Suitability of existing Musa morphological descriptors to characterize East African highland ‘matooke’ bananas

Article purchased; Published online: 18 Sept 2017Morphological traits are commonly used for characterizing plant genetic resources. Germplasm characterization should be based on distinctly identifiable, stable and heritable traits that are expressed consistently and are easy to distinguish by the human eye. Characterization and documentation of a representative sample of East African highland bananas (Lujugira–Mutika subgroup) was carried out following an internationally accepted standard protocol for bananas. Eleven cultivars were characterized using an existing set of minimum descriptors (31 qualitative and quantitative traits) with the aim of determining stable descriptors and the ability of these descriptors to distinguish among East African highland banana cultivars. There was variation in stability of these descriptors within cultivars and across the 11 cultivars. Only 10 (32%) out of 31 descriptors studied were stable in the 11 cultivars. However, they had similar scores and therefore are not suitable to distinguish between cultivars within this group. Nonetheless, these 10 descriptors may be useful for distinguishing the East African highland bananas as a group from other groups of bananas. A few descriptors were unique to the cultivar ‘Tereza’ and may be used to distinguish this cultivar from other ‘matooke’ cultivars. None of the quantitative descriptors were stable

The impact of low erythrocyte density in human blood on the fitness and energetic reserves of the African malaria vector Anopheles gambiae

Background Anaemia is a common health problem in the developing world. This condition is characterized by a reduction in erythrocyte density, primarily from malnutrition and/or infectious diseases such as malaria. As red blood cells are the primary source of protein for haematophagous mosquitoes, any reduction could impede the ability of mosquito vectors to transmit malaria by influencing their fitness or that of the parasites they transmit. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of differences in the density of red blood cells in human blood on malaria vector (Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto) fitness. The hypotheses tested are that mosquito vector energetic reserves and fitness are negatively influenced by reductions in the red cell density of host human blood meals commensurate with those expected from severe anaemia. Methods Mosquitoes (An. gambiae s.s.) were offered blood meals of different packed cell volume(PCV) of human blood consistent with those arising from severe anaemia (15%) and normalPCV (50%). Associations between mosquito energetic reserves (lipid, glucose and glycogen)and fitness measures (reproduction and survival) and blood meal PCV were investigated. Results The amount of protein that malaria vectors acquired from blood feeding (indexed by haematin excretion) was significantly reduced at low blood PCV. However, mosquitoes feeding on blood of low PCV had the same oviposition rates as those feeding on blood of normal PCV, and showed an increase in egg production of around 15%. The long-term survival of An. gambiae s.s was reduced after feeding on low PCV blood, but PCV had no significant impact on the proportion of mosquitoes surviving through the minimal period required to develop and transmit malaria parasites (estimated as 14 days post-blood feeding). The impact of blood PCV on the energetic reserves of mosquitoes was relatively minor. Conclusions These results suggest that feeding on human hosts whose PCV has been depleted due to severe anaemia does not significantly reduce the fitness or transmission potential of malaria vectors, and indicates that mosquitoes may be able exploit resources for reproduction more efficiently from blood of low rather than normal PCV

Extent of compliance with COVID-19 prevention and control guidelines among supermarkets in Kampala Capital City and Mukono Municipality, Uganda

