Explore the vast range of titles available.

The in-house ELISA SARS-CoV-2 serological assay, developed by the Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI) in Ethiopia, measures anti-SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) antibodies. This study aimed to compare the performance of our cost-effective in-house ELISA with two established commercially available SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection assays during the pre-Omicron COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2021, serum samples were collected from 1441 students across 60 schools in Oromia, from 15 hotspot districts and towns. Socio-demographic data were gathered using CSentryCSProDataEntry7.2.1. Performance agreements between AHRI’s in-house ELISA and the two commercial assays were analyzed in these serum samples. Statistical analyses, including Cohen’s kappa (κ), overall percentage agreement, positive percent agreement (PPA), and negative percent agreement (NPA), were performed using STATA software. Diagnostic parameters were presented with 95% confidence intervals (CI), calculated using the Clopper-Pearson method. The performance comparison of the in-house ELISA showed substantial agreement with the two commercial assays. The overall concordance rate between in-house ELISA and Elecsys CLIA was 80.8% (95% CI 75.0–86.5), while the agreement between in-house ELISA and the Rapid LFA test (IgG + IgM) was 75.8% (95% CI 70.1–81.5). The kappa coefficients were: in-house ELISA vs. Elecsys CLIA (κ = 0.61, 95% CI 0.55–0.67), in-house ELISA vs. Rapid LFA test (IgG + IgM) (κ = 0.52, 95% CI 0.46–0.58), and Elecsys CLIA vs. Rapid LFA test (IgG + IgM) (κ = 0.73, 95% CI 0.67–0.78). The in-house ELISA demonstrated strong agreement with the Elecsys CLIA, showing a PPA of 81.7% and an NPA of 80.1%. Compared to the Rapid LFA test (IgG + IgM), which had a PPA of 83% and an NPA of 70.4%, the in-house ELISA exhibited better overall agreement with Elecsys CLIA. This study’s findings indicate substantial agreement between the in-house ELISA and Elecsys. However, only modest agreement was observed between the in-house ELISA and the rapid test (IgG + IgM). Together, these results suggest the utility of the in-house ELISA as a cost-effective tool for sero surveillance studies and monitoring the effect of interventions in resource-poor settings.

COVID-19 pandemic caused by extended variants of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 350 million people, resulting in over 5.5 million deaths globally. However, the actual burden of the pandemic in Africa, particularly among children, remains largely unknown. We aimed to assess the seroepidemiological changes of SARS-CoV-2 infection after school reopening among school children in Oromia, Ethiopia. A prospective cohort study involving students aged 10 years and older were used. A serological survey was performed twice, at school reopening in December 2020 and four months later in April 2021. Participants were selected from 60 schools located in 15 COVID-19 hotspot districts in Oromia Region. Serology tests were performed by Elecsys anti-SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid assay. Data were collected using CSentry CSProData Entry 7.2.1 and exported to STATA version 14.2 for data cleaning and analysis. A total of 1884 students were recruited at baseline, and 1271 completed the follow-up. SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence almost doubled in four months from 25.7% at baseline to 46.3% in the second round, with a corresponding seroincidence of 1910 per 100,000 person-week. Seroincidence was found to be higher among secondary school students (grade 9-12) compared to primary school students (grade 4-8) (RR = 1.6, 95% CI 1.21-2.22) and among those with large family size (> = 5) than those with a family size of <3 (RR = 2.1, 95% CI 1.09-4.17). The increase in SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among the students corresponded with Ethiopia's second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among students in hotspot districts of the Oromia Region was high even at baseline and almost doubled within four months of school recommencement. The high seroincidence coincided with the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Ethiopia, indicating a possible contribution to school opening for the new outbreak wave.

