping site (less than 1 km) and controlled site (above 1 km). The compositions of municipal solid waste were determined using samples obtained from Uyo village road waste dumping site. The dumpsite receives solid waste from all the communities in Uyo local government area. In order to assess the public perception of vector-borne diseases associated with municipal solid waste, sample survey method was adopted, which involved the administration of 500 questionnaires of which 250 were administered to the residents who lived less than 1 km from the boundary of the waste dumpsite and 250 questionnaires were also administered to the communities living further away. The compositions and percentages constituent by mass revealed the following: Organic waste component constitute 53.86% and inorganic constituted a waste portion of 46.14%. For vector-borne diseases associated with municipal solid waste, the results indicated that 70.8% of the respondents attended tertiary education (OND/NCE and above), so the issues associated with municipal solid waste may not be strange to them. A significant number of respondents are aware that the origin of municipal solid waste is residential, commercial, industrial, market, street sweeping and industrial sectors. Respondents are more aware that rats, flies, mosquitoes, birds, pigs and cockroaches are vector-borne diseases associated with municipal solid waste. The findings in this study will be useful in a comprehensive solid waste management program which encompasses sweeping, storage, collection and disposal of solid waste. However, the waste can be best treated if any of these techniques are utilized composting, gasification and energy recovery in future for further reduction of waste.

Aims: To determine the prevalence, pattern and presentation of the diabetic foot ulcer.

Background: A diabetic foot ulcer is a major complication in diabetes mellitus and probably the major component of diabetic foot. It occurs in 15% of all patients with diabetes and precedes 84% of all lower leg amputations.

Poverty, low economic status and ignorance have resulted in this devastating disease. It may worsen in the next decade.

There are multiple risk factors that predispose an individual to DM foot ulcer; they include age, gender(male), type of DM, glycaemic (HbA1c) or FBG level, duration of DM (>10yrs) occupational status particular habits of self-foot care and infection.

Patients and Methods: This consists of 69 diabetic patients; male and female included done between the months of January 2019 to March 2019.

A demographic data questionnaire and social history were obtained. Overnight fasting serum glucose was obtained. Serum glucose was determined by enzymatic glucose oxidase method.

Data obtained were subjected to Stata Version 11 Software to determine the graphical representation, mean, standard deviation of the analysis.

Results: Thirty-Five 35 were male and 34 were female had type 2 diabetes. Forty-Three 43 patients had foot ulcer, 21 patients had gangrene and 5 had infection. The number of patients with peak glucose values 10 mmol/L and least glucose at 20-25 mmol/L. Those of duration 4-6 years were the most affected the age group most affected is between 40-59 yrs.

Discussion and Conclusion: Risk factors for foot ulceration discovered among a host other factors identified in this study, were the infection, low socioeconomic status, improper footwear, poor glycaemic control, structural foot deformity and untreated gangrene.

The role of poor glycaemic control in the genesis of diabetic complications cannot be overemphasized as the mean FPG was noted to be considerably higher in patients with foot ulceration As part of a comprehensive foot care programme, education on foot care should be directed at patients, family members and healthcare providers.

Not less than 85% of all diabetic foot-related problems are preventable. This can be achieved through a combination of good care of foot, provided by an inter-professional diabetes care team, and appropriate education for people with diabetes.

Background: The blood-feeding patterns are crucial in incriminating disease vectors as well as facilitating the design and consolidation of effective vector control interventions in an area. 

Objective: This study aimed to establish if prolonged use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) caused a shift in the preferred hosts of the common malaria vectors as the hosts were under the bed net. Such a shift would render ITNs less effective and would probably explain the continued morbidity and mortality due to malaria in the highly endemic Kamuli district.

Methods: A total of 3,519 indoor and outdoor human biting female Anopheles gambiae sensu lato and An. funestus mosquitoes were collected from 48 households using human-baited bed net traps. All 187 indoor resting blood-fed anophelines collected were tested by direct enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for blood meal host identification. Of these, 73 mid guts came from 24 households in villages with a 69% ITNs coverage, while 114 mid guts were from 24 households in non-ITN villages.

Results: Blood meal hosts were identified in only 10.96% (n = 8) and 14.91% (n = 17) of the Anopheles blood meals from the intervention and non-intervention zones, respectively. Other blood meals could not be clearly identified.  Eight (100%) blood meals in the intervention zone were from humans, while in the non-intervention zone, 15 (88.24%), one (5.88%) and one (5.88%) came from humans, cattle and goat, respectively. These findings demonstrated that the malaria vectors in Kamuli district are anthropophilic, with nearly all the mosquitoes collected from both zones feeding on humans during every blood meal (p = 0.82). This indicated high vector-human contacts, and thus implicating these species as important in the transmission of Plasmodium species and probably other infections.

Conclusion: The use of insecticide-treated bed nets is effective for controlling malaria vectors inside houses, evoking universal coverage of houses in the area.

Isoniazid Preventive Therapy (IPT) involves use of isoniazid by People Living with HIV (PLWHIV) who have latent TB for a period not less than six months to prevent active TB infection. Despite the critical role of IPT in reducing HIV/TB co-infection related morbidity and deaths, not much has been done to examine why its full implementation has not been achieved and the probable solution. The objective of this study was to determine uptake of isoniazid preventive therapy and its associated factors among people living with HIV in Kajiado County, Kenya. Analytical Cross-sectional study was carried out in purposely selected four Hospitals. Two hundred and seventy two (272) study participants were recruited through systematic sampling with 100% response rate. Data were collected using structured questionnaires. Cross tabulation, bivariate and multivariate analysis was carried out to identify factors influencing IPT uptake. The study found out that IPT uptake was at 72%. Logistic regression analysis, established the existence of a significant positive association (p-value=0.000, βii=1.729) between patient knowledge among PLHIV and IPT uptake. A correlation analysis outcome shows the existence of a significant positive relationship (r=0.332, sig. =0.000) between patients knowledge and having ever used IPT at 0.01 level in a two tailed. The 72% of IPT uptake was sufficient. Patient knowledge factors had the highest influence on IPT amongst PLWHIV. The role of health care givers and health centers as IPT information disseminators and IPT knowledge source respectively, was invaluable in this study.

