Prevalence of epilepsy its treatment gap and knowledge, attitude and practice of its population in sub-urban Senegal an ILAE/IBE/WHO study.

A door-to-door survey was used to determine the prevalence of epilepsy among 4500 people within the Pikine Health District (population 480,000) Senegal. Prevalence was 14.2/1000, and 23.4% of all people with epilepsy had never received appropriate treatment. Figures for the prevalence had increased since a previous survey in 1989. In parallel a study of knowledge attitude and practice was performed in the same district. Salient findings were that: two-thirds of interviewees had at some time witnessed a seizure, 51% agreed when asked if epilepsy is caused by evil spirits, 35% said epilepsy is contagious, only about 18% said that traditional therapy is best, 60% would not mind their child to play with a child with epilepsy but only 32% would agree if their child would want to marry a person with epilepsy.

Europium cryptate-tethered ribonucleotide for the labeling of RNA and its detection by time-resolved amplification of cryptate emission.

TRACE (time-resolved amplification of cryptate emission), also called HTRF for pharmaceutical applications, is a homogeneous time-resolved fluorescence technique well adapted for the study of molecular interactions. It is based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between europium trisbipyridine cryptate (TBPEu(3+)) as energy donor and cross-linked allophycocyanin, symbolized by XL665, as acceptor, leading to a long-lived FRET signal. TBPEu(3+)-labeled uridine triphosphate (UTP), referred to as K-11-UTP in the text, was obtained by coupling TBPEu(3+) moiety to a C-5 functionalized UTP analog. K-11-UTP can be directly incorporated in RNA strands during enzymatic synthesis. This was demonstrated in an in vitro transcription reaction promoted by T(7) RNA polymerase. The reaction was performed in the presence of K-11-UTP and biotin-labeled cytidine triphosphate (biotin-16-CTP) in admixture with natural ribonucleotides. After the addition of streptavidin-XL665 conjugate (SA-XL665), which binds on biotinylated cytidine residues, a long-lived FRET signal was obtained. This proved that both europium cryptate and biotin were incorporated into the same RNA strand and are close enough to generate a FRET signal. The study of this FRET detection assay format showed that such doubly labeled RNA can be easily detected even when a very low percentage of K-11-UTP is used (less than 1% of total UTP concentration). Europium-cryptate-labeled RNA can also be monitored using a homogeneous hybridization assay format involving a biotinylated probe. After the addition of SA-XL665, the FRET signal generated demonstrates the formation of RNA:DNA hybrids. Europium-cryptate-labeled nucleotide thus gives access to a new type of RNA nonisotopic labeling and homogeneous detection assays.

[Anatomo-clinical aspects of ganglionic tuberculosis in Senegal: comparative study between the 60's and 80-90's apropos of 139 cases]. / Aspects anatomo-cliniques des tuberculoses ganglionnaires en milieu sénégalais: une étude comparative entre les années 60 et 80-90 à propos de 139 cas.

The authors report the results of a retrospective and comparative study of anatomo-clinical aspects of ganglionic tuberculosis carried out over two periods of five years each: first period: 1962-1966; second period: 1988-1992. This study shows a higher prevalence of this disease among children during the first period with an odd ratio of 4.36. In the second period, young adults are the most affected particularly the age group between 30 and 39. The possible role of the HIV virus in this phenomenon has been pointed out. The most common histological forms were the subacute ones with a distinct prevalence during the second period, on the opposite of the acute and chronic forms.