Background Despite the development and enforcement of preventive guidelines by governments, COVID-19 continues to spread across nations, causing unprecedented economic losses and mortality. Public places remain hotspots for COVID-19 transmission due to large numbers of people present; however preventive measures are poorly enforced. Supermarkets are among the high-risk establishments due to the high interactions involved, which makes compliance with the COVID-19 preventive guidelines of paramount importance. However, until now, there has been limited evidence on compliance with the set COVID-19 prevention guidelines. Therefore, this study aimed to measure compliance with the COVID-19 prevention guidelines among supermarkets in Kampala Capital City and Mukono Municipality Uganda. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among selected supermarkets in Kampala Capital City and Mukono Municipality in September 2020. A total of 229 supermarkets (195 in Kampala City and 34 in Mukono Municipality) were randomly selected for the study. Data were collected through structured observations on the status of compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines, and entered using the KoboCollect software, which was preinstalled on mobile devices (smart phones and tablets). Descriptive statistics were generated to measure compliance to the set COVID-19 Ministry of Health prevention guidelines using Stata 14 software. Results Only 16.6% (38/229) of the supermarkets complied with the COVID-19 prevention and control guidelines. In line with the specific measures, almost all supermarkets 95.2% (218/229) had hand washing facilities placed at strategic points such as the entrance, and 59.8% (137/229) of the supermarkets surveyed regularly disinfected commonly touched surfaces. Only 40.6% and 30.6% of the supermarkets enforced mandatory hand washing and use of face masks respectively for all customers accessing the premises. Slightly more than half, 52.4% (120/229) of the supermarkets had someone or a team in charge of enforcing compliance to COVID-19 measures and more than half, 55.5% (127/229) of the supermarkets had not provided their staff with job-specific training/mentorship on infection prevention and control for COVID-19. Less than a third, 26.2% (60/229) of the supermarkets had an infrared temperature gun for screening every customer, and only 5.7% (13/229) of the supermarkets captured details of clients accessing the supermarket as a measure to ease follow-up. Conclusion This study revealed low compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, which required mandatory preventive measures such as face masking, regular disinfection, social distancing, and hand hygiene. This study suggests the need for health authorities to strengthen enforcement of these guidelines, and to sensitise the supermarket managers on COVID-19 in order to increase the uptake of the different measures

Impact of infection with human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) on the risk of cancer among children in Malawi - preliminary findings

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The impact of infection with HIV on the risk of cancer in children is uncertain, particularly for those living in sub-Saharan Africa. In an ongoing study in a paediatric oncology centre in Malawi, children (aged ≤ 15 years) with known or suspected cancers are being recruited and tested for HIV and their mothers or carers interviewed. This study reports findings for children recruited between 2005 and 2008.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Only children with a cancer diagnosis were included. Odds ratios (OR) for being HIV positive were estimated for each cancer type (with adjustment for age (<5 years, ≥ 5 years) and sex) using children with other cancers and non-malignant conditions as a comparison group (excluding the known HIV-associated cancers, Kaposi sarcoma and lymphomas, as well as children with other haematological malignancies or with confirmed non-cancer diagnoses).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 586 children recruited, 541 (92%) met the inclusion criteria and 525 (97%) were tested for HIV. Overall HIV seroprevalence was 10%. Infection with HIV was associated with Kaposi sarcoma (29 cases; OR = 93.5, 95% CI 26.9 to 324.4) and with non-Burkitt, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (33 cases; OR = 4.4, 95% CI 1.1 to 17.9) but not with Burkitt lymphoma (269 cases; OR = 2.2, 95% CI 0.8 to 6.4).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this study, only Kaposi sarcoma and non-Burkitt, non-Hodgkin lymphoma were associated with HIV infection. The endemic form of Burkitt lymphoma, which is relatively frequent in Malawi, was not significantly associated with HIV. While the relatively small numbers of children with other cancers, together with possible limitations of diagnostic testing may limit our conclusions, the findings may suggest differences in the pathogenesis of HIV-related malignancies in different parts of the world.</p

MasakhaPOS: Part-of-Speech Tagging for Typologically Diverse African languages

In this paper, we present AfricaPOS, the largest part-of-speech (POS) dataset for 20 typologically diverse African languages. We discuss the challenges in annotating POS for these languages using the universal dependencies (UD) guidelines. We conducted extensive POS baseline experiments using both conditional random field and several multilingual pre-trained language models. We applied various cross-lingual transfer models trained with data available in the UD. Evaluating on the AfricaPOS dataset, we show that choosing the best transfer language(s) in both single-source and multi-source setups greatly improves the POS tagging performance of the target languages, in particular when combined with parameter-fine-tuning methods. Crucially, transferring knowledge from a language that matches the language family and morphosyntactic properties seems to be more effective for POS tagging in unseen languages

