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Background Current malaria vaccination efforts target infants from 5 months of age; however, adult malaria mortality remains a significant and under-reported issue in high-transmission settings. Concerns are emerging that COVID-19-related vaccine hesitancy may extend to upcoming vaccines, including hypothetical ones such as a malaria vaccine for adults. This study investigates both shared and vaccine-specific determinants of malaria vaccination intention, comparing them with those influencing COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Methods A cross-sectional telephone survey was conducted in 2023 among 795 adults residing in the rural area of Niakhar, Senegal. The Health Belief Model served as the analytical framework to identify determinants of vaccination behaviours and intentions. A multivariable bivariate probit model was used to jointly assess factors associated with favourable intentions to receive a hypothetical adult malaria vaccine and actual uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. Results Among surveyed participants, 35.6% had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 58.6% expressed favourable intentions to receive a malaria vaccine, assuming it were available and free of charge. COVID-19-vaccinated individuals were 60% ( p  < 0.001) more likely to report favourable intentions to receive a malaria vaccine. In the multivariable probit model, perceived disease severity was more strongly associated with COVID-19 vaccine uptake, whereas perceived disease susceptibility more strongly predicted favourable intentions to receive a malaria vaccine. Women were more likely to support malaria vaccination ( p  = 0.005), while adults aged 59 years and older had higher rates of COVID-19 vaccination ( p  < 0.001). Conclusions These findings suggest that although some determinants are vaccine-specific, most are shared across vaccines. The results offer actionable insights to guide future malaria vaccination strategies. Further research in urban settings and across diverse countries is warranted to enhance understanding of cross-vaccine perceptions and to inform targeted communication efforts.

It is recommended that children aged 3 months to five years of age living in areas of seasonal transmission in the sub-Sahel should receive Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine plus amodiaquine (SPAQ) during the malaria transmission season. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety of SMC with SPAQ in children when delivered by community health workers in three districts in Senegal where SMC was introduced over three years, in children from 3 months of age to five years of age in the first year, then in children up to 10 years of age. A surveillance system was established to record all deaths and all malaria cases diagnosed at health facilities and a pharmacovigilance system was established to detect adverse drug reactions. Health posts were randomized to introduce SMC in a stepped wedge design. SMC with SPAQ was administered once per month from September to November, by nine health-posts in 2008, by 27 in 2009 and by 45 in 2010. After three years, 780,000 documented courses of SMC had been administered. High coverage was achieved. No serious adverse events attributable to the intervention were detected, despite a high level of surveillance. SMC is being implemented in countries of the sub-Sahel for children under 5 years of age, but in some areas the age distribution of cases of malaria may justify extending this age limit, as has been done in Senegal. Our results show that SMC is well tolerated in children under five and in older children. However, pharmacovigilance should be maintained where SMC is implemented and provision for strengthening national pharmacovigilance systems should be included in plans for SMC implementation. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT 00712374.

Background/objectivesHigh salt intake has been linked to several diseases including obesity and an increased risk of death; however, fecal salinity and the ability of salt to alter the gut microbiota, which was recently identified as an instrumental factor for health and disease, remains poorly explored.Methods/subjectsWe analyzed the fecal samples of 1326 human individuals for salinity by refractometry, 572 for gut microbiota by culturomics, and 164 by 16S rRNA-targeted metagenomics. Geographical origin, age, gender, and obesity were tested as predictors of fecal salinity and halophilic diversity. All halophilic isolates were characterized by taxonogenomics and their genome sequenced.ResultsFecal salinity was associated with obesity independently of geographical origin, gender, and age. The first 2 human-associated halophilic archaeal members were isolated along with 64 distinct halophilic species, including 21 new species and 41 known in the environment but not in humans. No halophiles grow in less than 1.5% salinity. Above this threshold, the richness of the halophilic microbiota was correlated with fecal salinity (r = 0.58, p < 0.0001). 16S metagenomics linked high fecal salinity to decreased diversity (linear regression, p < .035) and a depletion in anti-obesity Akkermansia muciniphila and Bifidobacterium, specifically B. longum and B. adolescentis. Genomics analysis suggested that halophilic microbes are not only transient passengers but may be residents of the human gut.ConclusionsHigh salt levels are associated with alteration of the gut microbial ecosystem and halophilic microbiota, as discovered during this study. Further studies should clarify if the gut microbiota alterations associated with high salt levels and the human halophilic microbiota could be causally related to human disease, such as obesity.

