Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases kill more than 10 million people worldwide every year. It is therefore vital that doctors receive a good education in this field. Online learning is one way in which doctors can learn new knowledge and skills. We conducted this study to determine whether the infectious diseases interactive online learning packages enabled primary care professionals to increase their knowledge and skills in the area of infectious diseases. [from abstract]

The objective of this study was to assess whether traditional birth attendants, drug-shop vendors, community reproductive-health workers, or adolescent peer mobilizers could administer intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp) for malaria with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine to pregnant women. The study concludes that the use of the guideline with adequate training significantly improved correctness of malaria treatment with chloroquine at home. Adoption of this mode of intervention is recommended to improve compliance with drug use at home. The applicability for deploying artemisinin-based combination therapy at the community level needs to be investigated.

Many Nigerian children with malaria are treated at home. Treatments are mostly incorrect, due to caregivers’ poor knowledge of appropriate and correct dose of drugs. A comparative study was carried out in two rural health districts in southwest Nigeria to determine the effectiveness of a guideline targeted at caregivers, in the treatment of febrile children using chloroquine. [from abstract]

In the rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of young children affected by malaria have no access to formal health services. Home treatment through mothers of febrile children supported by mother groups and local health workers has the potential to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality. [from author]

The main aim of the study was to estimate how much clinician-time that malaria exacts on Malawi’s Ministry of Health resources. It estimates the proportion of finances that anti-malarial medications exact on the country’s health budget and determines whether the Malawi public health sector had adequate human resources to provide treatment. [adapted from author]

Home-based management of malaria (HMM) is promoted as a major strategy to improve prompt delivery of effective malaria treatment in Africa. The published literature was searched for studies that evaluated the health impact of community- and home-based treatment for malaria in Africa. [from abstract]

Malaria is a major cause of illness and death in Nigeria, and a significant drain on its economy and the poor. Yet most Nigerians do not obtain appropriate treatment for malaria, and depend on informal private providers for anti-malarial drugs (AMDs), largely through patent medicine vendors (PMVs). This study seeks to better understand the role played by PMVs in the provision of AMDs in Nigeria, and to explore ways to improve the regulation and delivery of AMDs. [from summary]

This article evaluates a malaria in-service training for community health nurses working at a village level. The program included a computer-based training package, the first of its kind for health professionals in Gambia. [adapted from abstract]

In Tanzania, the PHRplus project developed and tested a set of training materials and tools designed to strengthen the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system. All of the tools were implemented in twelve project districts in eight regions of the country. The tools can be adapted for use in other countries and include job aids for district training of trainers, facility training of trainers, district and facility level IDSR training materials and other supporting training tools. [adapted from publisher]

This paper analyzes the use of financial and material incentives for patients and healthcare providers to improve tuberculosis detection and successful completion of treatment.

This article discusses the cost-effectiveness of a recent programme that involved training shopkeepers and community mobilisation for treating childhood fevers in the rural Kilifi District in Kenya. The programme offered workshops for shopkeepers on appropriate treatment for malaria in young children and also ran community information activities, with impact maintained through refresher training and monitoring. [author’s description]

The objective of this study was to assess whether adding a training intervention for clinic staff to the usual DOTS strategy (the internationally recommended control strategy for tuberculosis (TB)) would affect the outcomes of TB treatement in primary care clinics with treatemet success rates below 70%. [from abstract]

The goal of this policy is to help management and staff minimize the risk of TB transmission in health care facilities and other facilities where the risk of transmission of TB may be high due to high prevalence of both diagnosed and undiagnosed TB such as prisons.

Although health workers are needed to do vaccinations, the role of human resources for health as a determinant of vaccination coverage at the population level has not been investigated. The author’s aim was to test whether health worker density was positively associated with childhood vaccination coverage in developing countries. [from summary]

This presentation was given as part of the Christian Health Association’s Conference: CHAs at a Crossroad Towards Achieving Health Millennium Development Goals. It provides an excellent overview of the challenges of Malaria and HIV/AIDS ; discusses the human resource needs in light of these challenges; and how to build and maintain capacity. [from author’s description]

The risk of transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patients to health-care workers is a neglected problem in many low- and middle-income countries. Most health-care facilities in these countries lack resources to prevent nosocomial transmission of tuberculosis. [author’s description]

These revised and expanded guidelines aim to help [national nursing associations], nursing and midwifery personnel, nurse managers, employers and others to address the educational needs and ethical responsibilities of nursing and midwifery personnel in reducing transmission of HIV/AIDS, HBV, HCV and tuberculosis; develop strategies for a safer work environment and increased protection for nursing and midwifery personnel; and address the socioeconomic welfare issues related to the health care needs, compensation and financial security of HIV-positive nursing and midwifery personnel.