BackgroundCOVID-19 pandemic caused by extended variants of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 350 million people, resulting in over 5.5 million deaths globally. However, the actual burden of the pandemic in Africa, particularly among children, remains largely unknown. We aimed to assess the seroepidemiological changes of SARS-CoV-2 infection after school reopening among school children in Oromia, Ethiopia.MethodsA prospective cohort study involving students aged 10 years and older were used. A serological survey was performed twice, at school reopening in December 2020 and four months later in April 2021. Participants were selected from 60 schools located in 15 COVID-19 hotspot districts in Oromia Region. Serology tests were performed by Elecsys anti-SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid assay. Data were collected using CSentry CSProData Entry 7.2.1 and exported to STATA version 14.2 for data cleaning and analysis.ResultsA total of 1884 students were recruited at baseline, and 1271 completed the follow-up. SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence almost doubled in four months from 25.7% at baseline to 46.3% in the second round, with a corresponding seroincidence of 1910 per 100,000 person-week. Seroincidence was found to be higher among secondary school students (grade 9-12) compared to primary school students (grade 4-8) (RR = 1.6, 95% CI 1.21-2.22) and among those with large family size (> = 5) than those with a family size of <3 (RR = 2.1, 95% CI 1.09-4.17). The increase in SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among the students corresponded with Ethiopia's second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak.ConclusionSARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among students in hotspot districts of the Oromia Region was high even at baseline and almost doubled within four months of school recommencement. The high seroincidence coincided with the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Ethiopia, indicating a possible contribution to school opening for the new outbreak wave.

Pedestrian fatalities remain a major road safety problem in Addis Ababa. To address this problem, speed humps and rumble strips were introduced on high-crash road segments in the city in 2017. As a case study that can be useful elsewhere, the aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of speed hump with rumble strips in Addis Ababa. This study uses descriptive and inferential statistics to evaluate the impact of these interventions. Crash data between 2014 and 2021, excluding 2017 when the measures were implemented, is used in the analysis. The interventions led to a 25.08% reduction in operating speeds, with statistically significant speed reductions for passenger cars. Our findings on the extent to which speed humps and rumble strips lowered the speed of buses and trucks are not conclusive. Notable speed drops were observed at humps in some road segments while humps had no appreciable effect on speed in others. This underscores the need for additional measures or other approaches to reduce the operating speed of buses and trucks. The equivalent crash number for pedestrian crashes reduced by 24.45% and total crashes dropped by 51.14%. While crashes involving pedestrians crossing roads reduced, those involving pedestrians walking along travel lanes increased by 15.94%. These mixed results suggests that the effectiveness of speed humps and rumble strips depends on the type of crash being addressed and the category of vehicle involved.

Introduction: The occurrence of extended spectrum beta lactamase-producing uropathogens, especially in pregnant women can result in life-threatening condition and morbidity for both the mother and the newborn due to very limited drug options for treatment of these pathogens. The aim of this study was to determine the bacterial profile, associated factors, and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns and to identify extended spectrum beta lactamase-producing bacterial uropathogens. Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted from July to September 2018 on a total of 177 pregnant women with and without symptoms of urinary tract infection at ALERT Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From these study participants, 72 have symptoms, whereas 105 have no symptoms. All urine samples were inoculated onto cysteine lactose electrolyte deficient medium and MacConkey agar. Colonies were counted to check the presence of significant bacteriuria. Pure isolates of bacterial pathogen were characterized and identified at species level by colony morphology, gram stain, and standard biochemical procedures. All Gram-negative isolates were put into Muller–Hinton agar plates for antibiotic susceptibility test by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion technique. Extended spectrum beta lactamase was detected using double-disk synergy methods on Muller–Hinton agar. The data were double entered into epidemiological Information system and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science version 26. Results: The overall proportion of urinary tract infection among pregnant women was 14.7% (n = 26/177). Klebsiella pneumoniae was the predominant bacterial etiologic agent of urinary tract infection 26.9% (n = 7/26). The proportion of extended spectrum beta lactamase among Gram-negative isolates was 50% (n = 6/12). Among extended spectrum beta lactamase-producing isolates (100%), all are resistance to amikacin and gentamicin while intermediate level resistance rate of 66.7% was observed among trimethoprim–sulphamethoxazole. They were susceptible for some limited drugs, and these were Nitrofurantoin (83.3%) and Chloramphenicol (83.3%). Conclusions: Majority of extended spectrum beta lactamase-producing isolates exhibited co-resistance to other commonly prescribed antibiotics. This indicates that the option of treatment for these pathogens rapidly decreased from time to time which results serious life-threatening conditions, especially in mother and newborn unless the appropriate measure is taken.