Résumé Le paludisme urbain est considéré comme un problème majeur en Afrique. Au Sénégal, les modifications environnementales semblent favoriser la persistance de la transmission du paludisme dans la banlieue de Dakar par la création, tout au long de l’année, de potentiels gîtes larvaires de moustiques vecteurs de Plasmodium. Face à cette situation et dans un contexte de généralisation de la résistance des vecteurs aux insecticides, la lutte antilarvaire (LAL) usant notamment des produits d’origine biologique ou des régulateurs de croissance pourrait constituer une mesure complémentaire aux stratégies actuelles de lutte contre les anophèles vecteurs. Cette étude réalisée en 2012 vise à mesurer l’efficacité et l’effet résiduel de trois larvicides d’origine biologique (VectoBac ® WG, VectoBac ® GR et VectoMax ® CG) et d’un régulateur de croissance (MetaLarv™) sur les larves d’ Anopheles gambiae s.l. en conditions semi-naturelles (station expérimentale) et naturelles, dans des gîtes larvaires de la banlieue de Dakar. Les formulations ont été testées selon les doses recommandées par le fabricant (0,03 g/m 2 pour VectoBac ® WG, 0,5 g/m 2 pour VectoBac ® GR, 0,75 g/m 2 pour VectoMax ® CG et 0,5 g/m 2 pour MetaLarv™). En station expérimentale, le traitement par larvicides a été efficace sur une période de 14 jours avec une mortalité variant entre 92 et 100 %. Malgré une seule émergence notée au 27 e jour après traitement, le régulateur de croissance est resté efficace jusqu’à 55 jours. En conditions naturelles, l’efficacité des larvicides a été totale à 48 heures après le traitement. Audelà, une recolonisation progressive des gîtes a été notée. Par contre, le régulateur de croissance a réduit l’émergence des adultes de plus de 80 % jusqu’à la fin du suivi (j28). Cette étude a montré une bonne efficacité des larvicides et du régulateur de croissance. Ces travaux fournissent des données à jour sur de potentiels candidats pour la mise en oeuvre d’interventions de LAL en complément de celle imagocide chimique pour un contrôle du paludisme urbain.

IntroductionRural areas are considered safe havens against the increased spread of COVID-19 and associated restrictive measures, especially in contexts where public authorities are not in a position to systematically and substantially ease COVID-19-induced economic shocks. In the current sub-Saharan Africa context, still marked by uncertainty surrounding the spread of COVID-19, we present the protocol of an ongoing longitudinal study aimed at investigating COVID-19-related attitudes, risks perceptions, preventive behaviours and economic impact in rural areas in Senegal.Methods and analysisA prospective randomised longitudinal study of 600 households located in three semiurban villages and nine randomly selected rural villages in the Niakhar area (located 135 km East of Dakar). Three ad hoc phone surveys are administered to 600 heads of households, their housewives in charge of managing the household and a relative living temporarily in the household, respectively. In addition to sharing identical sets of questions on several topics (risks perceptions, attitudes to curfew, attitudes to vaccines, beliefs about COVID-19 infection), the three separate survey questionnaires also include other topics (economic impact, local preventive strategies) whose related questions differ between questionnaires. As analysing evolutions is the study’s primary focus, data on all the topics covered will be collected in three waves unless the spread of COVID-19 by mid-2021 justifies extending data collection. The present article presents the study protocol and details about the implementation of the first wave of data collection which started in July 2020. The decision to wait before presenting the protocol was based on the unprecedented context the COVID-19 pandemic.Ethics and disseminationThe survey’s protocol was approved by the Senegalese National Ethical Committee for Research in Health (131/MSAS/CNERS/Sec) and received authorisation from both the Senegalese Ministry of Health (619/MSAS/DPRS/DR) and the French Commission on Information Technology and Liberties (CNIL 2220771).

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162563.].

