Does postnatal care have a role in improving newborn feeding? A study in 15 sub-Saharan African countries.

BACKGROUND: Breastfeeding is known as a key intervention to improve newborn health and survival while prelacteal feeds (liquids other than breastmilk within 3 days of birth) represents a departure from optimal feeding practices. Recent programmatic guidelines from the WHO and UNICEF outline the need to improve newborn feeding and points to postnatal care (PNC) as a potential mechanism to do so. This study examines if PNC and type of PNC provider are associated with key newborn feeding practices: breastfeeding within 1 day and prelacteal feeds. METHODS: We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for 15 sub-Saharan African countries to estimate 4 separate pooled, multilevel, logistic regression models to predict the newborn feeding outcomes. FINDINGS: PNC is significantly associated with increased breastfeeding within 1day (OR = 1.35, P < 0.001) but is not associated with PLFs (OR = 1.04, P = 0.195). PNC provided by nurses, midwives and untrained health workers is also associated with higher odds of breastfeeding within 1 day of birth (OR = 1.39, P < 0.001, (OR = 1.95, P < 0.001) while PNC provided by untrained health workers is associated with increased odds of PLFs (OR = 1.20, P = 0.017). CONCLUSIONS: PNC delivered through customary care may be an effective strategy to improve the breastfeeding within 1 day but not to discourage PLFs. Further analysis should be done to examine how these variables operate at the country level to produce finer programmatic insight.

Using quality improvement methods to test and scale up a new national policy on early post-natal care in Ghana.

INTRODUCTION: The first week of life presents the greatest risk of dying for a young infant. Yet, due to the sociocultural, financial, geographical and health system barriers found in many resource-poor settings, infants do not access health care until much later. To reduce neonatal mortality, the Ghana Health Service proposed a new policy that promotes skilled care during the first week of life. We report the results of an initiative that uses quality improvement (QI) methods to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the new early post-natal care (PNC) policy and its subsequent scale-up throughout northern Ghana. METHODS: Over a 10-month period, 30 networked QI teams from 27 rural health facilities developed and tested both facility-based and community-based changes to their processes of maternal and neonatal care. Coverage and outcome data were analysed using an interrupted time-series design. RESULTS: Over 24 months, early PNC increased from a mean of 15% to 71% for visits within the first 48 h, and from 0% to 53% for visits on Day 6 or 7. We observed a slower increase in skilled delivery (mean of 56% to 82%) over a longer period of time (35 months). Facility-based neonatal mortality remained unchanged: mean of 5.1 deaths per 1000 deliveries. Using the most effective change ideas developed in the 27 test facilities, the early PNC policy was scaled up over the subsequent 2 years to 576 health facilities in all 38 districts of northern Ghana. CONCLUSIONS: This initiative demonstrates the utility of a QI approach in testing, implementing and subsequent scaling up a national policy for early PNC in a resource-constrained setting. This approach provides a model for improving the implementation of other national health policies to accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Ghana and other resource-poor countries.

Serious adverse events following treatment with ivermectin for onchocerciasis control: a review of reported cases.

This paper presents a summary of reported cases of Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) following treatment with Mectizan(R) (ivermectin, Merck, Sharpe & Dohme) in onchocerciasis mass treatment programs from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 2001 through a passive surveillance system. A total of 207 SAE cases were reported out of approximately 165 million reported treatments delivered during the period under review, giving rise to a cumulative incidence of 1 reported SAE per 800,000 reported treatments. The mean age was 40 years and 70% of the cases were males. The mean time between ivermectin intake and onset of illness was 1 day. For 57% of the cases (n = 118), that was their first exposure to ivermectin. The majority of cases were reported from Cameroon (n = 176; 85%) with peaks in the incidence of SAE reporting in 1989-1991 and 1994-1995 when the program expanded to ivermectin-naïve populations. Fifty-five percent of the cases from Cameroon (i.e. 97 out of 176 cases) were encephalopathic and were reported from the central-southern region of the country; two-thirds of these cases were 'probable' or 'possible' cases of Loa loa encephalopathy temporally related to ivermectin treatment. Reporting bias may explain some but not all of the differences in SAE reporting between the 34 onchocerciasis-endemic countries that have, or have had, mass treatment programs. Further research is needed to understand the apparent clustering of encephalopathy cases in central-southern Cameroon since L. loa infection alone probably does not explain the increased incidence of this type of SAE from this region.

