Infectious Diseases

This paper examines the differences in the demographic characteristics, smear grades, and treatment outcomes of pulmonary tuberculosis cases detected through both active and passive case finding to determine if active case finding from health workers in mobile radiography units could contribute to early case finding, considering associated project costs. [adapted from author]

This article describes a methodology developed to establish tuberculosis (TB) related work load in a given context and for a given patient load for use by TB program managers and health planners. The authors piloted this methodology in Tanzania in three districts; one rural, one urban and one semi-urban district as the countrycurrently faces a health workforce shortage of 65% in the public sector and 86% in the private sector, with unequal distribution between urban and rural areas. [adapted from author]

This study describes the process and cost of training to attain competence of lower level health workers to perform malaria RDTs in a public health system setting in eastern Uganda. [from abstract]

Engaging all relevant health care providers in TB care and control through public-private mix approaches is an essential component of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB Strategy. This toolkit provides specific guidance to national tuberculosis programs on working with diverse care providers based on country experiences. [adapted from author]

As the primary link between the formal health care sector and the household level in South Africa, community health workers (CHWs) provide a critical perspective on barriers
that exist in rural health care delivery. The results of this study suggest that CHWs recognize the need for HIV/AIDS- and TB-related interventions but are unable to provide a response commensurate to this need. [from abstract]

This study explored primary health care staff’s perception, challenges and needs pertaining to the identification of children with tuberculosis in Muheza district in Tanzania. [from abstract]

This paper uses a decision mathematical model to estimate the relative effectiveness of two alternative strategies, mobile clinics and fixed community-based health services, for antibiotic treatment of childhood pneumonia, the world’s leading cause of child mortality. [from abstract]

Cambodia recently scaled up their Village Malaria Worker (VMW) project by substantially increasing the number of VMWs and expanding the project’s health services to include treatment of fever, diarrhoea, and acute respiratory infections in children under five. This study examined if the scale-up interfered with VMWs’ service quality, actions, and knowledge of malaria control, and analysed VMWs’ overall achievements and perceptions of the newly added health services. [from abstract]

The objective of this study was to assess whether community case management by lady health workers with oral amoxicillin in children with severe pneumonia was equivalent to current standard of care. [from summary]

Community case management of malaria is an established route for distribution of anti-malarial drugs in rural areas, but this study examined the feasibility and acceptability of the approach through Community Medicine Distributors (CMDs) in urban areas using before and after implementation studies in five African cities in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Malawi. [adapted from introduction]

Given the very limited professional health care human resources in these settings, it is important to examine the evidence for the effectiveness of community health worker (CHW) programs as a delivery strategy for health interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. This review focuses on the impact CHWs have when delivering curative interventions. [adapted from author]

By investigating the community-owned resource persons - their demographic characteristics, their reasons for participating in the an urban malaria control program (UMCP), and their work performance - this study outlines how communities can become responsible for malaria control. [adapted from author]

This article describes a community intervention conducted aimed at improving early malaria case management in under five children. Health workers were trained to train community-based women groups in recognizing malaria symptoms, providing first-line treatment for uncomplicated malaria and referring severe cases. [adapted from abstract]

The objective of this study was to assess whether the development and implementation of a community health worker project in rural Kenya was associated with an increase in knowledge about malaria and the use of insecticide-treated nets in children under five years of age. [from abstract]

This article outlines a prospective evaluation of the effectiveness of using community health workers as delivery points for ACT and RDTs in the home management of malaria in two districts in Zambia. [from abstract]

This study in western Kenya aimed to evaluate the impact of providing subsidized artemether–lumefantrine, an antimalarial treatment, for febrile children aged 3–59 months through retail providers. [adapted from abstract]

The aim of this document is to set out the issues, challenges, and strategies for scaling up the contribution of nursing to tuberculosis (TB) prevention, detection, care, and treatment. It argues that scaling up nursing roles in TB prevention, detection, care, and treatment, as well as involvement in key policy and decision making, is the cornerstone of effective national TB programs. [from author]

This study investigated the readiness of the public health sector to provide malaria casemanagement in Somalia, a country where there has been no functioning central government for almost two decades. [from abstract]

This study describes a novel method to review and evaluate clinical performance in TB management and for evaluating tuberculosis (TB) control at the point of care using a process-based performance review tool to identify missed opportunities for early and accurate TB diagnosis. This tool is a teaching strategy where clinicians retrospectively review patient records to evaluate crucial clinical actions, and has been shown to improve clinical performance. [from author]

This article assesses the effectiveness of village health volunteers in performing early diagnosis and treatment to reduce the burden of malaria in Loa PDR. [adapted from abstract]

Despite being workers on the front line responding to the public’s HIV and TB care needs, health workers themselves often do not have access to HIV and TB services. These guidelines aim to protect, retain and empower health workers in dealing with the dual threat of HIV and TB and reinforce good practicies for health workers who are living with HIV and/or TB. [adapted from introduction]

Hospitals with inadequate infection control are risky environments for the emergence and transmission of tuberculosis (TB). This study evaluated TB infection control practices, and the prevalence of latent TB infection and TB disease and risk factors in health care workers in TB centers in Henan province in China. [from abstract]

Information about quality of malaria treatment services of different healthcare providers is needed to know how to improve the treatment of malaria since inappropriate service provision leads to increased burden of malaria. This study determined the technical and perceived quality of malaria treatment services of different types of providers in three urban and three rural areas in southeast Nigeria. [from abstract]

This article evaluates an initiative launched in Kenya to improve malaria case-management through enhanced in-service training and provision of job aids. [from abstract]

This article sought to systematically assess the research training needs of health care professionals working at Peruvian governmental institutions leading HIV and tuberculosis control and among senior stakeholders in the field. [from abstract]

Home Management of Malaria (HMM) is a strategy to improve acces to appropriate and effective malaria treatment in the community or home through early recognition of malaria symptoms and prompt treatment. To do this, volunteer members of the communities are trained to recognize fever, to administer treatment to children under five years of age when they find it, and to advise on follow-up treatment and prevention. They are monitored by a trained member of staff, such as a public health officer.

The objective of this research was to study prescribing practices of private practitioners in the treatment of tuberculosis, two decades after a similar study conducted in the same geographical area revealed dismal results. [from abstract]

Hospital-based providers’ willingness to report to work during an influenza pandemic is a critical yet under-studied phenomenon. Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model has been shown to be useful for understanding adaptive behavior of public health workers to an unknown risk, and thus offers a framework for examining scenario-specific willingness to respond among hospital staff. [from abstract]

The objective of this article is to compare the processes and outcomes of four pulic-private mix project on DOTS implementation for tuberculosis control in New Delhi, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam; Nairobi, Keny; and Pune, India. [from abstract]

This study evaluated the effect of malaria rapid diagnostic tests on health workers anti-malarial drug prescriptions among outpatients at low level health care facilities within different malaria epidemiological settings in Uganda. [from abstract]