Archives

  • 2018-07
  • 2018-10
  • 2018-11
  • 2019-04
  • 2019-05
  • 2019-06
  • 2019-07
  • 2019-08
  • 2019-09
  • 2019-10
  • 2019-11
  • 2019-12
  • 2020-01
  • 2020-02
  • 2020-03
  • 2020-04
  • 2020-05
  • 2020-06
  • 2020-07
  • 2020-08
  • 2020-09
  • 2020-10
  • 2020-11
  • 2020-12
  • 2021-01
  • 2021-02
  • 2021-03
  • 2021-04
  • 2021-05
  • 2021-06
  • 2021-07
  • 2021-08
  • 2021-09
  • 2021-10
  • 2021-11
  • 2021-12
  • 2022-01
  • 2022-02
  • 2022-03
  • 2022-04
  • 2022-05
  • 2022-06
  • 2022-07
  • 2022-08
  • 2022-09
  • 2022-10
  • 2022-11
  • 2022-12
  • 2023-01
  • 2023-02
  • 2023-03
  • 2023-04
  • 2023-05
  • 2023-06
  • 2023-07
  • 2023-08
  • 2023-09
  • 2023-10
  • 2023-11
  • 2023-12
  • 2024-01
  • 2024-02
  • 2024-03
  • Target of emotional drivers of preventive and treatment

    2019-05-13

    Target of emotional drivers of preventive and treatment behaviours is a promising avenue for increasing the effectiveness of behaviour change interventions. More research is needed on how to best operationalise interventions based on emotional drivers in routine programmatic settings, how to measure the different aspects of intervention fidelity in community-based interventions, and how to achieve high coverage and quality among the poorest and most vulnerable members of a population.
    How many more trials will be needed to endorse the use of small regular cash amounts to improve the health of the very poor? In their study in , Audrey Pettifor and colleagues show that cash transfers reduce key HIV risk behaviours in adolescent girls (sexual activity in the past 12 months, unprotected sex in the past 3 months, and intimate partner violence as an additional outcome). But the unexpected findings from this Phenyl sulfate study might have even greater implications for social protection and HIV prevention.
    The epidemiology of is dynamic, with risk of meningococcal disease varying widely by region and depending on a confluence of host, organism, and environmental factors. Because transmission of results mainly in asymptomatic carriage, evaluation of oropharyngeal carriage can be helpful to understand the epidemiology and transmission of and, in turn, develop strategies for the prevention and control of meningococcal disease. The bacterium is transmitted through respiratory droplets and close contact, with transmission increasing in crowded settings such as military camps, universities, and schools. Household contacts of patients with meningococcal disease have been shown to be at increased risk of meningococcal carriage and disease in developed countries, where incidence of meningococcal disease is low and outbreaks infrequent. However, less is known about household transmission dynamics of in the unique epidemiological context of the meningitis belt of sub-Saharan Africa, which is characterised by high rates of endemic disease, annual outbreaks, and periodic large-scale epidemics, historically due to serogroup A meningococci. In , Caroline Trotter and colleagues describe the importance of household transmission of in the meningitis belt using data from a series of cross-sectional meningococcal carriage surveys held across seven countries to describe meningococcal carriage and impact of a novel meningococcal serogroup A conjugate vaccine (MenAfriVac; Serum Institute of India PVT, Pune, India). Within the study the investigators recruited a subset of 184 households containing putative carriers due to any serogroup for longitudinal household carriage surveys carried out over 6 months. 133 households with confirmed index carriers were compared with 51 control households in which in the putative index carrier was ruled out by reference testing. 21% (152 of 739) of individuals within index carrier households subsequently acquired compared with 9% (35 of 371) of individuals in control households. Due to a paucity of serogroup A carriers, the impact of MenAfriVac vaccination on carriage acquisition or loss within households could not be determined. Although the overall carriage acquisition rate was 2·4% per month (95% CI 1·6–4·0), rates among all age groups were four-to-five-times higher in households with an index carrier. Overall, the mean duration of carriage was 3·4 months (2·7–4·4). Index carriers were most likely to be adolescents, with a median age of 12 years, and children younger than 5 years were most likely to acquire carriage. In index carrier households, most individuals that subsequently developed carriage acquired the same or a similar strain as the index carrier, providing evidence for within-household transmission, although external acquisition was also noted. Further analysis of the strains with next-generation sequencing will be useful to further differentiate transmission within households versus external acquisition.