Prevalence and factors associated with undernutrition among children under the age of five years in Benin.

BACKGROUND: Benin ranks as one of the countries in the world with an alarmingly high prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight in children under five years. However, limited studies have examined the factors associated with the prevalence of these undernutrition indicators among children under five years in the country. This study aimed to fill this research gap by examining the prevalence rates and factors associated with stunting, wasting, and underweight among this specific population of interest. METHODS: This quantitative study utilised data from the most recent Benin Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) conducted in 2017-18. The survey employed a nationally representative cross-sectional design and utilised a two-stage stratified cluster sampling technique to select participants. The study included a sample of 13,589 children under the age of five years. The main analytical approach employed was binary logistic regression, which was used to explore the associations between undernutrition (the combined outcome variable representing stunting, wasting, and underweight) and various socio-demographic factors. RESULTS: The combined prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight among children under five years in Benin during the 2017-18 survey period was 14.95%. Several factors were significantly associated with these indicators of undernutrition, including female gender (AOR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.59-0.85), birth weight of 4.1 kg and over (AOR = 0.26, 95% CI = 0.14-0.48), multiple births (AOR = 3.22, 95% CI = 2.11-4.91), and a child's experience of diarrhoea (AOR = 1.76, 95% CI = 1.40-2.20). Furthermore, the prevalence of these undernutrition indicators was higher among children whose mothers had lower levels of education (AOR = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.01-0.42) and were unmarried (AOR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.49-0.93). CONCLUSIONS: This present study confirms that undernutrition rates are elevated in Benin and are closely linked to perinatal factors such as birth weights and multiple births, postnatal health conditions including diarrheal episodes, and socio-demographic determinants such as a child's gender, maternal education level, and marital status. Therefore, there is the need to consider specific modifiable factors, such as low birth weight, episodes of child diarrhoea, and maternal education as priority targets for child nutrition interventions in Benin.

Duration of immunity following full vaccination against SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: As vaccine roll-out continues across the globe as part of the efforts to protect humanity against SARS-CoV-2, concerns are increasingly shifting to the duration of vaccine-induced immunity. Responses to these concerns are critical in determining if, when, and who will need booster doses following full vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. However, synthesised studies about the durability of vaccine-induced immunity against SARS-CoV-2 are scarce. This systematic review synthesised available global evidence on the duration of immunity following full vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. METHODS: We searched through Psych Info, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, PubMed, and WHO COVID-19 databases for relevant studies published before December 2021. Five eligibility criteria were used in scrutinising studies for inclusion. The quality of the included studies was assessed based on Joana Briggs Institute's (JBI) Critical Appraisal tool and Cochrane's Risk of Bias tool-version 2 (RoB 2), while the reporting of the results was guided by the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis (SWiM) guidelines. RESULTS: Twenty-seven out of the 666 identified studies met the inclusion criteria. The findings showed that vaccine-induced protection against SARS-CoV-2 infections builds rapidly after the first dose of vaccines and peaks within 4 to 42 days after the second dose, before waning begins in subsequent months, typically from 3 to 24 weeks. Vaccine-induced antibody response levels varied across different demographic and population characteristics and were higher in people who reported no underlying health conditions compared to those with immunosuppressed conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Waning of immunity against SARS-CoV-2 begins as early as the first month after full vaccination and this decline continues till the sixth month when the level of immunity may not be able to provide adequate protection against SARS-CoV-2. While the evidence synthesised in this review could effectively inform and shape vaccine policies regarding the administration of booster doses, more evidence, especially clinical trials, are still needed to ascertain, with greater precision, the exact duration of immunity offered by different vaccine types, across diverse population characteristics, and in different vulnerability parameters. REGISTRATION: The protocol for this review was pre-registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews [PROSPERO] (Registration ID: CRD420212818).