Background: The main objective of treating bed nets with insecticides is to affect the mean longevity of the main vector population, and consequently the vector density and sporozoite rates.

Objective: This study aimed at establishing the impact of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) on the longevity and ability to transmit malaria sporozoites by the vector species as an assessment of effectiveness of the ITN intervention in Kamuli district, Uganda.

Methods: Indoor human-biting mosquitoes were trapped in three randomly selected houses in two separate nights using battery-operated CDC light traps in both intervention (with ITNs) and non-intervention villages (without ITNs). The female anophelines were dissected and their parity rates and Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite positivity compared between the two zones. A sporozoite Enzyme-Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay, ELISA, was used to detect the presence of P. falciparum sporozoites in the parous vectors in both zones.

The parity and P. falciparum sporozoite infectivity were compared between the two zones using the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test of the R-Statistics software.

Results: Out of the 166 Anopheles mosquitoes dissected, 37.3% (19 out of 51) and 53.9% (62 out of 115) were parous in the intervention and non-intervention zones, respectively, indicating that parity of the mosquitoes was higher in the non-intervention (p = 0.005). Infectivity of the vectors in the non-intervention exceeded that in the intervention zone (p = 0.032), with active sporozoite transmission observed before and after bed time in the non-intervention zone.

Conclusion: Results showed that ITNs had impacted on the survival and consequently the density of the older malaria vectors, and on their ability to transmit Plasmodium sporozoites. This calls for intensification of use of this effective malaria control strategy, coupled with behavioural change communications strategy to promote correct use, as well as use of other interventions like repellents to provide additional protection especially before and after bed time.

This study explored the perceived risk of contracting HIV among the currently married men and women in Zambia. The analysis was carried out on data from the latest Zambia Demographic Health Survey (2014). Results indicated that 48% of the currently married women, and 61% of the currently married men reported low perceived risk for contracting HIV. The results also indicate that age, place of residence, wealth status, having had sex with three or more partners for the last 12 months, drinking alcohol and condom use were associated with high risk perception of contracting HIV for men. Women who had three or more sexual partners during the last 12 months were 1.5 times more likely to perceive high risk for contracting HIV than those who had less than three partners. Among the males, those who had sex with three or more sexual partners were 1.7 times more likely to perceive being at high risk for contracting HIV than those who had sex with less than three partners. Respondents from the higher socio-economic group were 1.3 times more likely to report low risk of contracting HIV as compared to those from middle and lower socio-economic group. These findings suggest that behaviour change campaigns encouraging married men and women to accurately assess their personal risk of contracting HIV should be complemented with targeted awareness messages emphasizing the positive attributes of using condom.

Toxoplasmosis is a neglected tropical disease with a global distribution that is estimated to infect one third of the world’s human population. This study was a comparison of ELISA and rapid Immunochromatographic tests (ICT) in diagnosis of toxoplasmosis in Port Harcourt Nigeria. Eight hundred patients grouped in four categories from three Health Care Centres were randomly sampled after due ethical approval was obtained. Samples were analysed using Toxo IgG-IgM rapid test (ICT) and Enzyme linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technique. Socio Demo graphic Data were obtained using well-structured questionnaires. The seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis based on ICT was 28.1% while that of ELISA was 34.5% both significant (P < 0.05) with a relative risk of 0.815. The diagnostic parameters of ICT versus ELISA IgG were sensitively 46.7% specificity 81.7% positive predictive value (PPV) 57.3%, Negative predictive value (NPV) 74.4 with a diagnostic efficiency of 69.6% Cohen Kappas indicate good to moderate agreement between the two tests for detecting IgG. Although ELISA is the gold standard for diagnosing toxoplasmosis, ICT being less expensive, faster with high specificity and good diagnostic efficiency in detecting IgG is recommended as a preliminary screening tool for diagnosing toxoplasmosis in remote areas and facilities because ELISA is laborious, expensive and not readily available.

Introduction: Dengue fever is a globally important arboviral infection transmitted by the Aedes genus of mosquito found in tropical and subtropical regions. Fluid therapy and the identification of the critical phase are the most important aspects of management.

Objectives: To study the clinical profile of patients with Dengue Fever.

Methodology: The patients diagnosed with Dengue Fever would be considered for the study. Data pertaining to the clinic-socio demographic profile of dengue fever would be collected from the patient’s records and analyzed.

Results: It was observed that majority of patients had myalgia as the common associated symptoms with fever and bleeding manifestations was present in 7.7% of patients. Dengue NS1 was positive in 79% of patients. Platelet transfusion was given for 20% of patients. Amongst those who received platelet transfusion 52% patients had bleeding manifestations. Antibiotics was given for 65% of patients which had no significant effect on the duration of stay in hospital and platelet values.

Conclusion: Dengue fever despite its aggressive nature can be effectively managed by maintaining hydration and hemodynamic stability. Platelet transfusion and antibiotic therapy has failed to show any significant improvement in disease outcomes and should be reserved for Severe Dengue Haemorrhagic Shock.