Loa loa encephalopathy temporally related to ivermectin administration reported from onchocerciasis mass treatment programs from 1989 to 2001: implications for the future.

Of the 207 Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) following treatment with Mectizan(R) (ivermectin, Merck, Sharpe & Dohme) that were reported from 1989 to 2001 through the passive SAE surveillance system required of all onchocerciasis mass treatment programs, 65 were cases of 'Probable' or 'Possible' Loa loa Encephalopathy temporally Related to treatment with Mectizan(R) (PLERM).A retrospective analysis of these 65 PLERM cases revealed that 97% were from southern Cameroon, 85% were male and 93% were being treated with ivermectin for the first time. The mean time to onset of symptoms was 1.7 days (95% CI: 1.3, 2.2) but the mean time to receiving medical attention after the onset of symptoms was 2.0 days (95% CI: 1.5, 2.6). Hospitalization was reported in 53 cases with a mean duration of 27.5 days (95% CI: 13.3, 41.6, n = 35). Clinical outcome was reported in 34 cases: 64.7% recovered fully, 11.8% had partial neurologic deficit and 23.5% died. For the 32 cases where quantitative L. loa data were reported, the arithmetic means with 95% confidence intervals were for 1) peripheral blood: pre-treatment - 164,250 mf/ml (79,537, 248,963; n = 4); post-treatment within 1 month - 3926 mf/ml (2,128, 5,725; n = 21) and within 5 to 6 months - 7800 mf/ml (3417, 12,183; n = 7); and for 2) cerebrospinal fluid: 32 mf/ml (7, 37; n = 10) within 1 month post-treatment.Pending further research on practical methods to exclude individuals with high intensity L. loa infection from onchocerciasis mass treatment programs, more emphasis should be placed on surveillance and monitoring to ensure early recognition, referral and management of SAEs, during the first 2 years when majority of the population is presumably naïve to ivermectin.

A Framework for Decision-Making for Mass Distribution of Mectizan(R) in Areas Endemic for Loa loa.

BACKGROUND: The occurrence of Loa loa encephalopathy following mass treatment of onchocerciasis with Mectizan(R) has adversely affected onchocerciasis control efforts in central Africa. Persons with very high densities of L. loa microfilaremia are at increased risk of encephalopathy, but little is known about the geographic distribution of these persons within central Africa. RAPLOA, a new technique that correlates the proportion of community members reporting a history of eyeworm with the prevalence of high-intensity L. loa microfilaremia in that community, may be useful for rapid assessment of areas at potential risk of treatment-related L. loa encephalopathy. Validation of RAPLOA is ongoing. The operational and risk-reduction advantages of RAPLOA over the current technique of village-by-village rapid epidemiologic assessment for onchocerciasis (REA) are unknown. METHODS: We developed a decision model to compare four strategies for minimizing sequelae of L. loa encephalopathy following mass treatment with Mectizan(R) in areas co-endemic for onchocerciasis and loiasis: REA; RAPLOA with threshold eyeworm prevalences of 40% and 20% (RAPLOA-40 and RAPLOA-20, respectively); and combined REA/RAPLOA-40. RESULTS: In the model, all four strategies significantly reduced risk of death and neurologic complications from L. loa encephalopathy, but RAPLOA-20 and REA resulted in half as many such cases as did RAPLOA-40 or combined REA/RAPLOA-40. CONCLUSION: RAPLOA is likely to be useful programmatically in reducing risk of L. loa encephalopathy following mass treatment with Mectizan(R). It also may be cost-saving. Before full-scale implementation, additional data are needed on geographic clustering of high-density L. loa microfilaremia and on RAPLOA's reliability and cost.