In the Sahel and sub-Sahelian regions of Africa, malaria transmission is highly seasonal. During a short period of high malaria transmission, mortality and morbidity are high in children under age 5 years. We assessed the efficacy of seasonal intermittent preventive treatment—a full dose of antimalarial treatment given at defined times without previous testing for malaria infection. We did a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial of the effect of intermittent preventive treatment on morbidity from malaria in three health-care centres in Niakhar, a rural area of Senegal. 1136 children aged 2–59 months received either one dose of artesunate plus one dose of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine or two placebos on three occasions during the malaria transmission season. The primary outcome was a first or single episode of clinical malaria detected through active or passive case detection. Primary analysis was by intention-to-treat. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00132561. During 13 weeks of follow-up, the intervention led to an 86% (95% CI 80–90) reduction in the occurrence of clinical episodes of malaria. With passive case detection, protective efficacy against malaria was 86% (77–92), and when detected actively was 86% (78–91). The incidence of malaria in children on active drugs was 308 episodes per 1000 person-years at risk, whereas in those on placebo it was 2250 episodes per 1000 person-years at risk. 13 children were not included in the intention-to-treat analysis, which was restricted to children who received a first dose of antimalarial or placebo. There was an increase in vomiting in children who received the active drugs, but generally the intervention was well tolerated. Intermittent preventive treatment could be highly effective for prevention of malaria in children under 5 years of age living in areas of seasonal malaria infection.

Background/objectivesHigh salt intake has been linked to several diseases including obesity and an increased risk of death; however, fecal salinity and the ability of salt to alter the gut microbiota, which was recently identified as an instrumental factor for health and disease, remains poorly explored.Methods/subjectsWe analyzed the fecal samples of 1326 human individuals for salinity by refractometry, 572 for gut microbiota by culturomics, and 164 by 16S rRNA-targeted metagenomics. Geographical origin, age, gender, and obesity were tested as predictors of fecal salinity and halophilic diversity. All halophilic isolates were characterized by taxonogenomics and their genome sequenced.ResultsFecal salinity was associated with obesity independently of geographical origin, gender, and age. The first 2 human-associated halophilic archaeal members were isolated along with 64 distinct halophilic species, including 21 new species and 41 known in the environment but not in humans. No halophiles grow in less than 1.5% salinity. Above this threshold, the richness of the halophilic microbiota was correlated with fecal salinity (r = 0.58, p < 0.0001). 16S metagenomics linked high fecal salinity to decreased diversity (linear regression, p < .035) and a depletion in anti-obesity Akkermansia muciniphila and Bifidobacterium, specifically B. longum and B. adolescentis. Genomics analysis suggested that halophilic microbes are not only transient passengers but may be residents of the human gut.ConclusionsHigh salt levels are associated with alteration of the gut microbial ecosystem and halophilic microbiota, as discovered during this study. Further studies should clarify if the gut microbiota alterations associated with high salt levels and the human halophilic microbiota could be causally related to human disease, such as obesity.

The aim of the study was to assess T cell differentiation and the modulation of inflammatory cytokines in obese and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) women and their macrosomic newborns. Hence, immediately after delivery, blood samples were collected through the mother’s arm vein and the umbilical cordon vein. Biochemical parameters measured were HbA1C, glucose, insulin, triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (Tchol), HDL cholesterol (HDLchol), and LDL cholesterol (LDLchol). T lymphocytes were purified from the total blood with Ficoll-Paque. The mRNA expression of inflammatory markers in T cells was determined by RT-qPCR. We observed that diabetic mothers exhibited higher HbA1C, glycemia, insulinemia, TG, Tchol, HDLchol, and LDLchol levels than control mothers. Glycemia was not significantly different between macrosomic and control newborns. However, insulinemia was high in macrosomic babies. TG, Tchol, HDLchol, and LDLchol were not significantly different between macrosomic and control babies. In diabetic mothers, mRNA expression of the Th1 cell subtype was significantly increased. Th1 markers were upregulated in babies born to diabetic women than in control newborns. However, expression of two Th2 markers (GATA3 and IL-4) was not significantly different between control and GDM women and between their respective newborns. Interestingly, IL-10 mRNA expression was decreased in diabetic mothers and their offsprings. The Th1/Th2 cytokine ratio was increased in GDM obese mothers and their macrosomic newborns, suggesting a proinflammatory status in these subjects.