Objective To assess the self-care practices and associated factors among diabetic patients in West Ethiopia. Results A total of 252 study participants were included in the study, of this 54.8% were male. Of the participants more than half 150 (59.5%) had poor glycemic control and 153 (60.7%) of the participants had good self-care. Majority of the study participants 209 (82.9%) had adequate foot care and more than half 175 (69.4%) and 160 (63.5%) had adequate dietary plan and exercise management respectively. However of the total diabetic patients only 38 (15.1%) had adequate blood glucose testing practices. On multivariable logistic analysis poor self-care practices were more likely to occur among male patients (AOR = 5.551, 95% CI = 2.055–14.997, p = 0.001), patients living in rural area (AOR = 5.517, 95% CI = 2.184–13.938, p < 0.001), patients with duration of diabetes < 6 years (AOR = 41.023, 95% CI = 7.373–228.257, p < 0.001), patients with no access for self-monitoring blood glucose (AOR = 9.448, 95% CI = 2.198–40.617, p = 0.003), patients with poor knowledge about diabetes (AOR = 67.917, 95% CI = 8.212–561.686, p < 0.001) and patients with comorbidities (AOR = 18.621, 95% CI = 4.415–78.540, p < 0.001).

Contraceptive use is the best and most cost-effective strategy to reduce feto-maternal adverse effects of short birth intervals. More than two-thirds of women in developing countries who do not want to conceive are not using contraception methods. Although there were various primary studies in different parts of the country, there is no nationally representative evidence on postpartum modern contraception utilization and its determinants in Ethiopia. This review was aimed to determine the best available pieces of evidence to pool the magnitude of postpartum modern contraception utilization and find out its determinants. Published studies were extensively searched by using electronic databases and unpublished studies were identified from the digital library. All observational studies conducted on the magnitude of postpartum modern contraception utilization and its determinants in Ethiopia were included. Data were extracted on the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and analyzed using STATA 14.1 version. A random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled magnitude of postpartum modern contraception utilization with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Inverse variance (I2) was used to identify the presence of heterogeneity and forest plot was used to estimate the pooled magnitude of postpartum contraception utilization. The presence of publication bias was assessed by funnel plots and Egger's statistical tests. Sub-group analysis was computed to minimize underlying heterogeneity. In this review, 19 primary studies were included. The pooled magnitude of postpartum modern contraception utilization in Ethiopia was 45.79% (95%CI 36.45%, 55.13%). The review found that having more than four Antenatal care visits(ANC), having postnatal care visit (PNC), having a formal education, history of family planning use, history of counseling on family planning, and having greater than four alive children as significant determinants of postpartum modern contraception utilization. The magnitude of postpartum modern contraception utilization in Ethiopia was low. ANC visit, PNC visit, maternal educational status, history of previous family planning use, counseling on family planning, and number of alive children were found to be significant determinants of postpartum modern contraception utilization. Therefore, strengthening focused ANC and PNC services to encourage women in utilizing modern contraception during the postnatal period is needed.