MasakhaNER 2.0: Africa-centric Transfer Learning for Named Entity Recognition

African languages are spoken by over a billion people, but are underrepresented in NLP research and development. The challenges impeding progress include the limited availability of annotated datasets, as well as a lack of understanding of the settings where current methods are effective. In this paper, we make progress towards solutions for these challenges, focusing on the task of named entity recognition (NER). We create the largest human-annotated NER dataset for 20 African languages, and we study the behavior of state-of-the-art cross-lingual transfer methods in an Africa-centric setting, demonstrating that the choice of source language significantly affects performance. We show that choosing the best transfer language improves zero-shot F1 scores by an average of 14 points across 20 languages compared to using English. Our results highlight the need for benchmark datasets and models that cover typologically-diverse African languages

Predictors and outcome of surgical repair of obstetric fistula at a regional referral hospital, Mbarara, western Uganda

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Obstetric fistula although virtually eliminated in high income countries, still remains a prevalent and debilitating condition in many parts of the developing world. It occurs in areas where access to care at childbirth is limited, or of poor quality and where few hospitals offer the necessary corrective surgery.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This was a prospective observational study where all women who attended Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in western Uganda with obstetric fistula during the study period were assessed pre-operatively for social demographics, fistula characteristics, classification and outcomes after surgery. Assessment for fistula closure and stress incontinence after surgery was done using a dye test before discharge</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 77 women who were recruited in this study, 60 (77.9%) had successful closure of their fistulae. Unsuccessful fistula closure was significantly associated with large fistula size (Odds Ratio 6 95% Confidential interval 1.46-24.63), circumferential fistulae (Odds ratio 9.33 95% Confidential interval 2.23-39.12) and moderate to severe vaginal scarring (Odds ratio 12.24 95% Confidential interval 1.52-98.30). Vaginal scarring was the only factor independently associated with unsuccessful fistula repair (Odds ratio 10 95% confidential interval 1.12-100.57). Residual stress incontinence after successful fistula closure was associated with type IIb fistulae (Odds ratio 5.56 95% Confidential interval 1.34-23.02), circumferential fistulae (Odds ratio 10.5 95% Confidential interval 1.39-79.13) and previous unsuccessful fistula repair (Odds ratio 4.8 95% Confidential interval 1.27-18.11). Independent predictors for residual stress incontinence after successful fistula closure were urethral involvement (Odds Ratio 4.024 95% Confidential interval 2.77-5.83) and previous unsuccessful fistula repair (Odds ratio 38.69 95% Confidential interval 2.13-703.88).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study demonstrated that large fistula size, circumferential fistulae and marked vaginal scarring are predictors for unsuccessful fistula repair while predictors for residual stress incontinence after successful fistula closure were urethral involvement, circumferential fistulae and previous unsuccessful fistula repair.</p

Effect of Maternal HIV-1 Status and Antiretroviral Drugs on Haematological Profiles of South African Infants in Early Life

Maternal HIV-1 status and antiretroviral drug exposure may influence the haematological profiles of infants. We recruited infants from 118 uninfected control women and from 483 HIV-1 infected women who received no antiretroviral drugs (n=28), or received single-dose Nevirapine (sdNVP) (n=424) or triple-drug combination therapy (n=31) to reduce HIV-1 transmission. Blood was drawn from infants within 24 hours of delivery or 6-12 weeks post-delivery and full blood counts performed using a fully automated AcT-5-diff haematology analyser and reference controls. Exposed uninfected (EU; no NVP) differed from control infants only in having lower basophil counts and percentages. In all infant groups, leukocyte profiles showed characteristic quantitative changes with age in the first 6 weeks of life. HIV-1 infected infants displayed by 6 weeks elevations in white blood cells, lymphocyte, monocyte and basophil counts, and monocyte and basophil percentages, when compared to EU infants. At birth EU NVP-treated infants exhibited elevated monocyte percentages and counts and basophil counts that did not persist at 6 weeks. Interestingly, EU newborns of mothers with high CD4 counts (> 500 cells/μl) that had taken sdNVP had significantly elevated white blood cell, monocyte and basophil counts when compared to newborn infants of mothers with similar CD4 counts that had not taken sdNVP; this was not evident in infants of mothers with CD4 counts <200 cells/μl. These previously undescribed features may affect immune response capability in early life and clinical consequences of such changes need to be further investigated