The objective of this article was to compare the cost-effectiveness of the tuberculosis programm run by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, which uses community health workers (CHWs), with that of the government program which does not use CHWs. [adapted from author]

A potentially effective strategy for bringing early, appropriate and low cost treatment of malaria closer to the home is through the use of community health workers. The objective of this study was to determine peoples’ stated and actual preferences for different strategies for improving the timeliness and appropriateness of treatment of malaria before and after the implementation of a community health workers strategy in their community. [from abstract]

Private health care plays a central role in health-care provision in many developing countries hat have a high burden of TB. It is therefore encouraging that public-private partnerships (PPM) are being set up in various countries around the world to explore possible interaction between the national TB programs and other partners in the fight against TB. The objective of this review was to use the published literature to asses the range of providers included in PPMs for their ability to provide case-detection services for the vulnerable. [abstract]

The Quality Assurance Project undertook a national assessment of private sector tuberculosis (TB) services in Cambodia to improve understanding of private sector practices and the sector’s willingness to participate in efforts to improve TB services. Over 500 respondents, including doctors, pharmacists, drug sellers, and TB patients, participated. In addition, mystery shoppers visited private pharmacists and drug sellers so that the surveyed groups’ reports could be compared to actual experiences.

A group of individuals with expertise in areas such as TB control, human resources (HR) development and health systems (Annex 1) participated in a Consultation on HR Development for TB Control convened jointly by WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation and held at WHO headquarters in Geneva on 27 and 28 August 2003. This report summarizes the results of the consultation and the recommendations presented to the Second ad hoc Committee on the TB Epidemic.

The checklist described in this document has been developed as a tool to assist those involved in a systematic review of the human resource development component of the NTP. This component is often referred to as “training.” In this document, the term training is used in a broader context than the more traditional interpretation of the term, where training refers to organization and implementation of training courses. Training in this document is often replaced by the term “HR development” to stress the need for a broader and more long-term approach within NTPs. [from introduction]

This manual was developed to assist district health management teams in countries where malaria is endemic to improve the quality of malaria treatment given by private clinics, pharmacies, shops and kiosks. It gives step-by-step instructions for how to implement a public health activity that will involve wholesalers in communicating malaria guidelines to retailers and private clinics. [author’s description]

The involvement of district-level workers in local-level practical approaches to mainstreaming gender is central to facilitating change and informing health strategies. There are very few practical examples of mainstreaming gender in health, especially at the lower levels of the health sector. One approach is to build the capacity of staff to conduct and respond to gender analysis. [author’s description]

The objective of this document is to implement and evaluate a public–private partnership to deliver the internationally recommended strategy DOTS for the control of tuberculosis (TB) in Lalitpur municipality, Nepal, where it is estimated that 50% of patients with TB are managed in the private sector. [author’s description]

A successful leprosy care and control program within the general healthcare services at the PHC level is highly dependent upon the HWs having adequate knowledge of, and practical training on, leprosy. This study describes PHC workers’ knowledge of leprosy, and their practical involvement in leprosy care and control activities at PHC clinics in the Eerstehoek area of Gert Sibande district in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, where leprosy still occurs. [author’s description]

This paper is a desk study which looks at experiences of integrating vertical health programmes into national delivery systems where government and donors have adopted a sector wide approach (SWAp) to supporting health sector reform. It was commissioned to facilitate decision making in SDC regarding future possible integration of the Tanzania Tuberculosis and Leprosy Programme into national delivery systems and the SWAp process.[author’s description]

The Malawi Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) sought the assistance of JHPIEGO to implement a performance and quality improvement (PQI) initiative in infection prevention (IP), as one intervention in response to concerns of healthcare workers and potential healthcare workers regarding the existing risks of exposure to infection with major communicable diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, at the country’s hospitals and other health facilities.

Recent studies have shown evidence of a direct and positive causal link between the number of health workers and health outcomes. Several studies have identified an adequate health workforce as one of the key ingredients to achieving improved health outcomes. This article explores how the Global Fund addresses the challenges of a health workforce bottleneck to the successful implementation of priority disease programmes. [abstract]