Summary Tef is a staple food and a valuable cash crop for millions of people in Ethiopia. Lodging is a major limitation to tef production, and for decades, the development of lodging resistant varieties proved difficult with conventional breeding approaches. We used CRISPR/Cas9 to introduce knockout mutations in the tef orthologue of the rice SEMIDWARF‐1 (SD‐1) gene to confer semidwarfism and ultimately lodging resistance. High frequency recovery of transgenic and SD‐1 edited tef lines was achieved in two tef cultivars by Agrobacterium‐mediated delivery into young leaf explants of gene editing reagents along with transformation and regeneration enhancing morphogenic genes, BABY BOOM (BBM) and WUSCHEL2 (WUS2). All of the 23 lines analyzed by next‐generation sequencing had at least two or more alleles of SD‐1 mutated. Of these, 83% had tetra‐allelic frameshift mutations in the SD‐1 gene in primary tef regenerants, which were inherited in subsequent generations. Phenotypic data generated on T1 and T2 generations revealed that the sd‐1 lines have reduced culm and internode lengths with no reduction in either panicle or peduncle lengths. These characteristics are comparable with rice sd‐1 plants. Measurements of lodging, in greenhouse‐grown plants, showed that sd‐1 lines have significantly higher resistance to lodging at the heading stage compared with the controls. This is the first demonstration of the feasibility of high frequency genetic transformation and CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated genome editing in this highly valuable but neglected crop. The findings reported here highlight the potential of genome editing for the improvement of lodging resistance and other important traits in tef.

Objective Self-medication is defined as use of medicines to treat self-recognized illnesses. It is widely used in Ethiopia. However, its extent of use is unknown among health professionals. This study aimed to assess prevalence and reasons of self-medication with modern medicines among health professionals. A cross-sectional study was conducted on the health professionals, working in the public health facilities. Data were collected from March to May, 2016 using semi-structured questionnaire. Data were entered and analyzed using statistical package for the social sciences. A chi square test was used as test of significance at 95% of confidence interval. Results A total of 154 health professionals were enrolled, with 53% were being females. The finding revealed that prevalence of self-medication with modern medicines was 67.5%. Financial constraints (32.5%) and familiarity with medicines (24%) were the major reasons of self-medication. It also showed that self-medication with modern medicines was significantly associated with marital status (χ 2  = 19.57, P = 0.00). Analgesics (53%) and antibiotics (36%) were the most commonly used categories of medicines. Self-medication with modern medicines was highly practiced among health professionals. Financial constraints and familiarity with medicines were the two major reasons of practicing.

Non-adherence to tuberculosis treatment is the most challenging and hindering factor for successful tuberculosis therapy. The long duration of tuberculosis treatment and the undesirable effects of anti-tuberculosis drugs result in non-adherence to treatment among pediatric patients. Hence, this study was aimed to evaluate pediatrics adherence status among tuberculosis pediatric patients on anti-tuberculosis treatment at Nekemte Specialized Hospital. A health facility-based cross-sectional study design was used to recruit pediatric TB patients who were receiving their treatment between February 15 and March 15, 2019. Adherence to tuberculosis therapy was evaluated using data obtained from face-to-face interviews of their respective caregivers. The collected data were entered into EPI-manager 4.0.2 software and analyzed using SPSS version 24. Logistic regression was used to analyze the variables and variables with p-value <0.05 had a statistically significant association with the adherence to anti TB treatment. Among 202 participants involved in the study, 120 (59.4%) of them were males and 119 (58.9%) were in the age category of 11-15 years. A total of 166 (82.2%) of the patients had extra-pulmonary tuberculosis and 174 (86.1%) of them were in the intensive phase. Of the pediatric tuberculosis patients, 48 (73.3%) of them have adhered to the treatment regimen. Female gender [AOR: 3.3, 95% CI: 1.52-7.2], younger age (0-5 years) [AOR: 5.96 95% CI: 1.81-19.6], living in urban area [AOR: 3.73, 95% CI: 1.67-8.36], and patients who did not experience side effect [AOR: 2.87, 95% CI: 1.41-5.81] were predictors of good adherence to tuberculosis treatment up on multivariable logistic regression analysis. The level of adherence observed in our study area was low. Age, sex, residence, and side effect experience showed an association with tuberculosis treatment adherence. Therefore, health care providers should educate all patients with tuberculosis before the initiation of anti-tuberculosis treatment.