[Management of end-stage kidney failure: a challenge for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa example of mineral and bone disorders in Burkina Faso]. / Prise en charge de l'insuffisance rénale terminale : un challenge pour les pays de l'Afrique subsaharienne Exemple des désordres minéralo-osseux au Burkina Faso.

INTRODUCTION: Meeting treatment targets for dialysis is a seemingly impossible challenge for most countries of sub-Saharan Africa. To assess this problem, we conducted this study of mineral and bone disorders in subjects undergoing hemodialysis at the Ouagadougou hemodialysis unit, the only such unit in Burkina Faso. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in January 2010. We included patients on hemodialysis for at least three months who had some minimal predialysis laboratory results available. The KDIGO guidelines served as our reference. Dialysis sessions lasted 5 h and took place once every five days. The statistical analysis of the data was performed with PASW statistical software, version 18 for Windows. RESULTS: The study included 32 of the 53 patients in the unit: 19 men and 13 women with a mean age of 43.5 ± 12.7 years. Their mean serum levels were 2.2 ± 0.2 mmol/L for calcium, 1.4 ± 0.5 mmol/L for phosphorus, 934 ± 887.4 pg/mL for intact parathyroid hormone and 193.4 ± 125.7 IU/L for total alkaline phosphatases. No patient reached the target for all three of the first three indicators. Patients with parathyroid hormone ≥ 800 pg/mL (n = 14) had a serum phosphorus (1.6 ± 0.6 vs 1.2 ± 0.4; p = 0.044) and alkaline phosphatases (287.5 ± 100.5 vs 120.2 ± 90; p < 0.001), significantly higher than those whose parathyroid hormone level was < 800 pg/mL. CONCLUSIONS: The bone and mineral status of our hemodialysis patients is worrisome and is due to suboptimal treatment conditions. The risk of deaths is high. Subsidies sufficient to provide adequate care would reduce these problems, which have, we note, an ethical dimension.

Isoniazid plus sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine can reduce morbidity of HIV-positive patients treated for tuberculosis in Africa: a controlled clinical trial.

An annual 20% excess mortality rate is observed in HIV-seropositive patients after treatment for tuberculosis. An affordable secondary prophylaxis against main opportunistic diseases is needed, i.e. against tuberculosis, toxoplasmosis, pneumocystosis and other infections occurring in this target population. This open prospective randomized study assessed morbidity and mortality in 2 cohorts of HIV-seropositive patients having recently recovered from pulmonary tuberculosis: 134 patients assigned to prophylactic treatment with isoniazid (INH, 300 mg once daily) plus sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (S, 500 mg/P, 25 mg once weekly), and 129 were controls, comparable for sex, age, weight and HIV-serology. Patients were followed-up for up to 2 years: 192 person-years (PY) in the prophylaxis group and 142 PY in the control group. Four patients developed tuberculosis and 20 patients died in the prophylaxis group, compared to 10 and 23 controls, respectively. Sick days were reported by 22 patients in the prophylaxis group and by 77 patients in the control group. This prophylaxis was associated with a moderate decrease of mortality (log rank test: p = 0.1736), a significant decrease of tuberculosis incidence (log rank test: p = 0. 0234), a highly significant reduction of adverse events and sick days, and a prevention of wasting (p = 0.008) and anaemia (p = 0. 045). No death from toxoplasmosis occurred in the prophylaxis group as compared to 2 possible cases among controls; toxoplasmosis IgG levels declined in treated patients, but increased in controls (p = 0.01). There was no adverse drug reaction due to SP (10,006 doses) or to INH. Compliance with SP intake was good, but moderate as with INH intake. We conclude that a secondary prophylaxis with INH+SP represents a cost-effective measure to improve health conditions of HIV-infected adults in Côte d'Ivoire, following a full treatment course against tuberculosis.

[Traditional concept of madness and therapeutic difficulties in the Moose of Kadiogo.]. / Concept traditionnel de la folie et difficultés thérapeutiques psychiatriques chez les Moosé du Kadiogo.

The practice of psychiatry in the south of the Sahara in Africa collides with many problems of acceptability of care for the ill and their families. The frequent rejection of the psychiatrist's therapeutic approach can often be explained by the inadaptation of the etiopathogenic approach. Indeed, in black Africa, responsibility of illness differs according to the fact that one has been schooled or not. The western world teaches minorities having the chance to live there or learn about it, that the human body can be assaulted by bacteria, viruses, mycoses or be self-assaulted by changes of its own physiology. Traditional education, for its part, regards the body as a mysterious entity susceptible of being penetrated or eaten by geniuses and anthrophagic sorcerers following a mystico-religious mechanism linked to beliefs and customs. In the majority of the Moose of the Moaga plateau in Burkina Faso, especially regarding madness, these assailants are ancestral geniuses or geniuses from the bush. Psychological suffering caused by a family, social or intrapsychic conflict independent of the invisible world is ultimately delirious for them thus provoking a resistance to give up complete charge of their mentally ill to psychiatric care. For us, an analysis of probable causes of this resistance appeared necessary. Interviews have shown that the psychiatric institution is experienced by the Moose of Kadiogo as a stage in the therapeutic itinerary of their mentally ill, a stage in the course of which their demand for care is reduced to the elimination of inconvenient symptoms. For them, the elimination of the cause derives from a knowledge that psychiatry does not possess, which renders the therapeutic relationship frustrating for both parties.